You are right…they were. But they give insights into what the people writing the Amendment were thinking. If you look at earlier drafts it’s pretty clear that the whole orientation of the Amendment was to protect the rights of an individual citizen to have access to personal arms, since the Founders saw that as a key to defending our nascent government (and it was cheaper than paying for a large standing regular army…which, even taking the cost out of it they weren’t to keen on anyway).
And I answered you (I haven’t checked up thread yet to see if you replied to that…sorry if you did and I missed it). There are many aspects of the Constitution that are vague or ambiguous…or, simply have become irrelevant or meaningless, or need to be put into a more modern context. The 2nd is certainly one of those…you can get clues about what the original intent of the authors were, but in the end what matters is how the courts have interpreted it, which is how it is practically applied in every day life. There has been a progression of interpretation and re-interpretation of the 2nd throughout our history, as the attitude of how people look at personal arms ownership (and what arms can and should be owned by private citizens) has changed. A hundred years from now, assuming no one has the guts to amend the Amendment, or try to repeal it, they will STILL be debating the same things, and the way they look at it then will surly be different than how we look at it now…which is a lot different from how they looked at it 100 years ago, which was different than how the original framers meant it to be.
I am not splitting the meaning. The right of the people to bear arms shall not be infringed in the interest of forming a militia. The REASON for people to be allowed guns it to be able to form a militia.
If the intent was to allow people to have guns. Period. It would have simply said “the right of the people to bear arms shall not be infringed”. Also simple.
The FFs were not dummies. They were excellent when it came to the English language. This was not some mistake of poor grammar. This was not some superfluous fluff considering you find rhetorical fluff NOWHERE else in the Bill of Rights or anywhere else in the constitution save the preamble (which has no legal bearing).
None of 10 USC §13 dates from earlier than 1916, so it’s not relevant.
Otherwise, you’re saying Congress could take away everyone’s guns by redrafting the statute to redefine the militia as only members of the National Guard.
It doesn’t say that. You are interpreting the comma to be a qualifier. I don’t see it as any different than replacing the comma with a period or the word ‘and’. I’m using the simplest interpretation of the comma. But that’s why the matter is arguable, different interpretations.
Irrelevant: It is active Federal statute, and its age doesn’t matter. I’d be willing to bet that someone who actually knows the Federal code well could point to portions of it that are older than 1916 and still active.
I have not made any assertion to that effect. I do not admit that the first clause of the second amendment has any more than explanatory power. I believe that the binding force of the amendment is wholly contained in the second clause.
My entire point is that the author of **Stoid’s **cite cannot be taken seriously as a lawyer on this issue, because he hems and haws like an idiot over what a term might mean when that term is defined in the US Code.
There is your error. If you can interchange a comma with a period then you have a comma splice which is a grammatical error. These guys did not make those kinds of errors. A semicolon can be used in place of a period (there are reasons to do one or the other) but we have no semicolon here.
In point of fact, I don’t believe I am prohibited from owning a nuke. I do believe I am prohibited from owning fissile materials though. It’s a fine distinction, but an important one. It would be akin to prohibiting the ownership of ammunition or materials for their manufacture.
(Similarly, I can own a fully-functional tank, but I believe I am prohibited from owning certain combustible materials to make the ammunition for it.)
I could be mistaken on some of these items, since I’m trusting my recollection, which is sometimes shaky.
But where do you get this interpretation from? Historically, did the government try and regulate personal arms ownership and limit it to just those in the militia?? Can you show me some evidence that this was the case? Can you show me some evidence that in the writings or discussions leading up to this Amendment where the authors had this view?? Because, frankly, I’ve never seen ANY indications that the folks writing the thing had even the remotest views along the lines you are saying here.
And if you look at earlier drafts and the writing and discussions of the people who actually wrote the Amendment, it’s clear they thought that IS what it was saying. It wasn’t more clear because the intent got watered down in committee and in the rewrites of the Amendment into it’s final form. I really don’t see why this is so hard to understand.
