"I understand your objection. It would have been more clear if, in
my
hypothetical rephrasing of what the SC might have meant, I had used
something like 'the 2A guarantees Jack Miller's right to keep and
bear....'"
I'm sorry I made an editing error on my previous post with the three
possible alternatives. Please allow me to restate them.
(1) "[We] cannot say that the Second Amendment guarantees the right
to keep and bear [a short-barreled shotgun]."
(2) "In the absence of any evidence tending to show that [Miller's
actions have militia utility], we cannot say that the Second Amendment
guarantees the right to keep and bear [a short-barreled shotgun]."
(3) "In the absence of any evidence tending to show that [a
short-barreled shotgun has militia utility], we cannot say that the
Second Amendment guarantees the right to keep and bear such an
instrument."
Options (1) and (3) make sense, while option (2) would cause any
reader to scratch their head and propose to insert "missing" words. For
example, they might say something like "maybe they meant to say
something like 'we cannot say that the 2A guarantees Jack Miller's right
to keep and bear....'"
It's a stretch to call a sentence "ambiguous" when the alternative
interpretation would be a non-sequitur unless some missing words are
added.
Option (1) contains the sentence's actual declaration, and no one
reading it by itself would say that it even hints that they want to hear
evidence about Miller's actions or motives. It's clearly about whether
the Second Amendment protects the right to keep and bear a particular
type of weapon.
It would profoundly change the sentence's meaning to insert the
words you propose (i.e., to make option (1) into a stand-alone sentence
that says
"[We] cannot say that the Second Amendment guarantees [Jack
Miller's] right to keep and bear [a short-barreled shotgun].")
The above modification would leave open the possibility that Second
Amendment actually does guarantee the right of the people (other than
Miller) to keep and bear such an instrument, whereas the sentence that
they actually did write does not leave open any such option. It flatly
states "we cannot say that the Second Amendment guarantees the right to
keep and bear such an instrument," which applies to everyone, not just
Miller.
The choice between options (2) or (3) is an easy one. One makes
sense, and the other makes for head-scratching, and proposals to insert
missing words which would be necessary for the sentence to not be a
non-sequitur.
If the two possible alternative interpretations don't make equal
sense, then the sentence isn't really ambiguous.
