The Federalist Society's annual conference in Washington, D.C., opens on Thursday, November 20. The evening before, the Mason Law Federalist Society and American Constitution Society are co-hosting a symposium on D.C. v. Heller. The events takes place from 5-8 p.m. at GMU Law School, in Arlington, Virgnia. Speakers include Steve Halbrook, Nelson Lund, Clark Neily, John Frazer, and me, on the side of the Standard Model, and Alan Morrison, Dennis Henigan, and others, on the opposite side. My presentation, in the panel "Looking Back at the History of the 2nd Amendment," will be about the natural law roots of the Second Amendment; it's the topic of my forthcoming article in the Syracuse Law Review. The event is free, although if you want the 3 CLE credits, there is a $25 fee. Registration is here.
What to do on FedSoc Eve:
1. "Reasonable Restrictions?"
2. "Justice Breyer was right?"
Because the arms of the militia are their private property, and the possession of them is not separable from the natural law right of self defense.
Yours, TDP, ml, msl &pfpp
Patrick Henry: "The great object is that every man be armed… . But we have learned, by experience, that, necessary as it is to have arms, and though our Assembly has, by a succession of laws for many years, endeavored to have the militia completely armed, it is still far from being the case. When this power is given up to Congress without limitation or bounds, how will your militia be armed?"
You are making recourse, I suppose, to laws. In practice, all permitted the use of private arms up until the adoption of standardized calibers with arms of ostensibly interchangeable parts.
For example, the numbers of backwoodsmen who served with Jackson against the British, who were certainly the militia called to federal service.
Yours, TDP, ml, msl, &pfpp