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Culture War Roundup for the week of May 11, 2026

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I agree. Personally I think the 2nd Amendment is perhaps the most specific of all rights in the constitution. Its true meaning as written and understood by the crafters is as expansive as the commerce clause has become in practice.

To me the only way you could limit its power would be to argue the bill of rights as a whole does not apply to states. That’s a better argument for limiting its scope. But that would change a lot of other jurisprudence.

If the 2nd Amendment was interpreted correctly I think it would be the only amendment we could actually get a bipartisan amendment passed right now to limit its scope.

As written America has a right to wage war on Iran to prevent them from getting nukes but no right to stop an Iranian dual citizen from buying a nuke in the US.

This is plausible for land-based weapons, but the Letters of Marque power (which implies that private citizens cannot legally operate warships without a letter of marque) and the prohibition on state navies (which would be nugatory if the states could support private navies) only make sense if the 2nd amendment did not cover naval weapons.