Here we go again with misquotes from the second amendment and the intentions otherwise of the framers of the constitution.
I like when people who address the second amendment "extrapolate" 4 words out of a whole sentence and give it new meaning than the one originally intended.
We can argue this all day long, and I know the gun freaks will come out and defend guns and their rights to shoot their own family members or allow their kids to have direct access to the guns so they can go shoot up the local school, but thats not what I am addressing here.
What I would like to see from all GUN nuts is that you quote the second amendment. Not a portion of it, not a slice that makes your point sound legit, not a sliver that the NRA places on the back of their membership cards, BUT the entire sentence in the second amendment.
If you truly believe the second amendment supports your position on guns, then there should be ZERO reason to "extrapolate" 4 words out of it.
Here is what the second amendment says today. It has been modified many times since the constitution was written.
1)
As passed by the Congress:
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.
2) As ratified by the States:
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.
The argument over meanings will continue for decades. The placement of periods is key to definition and the use of the words keep and bear play the biggest parts.
Either way, If youre going to quote the 2nd amendment, do it the way its intended.
History of the second amendment.
Meaning of "well regulated militia"
The term "regulated" means "disciplined" or "trained".
[104] In
Heller, the U.S. Supreme Court stated that "[t]he adjective 'well-regulated' implies nothing more than the imposition of proper discipline and training."
[105] Regarding a well regulated militia, Alexander Hamilton wrote in
Federalist No. 29:
A tolerable expertness in military movements is a business that requires time and practice. It is not a day, or even a week, that will suffice for the attainment of it. To oblige the great body of the
yeomanry, and of the other classes of the citizens, to be under arms for the purpose of going through military exercises and evolutions, as often as might be necessary to acquire the degree of perfection which would entitle them to the character of a well-regulated militia, would be a real grievance to the people, and a serious public inconvenience and loss.
[46]
Regarding regulation and training of the militia, Alexander Hamilton wrote in
Federalist No. 29:
"If a well regulated militia be the most natural defence of a free country, it ought certainly to be under the regulation and at the disposal of that body which is constituted the guardian of the national security...confiding the regulation of the militia to the direction of the national authority...(and) reserving to the states...the authority of training the militia".
[46]
Meaning of "the right of the People"The question is does a “right” attributed to “the people” in the 2nd Amendment differ from the “right” of “the people” peaceably to assemble in the First Amendment and the “right” of “the people” to be secure in the Fourth Amendment.
Justice
Antonin Scalia in writing for the majority in
District of Columbia v. Heller:
Nowhere else in the Constitution does a “right” attributed to “the people” refer to anything other than an individual right. 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. This contrasts markedly with the phrase “the militia” in the prefatory clause. As we will describe below, the “militia” in colonial America consisted of a subset of “the people”— those who were male, able bodied, and within a certain age range. Reading the Second Amendment as protecting only the right to “keep and bear Arms” in an organized militia therefore fits poorly with the operative clause’s description of the holder of that right as “the people
[106]
Justice
John Paul Stevens countered in the minority opinion:
When each word in the text is given full effect, the Amendment is most naturally read to secure to the people a right to use and possess arms in conjunction with service in a well-regulated militia. So far as appears, no more than that was contemplated. But the Court itself reads the Second Amendment to protect a “subset” significantly narrower than the class of persons protected by the First and Fourth Amendments; when it finally drills down on the substantive meaning of the Second Amendment, the Court limits the protected class to “law-abiding, responsible citizens”.
[107]
Peace
