Judge Stephen Reinhardt Circuit Judge US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit 95 Seventh Street San Francisco, CA 94103 Honorable Judge Reinhardt: In your recent decision on the meaning of the 2nd Amendment in Silveira v. Lockyer, you take no judicial note of the analogy thought of by the author J. Neil Schulman. Hopefully, it may illustrate more easily what was intended by the 2nd Amendment without the emotion and bias that is so often associated with the discussion. Assume for the sake of argument, and illustration, that the Founding Fathers had written the 1st Amendment, or an analogue of it, thusly: "A well-educated electorate being essential to the survival of a free state, the right of the people to keep and read books shall not be infringed." Would you claim that in such a construction only a collective right for registered voters to "keep and read" books existed, and that all books should be kept in public libraries and issued when the state declared a need? If so, then you are confronted with the logical problem that people would have to register to vote before they might be allowed to read, and thus would not yet have become educated. It follows that in order to be effective in ensuring that the intent of the preamble is preserved, the protections of the last clause must be ensured for everyone who might possibly qualify as members of the special group. Would you disagree with this? If not, then it would follow that "the people" shouldn't be required to be members of the Militia to "keep and bear arms," even though that might be the ultimate purpose of protecting the right. You might complain that the analogy is flawed because books are not as dangerous as weapons. But I need to remind you then of the commonly held view that the "pen is mightier than the sword." You might reasonably respond that public education would be the result of the view that reading books was a collective right and not an individual right. However, without an individual right to "keep and read books," public education might quickly devolve into state-mandated propaganda with no opportunity for alternative views to be expressed. Is that something that you would like to see? Incredulously, you say in your opinion that "...the Miller Court's opinion stands only for the proposition that the possession of certain weapons is not protected, and offers little guidance as to what right the Second Amendment does protect." However, Justice McReynolds makes it quite clear to me that "the Second Amendment guarantees the right to keep and bear such an instrument" that has a "reasonable relation to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia" That certainly sounds to me like the legislatively defined "assault weapon." Lest you be harboring any illusions that you are free of personal biases, I point out that you cite a judicial reference about pistols [407 U.S. 143, 150 (1972)] and then broaden that to, in your opinion, "...two then-sitting Justices made it clear that they believed that the Second Amendment did not afford an individual right -- traditional, limited, or otherwise -- to own or possess guns." For more detailed criticisms of your apparent bias, I include recently published critiques by other critics Clayton Cramer and Eugene Volokh. In closing, I admonish you and Judge Magill for producing a decision that would leave the public, should they actually read it as I did, with serious doubt about the objectivity, thoroughness, and fairness of the Ninth Circuit Court. Sincerely, Clyde H. Spencer