The Hawaii Supreme Court handed down a unanimous opinion on Wednesday declaring that its state constitution grants individuals absolutely no right to keep and bear arms outside the context of military service. Its decision rejected the U.S. Supreme Court’s interpretation of the Second Amendment, refusing to interpolate SCOTUS’ shoddy historical analysis into Hawaii law. Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern discussed the ruling on this week’s Slate Plus segment of Amicus; their conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.
The federalist papers, and the entire body of US law prior to 2003 disagree with you.
Doesn’t matter who disagrees with me, I’m stating what a individual who helped draft the amendment said.
Except Mason didn’t help draft the Bill of Rights. Madison looked at the Virginia Bill of Rights along with a mountain of other documents to draft the Federal version. Madison’s proposal was then stripped down and reworded and argued over before being partially adopted.
Saying Mason drafted the 2nd amendment is like saying Lucas drafted the current Star Wars shows.