Congress shall make no law ... abridging ... the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
... the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Note in Heller and elsewhere it was determined "the people" are those who belong to the political class (which is a bit vague, refer to next sentence, but not same as voting class). Generally this is not those on non-immigrant visas or illegal aliens (though circuits are split on this). If you don't have the right to bear arms, clearly you are not "the people" since people by definition have the right to bear arms, which means you wouldn't have the right of "the people" to protest either, no? So it appears since they are not people, they don't have the right to assemble in protest, though they may have other first amendment rights since it's protest specifically that was narrowed to "the people" rather than many of the other parts of the first amendment which are worded without that narrowing.
For instance, speech without assembly isn't narrowed to just "the people." Perhaps this was done intentionally since allowing non-people to stage protests was seen as less desirable than merely allowing them to otherwise speak freely.
Note: Personally I do think non-immigrants are people, but trying to apply the same "people" two different ways with the exact same wording makes no sense. If they can't bear arms they necessarily are not "the people" and thus are not afforded the right to "assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
"Peaceably" is important. If you think the pro-Palestinian protests on campus are peaceful, try wearing a yarmulke and walking anywhere near them. Or anywhere on many campuses, on any day, protest on-going or not.
How many of the Pilgrims had a valid modern visa?
US also didn't have Jus soli citizenship until the whole civil war and slavery debacle. You had to go into a local court and show you lived in the US for a couple years, who would swear you in as a citizen. But most people didn't care about voting or holding office enough to bother.
Actually, my understanding is that the US did largely follow jus soli. What it wasn't was unconditional jus soli, but the principle was birth in the bounds of the US conferred citizenship except if positive law existed not conferring citizenship.
As I said above, a law you have to tie yourself in knots to justify might be a bad law.
> If you have to work your way round to "they are not people" for the law to be consistent, consider that it might be a bad law.
I disagree that the law (which has been changed, amended and clarified) has been 'consistently obvious', and I still maintain that the conclusion of 'immigrants aren't people' invalidates the law.
You could make this argument, but the Supreme Court does not seem to agree, they have consistently said that "the people" is basically everyone here. Even those unlawfully here.
That said, the second amendment does have some interpretation that allows for restrictions on temporary visa holders like the student that is the topic of this discussion. But it also has rulings that support it applying to illegal immigrants.
This is absolutely false. DC v Heller cites that "the people" refers to members of the "political community."[] Not "basically everyone here." The interpretation of what "political community" means has been split in the circuits. One court in Illinois found it might include illegal immigrants (who have settled as immigrants) or non-immigrant visa holders that were illegally settling here. This is anomalous. Generally they've found the political community to be something approximating those with immigrant type visas, permanent residency, or citizenship -- barring some exceptions from those like felons.
Even if you dig up the most generous case in illinois (I've forgotten the name) which claims some illegal immigrants are "the people", which it has been awhile since I read it -- even they narrow the political community refered to by "the people" to people actually settling as part of the community and not just basically anyone inside the US in a way that would suggest it applies to tourists or student visa holders using their visa in the legal manner.
What is more, in all six other provisions of the Constitution that mention “the people,” the term unambiguously refers to all members of the political community, not an unspecified subset. As we said in United States v. Verdugo-Urquidez, 494 U. S. 259, 265 (1990):
I thought it was settled constitutional law that it doesn't? Moreover, during the war on terror, it was established that the president can freely order the murder of non Americans outside the US.