Stevens, exposed

In reading (ex-) Justice Stevens’ dissent in McDonald, I found myself almost dumbfounded by a particular passage. In a footnote on page 43 of his opinion, Stevens casually mentions the following:

In my view, the Court badly misconstrued the Second Amendment in linking it to the value of personal self-defense above and beyond the functioning of the state militias; as enacted, the Second Amendment was concerned with tyrants and invaders, and paradigmatically with the federal military, not with criminals and intruders.

(Emphasis mine)

And yet, in spite of his opinion — here recorded in writing for the ages (search for “tyranny”) — that the Second Amendment was intended to preserve access to arms in case of domestic tyranny, Stevens votes to allow the same governments he admits the framers were concerned with turning tyrannical to ban them. That says it all, really.