Rules of Constitutional Interpretation

[Mick Jagger]

What's wrong with the following except from the recent Supreme Court opinion in D. C. v. Heller?

The Second Amendment provides: “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.” In interpreting this text, we are guided by the principle that “[t]he Constitution was written to be understood by the voters; its words and phrases were used in their normal and ordinary as distinguished from technical meaning.” United States v. Sprague, 282 U. S. 716, 731 (1931); see also Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheat. 1, 188 (1824). Normal meaning may of course include an idiomatic meaning, but it excludes secret or technical meanings that would not have been known to ordinary citizens in the founding generation.--D. C. v. Heller​

 

[cammerfe]

I'm sure you'll enlighten us.
KS

 

[fossten]

I'm sure you'll enlighten us.
KS

Dude! Quit feeding the troll!

 

[Mick Jagger]

I'm sure you'll enlighten us.
KS

Most of the words in the Second Amendment had more than one "normal and ordinary" use in the late 1780's. For example: The word "well", when used as an adjective or adverb, had at least two dozen meanings.

Scalia's guiding principle doesn't enable use to ascertain which one of the two dozen potentiial meanings of the word "well" the lawmakers meant to convey. Scalia's principle doesn't even allow us to consider the context of the Second Amendment.

Scalia should apply the well established common laws rules of construction existent at the time the Constitution was made. Who can tell us what those rules were or where to find them?