I think I have read some talk of this problem before but it seemed to me to be overblown. However one paragraph of Scalia's remarks reported by Mark Sherman in an Oct. 5th A.P. story makes the problem abundantly clear and shows how wrong I was. It isn't overblown; it is Scalia hoisting himself on his own petard.
Scalia calls himself a ‘‘textualist’’ and, as he related to a few hundred people who came to buy his new book and hear him speak in Washington the other day, that means he applies the words in the Constitution as they were understood by the people who wrote and adopted them.
If the word 'Arms' in "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." is to be interpreted "as they were understood by the people who wrote and adopted them" then modern weapons are not covered by the amendment.
Assault weapons are certainly not what the people who wrote those words were thinking of when they wrote them, nor were revolvers, nor any gun using cartridges. Would they have approved the amendment if they had dreamed that "arms' could spew out death at the rates modern weapons can? Who knows? But if Scalia means what he says he can't assume that they would. The word "Arms' in the amendment can only mean what it meant to those who wrote and adopted it and suggesting that it applies to more than that violates his "textualist’’ views. What a hypocrite!