Do you have an opinion on what levels of licensing are likely to survive, and what would be a “fundamental interference”? Here in New Jersey, for example, we have a registration system that requires an individual permit for each handgun purchase, which requires fees, character references, and multiple-month waits before a permit is granted. This doesn’t ultimately _prevent_ me from buying a handgun (our requirement that my employer also return a character reference might, in that an anti-gun employer has a de-facto veto over the purchase, but that’s a separate question), but it places a fairly extraordinary burden on the right. Is there any precedent for how much burden short of an outright ban is likely to survive scrutiny?
I think there’s a strong case that the Second Amendment is not so dramatically different from freedom of speech, or of the press. The ACLU’s definitions are ahistorical, but that prior restraint on speech is unconstitutional is one area where I agree with them, because the evidence of the Constitutional period is clear on this. And oddly enough, many commentaries and court cases of the period draw the analogy between freedom of the press and the right to keep and bear arms: you are free to operate without prior restraint, being responsible for the abuse of that right. What licensing is there for printing presses?
