That we still have 'pocket knife' rules and 'nun chuck' rules, 'baton' rules (prohibited offensive weapons), etc., al ... I'm more curious to why the 2nd isn't so much applied to "Arms" in general. If it's a baseball bat in your back seat, used under attack, is somehow predictive of 'one looking for a fight'...
Where, when and how did the 2A become ONLY the Right to bear FIREARMS.
This is a serious question that I'd appreciate input on.
That I can legally carry a firearm... but I can't have an ASP baton or a blade bigger than this or that, and so on. :uhoh:
http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Second+Amendment
quote: Firearms played an important part in the colonization of America. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, European colonists relied heavily on firearms to take land away from Native Americans and repel attacks by Native Americans and Europeans. Around the time of the Revolutionary War, male citizens were required to own firearms for fighting against the British forces. Firearms were also used in hunting.
The wording of clauses about bearing arms in late-eighteenth-century state constitutions varied. Some states asserted that bearing arms was a "right" of the people, whereas others called it a "duty" of every able-bodied man in the defense of society.
Some observers argue further that the Second Amendment grants the right of insurrection. According to these theorists, the Second Amendment was designed to allow citizens to rebel against the government.
Thomas Jefferson is quoted as saying that "a little rebellion every now and then is a good thing."
The Supreme Court makes the ultimate determination of the Constitution's meaning, and it has defined the amendment as simply granting to the states the right to maintain a militia separate from federally controlled militias. unquote.
http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Second+Amendment
a discussion of the forum's legal beagles might be interesting to follow.
ipse
added: black's law dictionary: This term, as it Is used in the constitution, relative to the right of citizens to bear arms, refers to the arms of a militiaman or soldier, and the word is used in its military sense. The arms of the infantry soldier are the musket and bayonet; of cavalry and dragoons, the sabre, holster pistols, and carbine; of the artillery, the field-piece, siegegun, and mortar, with side arms.
The term, in this connection, cannot be made to cover such weapons as dirks, daggers, slung-shots, sword- canes, brass knuckles, and bowieknives. These are not military arms. English v. State, 35 Tex. 476, 14 Am. Rep. 374; Hill v. State, 53 Ga. 472; Fife v. State, 31 Ark. 455, 25 Am. Rep. 556; Andrews v. State, 3 Heisk. (Tenn.) 170, 8 Am. Rep. 8; Aymette v. State, 2 Humph. (Tenn.) 154.
http://thelawdictionary.org/arms/
Law Dictionary: What is ARMS? definition of ARMS (Black's Law Dictionary)