SUNY Cortland political science professor Robert J. Spitzer thinks the Judge Silberman's opinion got the history of the Second Amendment and relevant precedents hopelessly wrong in Parker v. District of Columbia.

In its 58 page ruling, the two-member Parker majority contradicts nearly fifty other federal court rulings spanning seven decades, as well as four Supreme Court rulings, all of which support the straightforward proposition that the right to bear arms exists only in connection with citizen militia service. For all of the dissembling by gun rights advocates, the amendment's full wording is pretty clear: "A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed." As Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren Burger once noted, the amendment "must be read as though the word 'because' was the opening word."

Given the VC commentary on Parker has been quite supportive, I thought readers might be interested in this contrasting view.

UPDATE: Here's another non-VC view from Michael Dorf.