“Fourteenth. Every citizen shall have the right to bear arms in defence of himself and the Republic. The military shall at all times and in all cases be subordinate to the civil power.”
“Fifteenth. The sure and certain defence of a free people is a well-regulated militia; and it shall be the duty of the Legislature to enact such laws as may be necessary to the organizing of the militia of this Republic.”

“A. Dred Scott

Dred Scott may be the best-known case decided by the antebellum Supreme Court. Even persons who think that “Marbury vs. Madison” was an important boxing match may have some passing familiarity with “Dred Scott.” The Dred Scott case is sometimes found among Standard Model articles on the Second Amendment,(284) but is entirely absent from the anti-individual right articles.

Chief Justice Taney’s majority opinion held that a free black could not be an American citizen. To support this conclusion, Justice Taney enumerated the parade of horribles which would follow from American citizenship for blacks: they would have the right to “the full liberty of speech in public and private upon all subjects upon which its [a state’s] own citizens might speak; to hold public meetings upon political affairs, and to keep and carry arms wherever they went.”(285)

Another part of the opinion explained that Congress had no power to infringe upon civil liberty (including, from the Taney Court’s viewpoint, the right to possess property in the form of slaves) in the territories:

[N]o one, we presume, will contend that Congress can make any law in a Territory respecting the establishment of religion, or the free exercise thereof, or abridging the freedom of speech or of the press, or the right of the people of the Territory peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for the redress of grievances. . . .

Nor can Congress deny to the people the right to keep and bear arms, nor the right to trial by jury, nor compel any one to be a witness against himself in a criminal proceeding . . . .(286)

The above statement, which treated the right to arms as one of several enumerated constitutional rights belonging to individuals, was widely quoted during the debates over slavery and popular sovereignty.(287)

Dred Scott, while never formally overruled, is not good law today, having been deliberately invalidated by section one of the Fourteenth Amendment. The purpose in discussing Dred Scott is not to cite it as binding precedent, but to acknowledge it as one of several nineteenth-century Supreme Court cases involving the right to arms–all of which, as we shall see, treat the Second Amendment as an individual right.”

Dred Scott was used, just not in the article here. One of his references (item # 6 numbered above) points to this link > h ttps://davekopel.org/2A/LawRev/19thcentury.htm > where Dred Scott is used.

Dred Scott was used, just not in the article here. One of his references (item # 6 numbered above) points to this link > h ttps://davekopel.org/2A/LawRev/19thcentury.htm > where Dred Scott is used.

Even at the time of the Founding the 2A was a bar on state infringement also

The early decisions by the SC restricting application of the BofR to Congress were wrong

We don’t (and didn’t) need the “legal fiction” (as laid out by Thomas in MacDonald) of “incorporation”

The 2A straight up bars infringement by BOTH Congress and the states

Ha 300BlackoutFan beat me to it. Kudos to you!

Among the arguments he advanced to prove how implausible it was to recognize that a black man had any rights a white man need recognize was among other issues that a black man recognized as a citizen by any state could freely travel about unhindered, speak out on any issue and own and bear arms.

I have read that this was the first mention of this right in a federal judicial opinion.

Hmm. Wondering where my comment I posted here yesterday went? Memory holed entirely? SNW’s moderation is now just as wonky and unpredictable as TTAG’s got before Dan’s departure.