What do you base this incredible statement on? If everything was clear and concise in the Constitution or the various Amendments, why has the SC ruled on various aspects of it throughout the history of the country?? As for your statement of ‘fluff’, there isn’t any in the 2nd…it’s simply two parts, one talking about an individual right to keep and bear arms, something that the people who wrote the Amendment also wrote about extensively in other venues, and one discussing militias that really don’t mean much today. Sort of like the 3rd Amendment which discusses billeting of troops in private homes. How often does that come up these days??
I don’t understand the question. Do you want a list of the times the SC has interpreted aspects of the Constitution or the various Amendments such that the original text ceases to exist or is deemed meaningless by a later court? I’m no lawyer, so if that’s what you are actually after I’ll leave it to one of the legal 'dopers to go into that. Off the top of my head, though, I’d use my earlier example of the 3rd Amendment as one that has pretty much lost it’s original meaning and relevance today. Though IIRC it was cited in the 70’s wrt some sort of prison case, it’s pretty much just left over baggage that’s never been cleaned up…probably because it’s not worth the effort to get rid of the thing at this point.
The 2nd has never been cleaned up either, but it’s because it’s a more volatile subject, since gun control advocates have made such an issue of it. Instead, it’s been left to the SC to interpret and re-interpret the thing to make it fit in with our society as it’s changed over time.
First of all, that’s just asinine: hell, the copies ratified by Congress and the States had differing punctuation and capitalization.
Secondly, let’s look at the text:
“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.”
It’s clear that “the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed” is a complete, grammatical sentence. It’s equally clear that “A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State” is not. It’s equally clear that there is nothing in that clause that implies any action to be taken to support its particular premise–certainly nothing so direct as the “shall not” in the second clause.
I note if you reverse the order of the clauses (“The right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed, a well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State.”) it seems much clearer that the second clause is describing a rationale for the first.
As for “rhetorical flourishes”, heck, let’s start with the preamble and go from there.
And as for “arms” being unmodified, I am not averse to applying some common sense and differentiating “arms” from “ordinance”, provided the definition of “arms” doesn’t get mangled to uselessness (of course, it’s halfway there already).
And, ironically, an earlier draft (cited early by Little Nemo) actually DOES have it that way. It’s always been unclear why they changed it to the final version.
You can own the tank and the weapons for it as well, but it is definitely a rich man’s game. Each individual shell for the main gun would have to be registered as a “destructive device” with attendant paperwork and licensing fees. This federal law. Your state may well prohibit ownership of such as some of them prohibit ownership of full-auto weapons and silencers, though federal permit it.
Watching Tank Overhaul on the Military Channel will definitely make you blanch if you are thinking of trying to restore one on your own. I think that most folks who own a tank disable the main gun, though I’ve seen shows where they can sometimes still be fired. I imagine if you have the kind of money it would take to restore or buy a tank you can probably afford the permits and such to keep it armed and keep ammo for it.
Well I have no standing to argue punctuation and grammar. Please give me more detail on how the framer’s would have used a comma other than as a non-specific relationship.
Your argument also bolsters the concept that the final wording and the specific use of a single comma was no accident.
On a note about rhetoric, I once took a course from a law professor. He told us about a case where a state was attempting to defend its prison system from the allegation that it was systematically violating the Eighth Amendment. The documentation of what was happening was far too extensive for the state to deny the facts. So their argument came down to the text.
They argued that the Constitution prohibited “cruel and unusual punishment” not “cruel or unusual punishment”. And while they conceded what was happening might be cruel, the fact that it was repeatedly occurring throughout the system meant that it was not unusual.
True. There were fourteen official copies issued by the Constitutional Convention. One was kept on hand and the other thirteen were sent out to the states for ratification.
Examination of these fourteen copies have shown that none of them are identical. Each is a unique collection of minor discrepancies in spelling, punctuation, and capitalization. Some of them even have missing words.
