Eric Black is a writer for Minn Post. He has a three part series on the Second Amendment. Eric Black is among the Midwest’s most thoughtful journalists. He frequently writes about the constitution. A part of the first of the Second Amendment trilogy:

Key words

The Second Amendment, like the rest of the first 10 amendments which we call “The Bill of Rights,” was drafted by the First Congress in 1789 and quickly ratified as part of the compromise for final acceptance of the then-brand-new U.S. Constitution.

The Second Amendment arose at time when most its key words and phrases meant something quite different from what they would mean today and from circumstances also fundamentally different — so different that its modern meaning is almost completely detached from its original purpose.

For two centuries, the Second Amendment was pretty much a dead letter. States and the federal government adopted various gun-control measures. None were ever struck down on Second Amendment grounds. Until, that is, starting in 2008, when two recent 5-4 Supreme Court rulings stirred up such a Second Amendment mess that it is perfectly unclear what the Court’s conservative majority might eventually decide would violate the Second Amendment.

They have stirred it up so much that I can’t help but wonder whether the jurisprudence of gun control will soon join abortion and campaign finance as (sub rosa) litmus test issues for future Supreme Court nominees.

The full article can be found at:

http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2013/04/second-amendment-mess