Neither the Constitution nor the Supreme Court are empowered to confer any rights of self-defense on American citizens.
The right of self-defense exists as a natural condition, one that the laws of nations either recognize or else restrict or deny in defiance of natural law. Heller only explicitly recognized what the 2nd Amendment, specifically in its use of 18th century common law terminology, actually intended to convey.
Much confusion has arisen about the placement of commas in the text of the Amendment, and also about the meaning of the term "militia" in the prefatory clause. As Justice Scalia made clear in his opinion, one must always look to common usage, legislative records, contemporaneous historical documentation and plain meaning in any effort to determine what outcome was intended in the adoption of a law.
In this case, all available historical sources point to the same outcome: Congress intended by the Bill of Rights to rectify a vital omission from the original Constitution: an explicit recognition of the individual liberties of United States citizens. These freedoms were in no way created, authorized or adopted by the first 10 Amendments - they were recognized as pre-existing, individual, and in the case of the 2nd Amendment, necessary to the security of a free state.
There is also no reasonable argument about the meaning of the words "shall not be infringed", all protestations to the contrary. The word "infringe" means the same thing in the 21st century as it did in the 18th and 19th: undermine, erode, diminish, weaken, impair, damage, compromise. And the words "shall not" could not be any more Biblical in their conclusiveness.
My guns belong to me. They protect my family and my property. I will not compromise on my rights because some people are frightened by the wrong things.
