![]() ![]() It ought not to matter if one is an originalist, unless the Second Amendment has a built-in technologically adapting metric like the Eight Amendment’s reference to “ evolving standards of decency.” On that view, one might read the Second Amendment to protect whatever happens to be the quintessential self-defense weapon of the time. Does it matter that, through sheer happenstance, Heller was decided in 2008 when handguns were the predominant self-defense weapon? For them, the “quintessential self-defense weapon” was almost certainly a musket or hunting rifle, if a firearm at all. By now, Heller’s central holding is familiar: whatever other restrictions it may impose, the government cannot ban handgun possession in the home because “ the American people have considered the handgun to be the quintessential self-defense weapon.” But what “people” made that choice? Not The People who ratified the Second Amendment in 1791.
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