I read it as “rape” and wondered what sort of deviant would design a weaponised fucking machine.
Huh? The subject that cannot be infringed is the referenced right. Whose right? “The right of the people.”
All that 18th century superfluous punctuation is clouding people’s comprehension. The first 2 clauses set off by commas are, as a matter of plain (but poorly constructed) English, irrelevant to the right established in the final two clauses set off by commas. It might just as well read, “A really tasty pie, being a delicious element of a good holiday meal, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” The right established would not have changed an atom’s worth, despite the non sequitur set-up. (Now I want pie.)
They said “well-regulated.” They could have said, “really bitchin’” or “fuel-injected.” It wouldn’t have changed the conclusion: the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
It seems like you are taking both of the middle sections, marked by commas, as parenthetical descriptions of the militia, when that is not the case.
The first two sections (“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State”) form a nominative absolute, which is not very common in contemporary English. (Usage is similar to the genitive absolute in Greek and the ablative absolute in Latin.) A nominative absolute consists of a noun and a participle (or another modifier) forming a clause which provide information about the main clause, but the noun in the nominative absolute does NOT appear in the main clause that usually follows. The nominative absolute is grammatically independent from the main clause. Here are some examples:
I being away from the office, the secretary completed the work.
God willing, the river will not flood.
In both cases, the main clauses have their own subjects (“the secretary” and “the river”).
Punctuation in the 18th century was not as standardized as it is today. Another way of punctuating the amendment, which would be the modern way, is the following:
“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.”
So, the whole active text is, “the right shall not be infringed” with a nominative absolute at the beginning giving the cause or circumstances surrounding the main clause. Or, paraphrased, “Because a well regulated Militia is necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed.”
The nominative absolute is not in any sense “poorly constructed” English. Nominative absolutes do not have a grammatical connection to the rest of the sentence, but they do have a logical connection, usually giving the ground or circumstances behind the main clause.
The weather being rainy, we decided to postpone the trip.
Err… I thought that was exactly what I posted. 
Oh gods…not again. :smack:
It means ‘duly constituted’.
As for why the Amendment is so oddly worded, and why the weird commas that seem to be of so much confusion, why don’t we ask, oh, say James Madison?
See, the Amendment we have today went through a committee. Above was how it was originally drafted. It included a semi-colon to distinguish between the two parts of the Amendment as it was intended. However, apparently the committee that did the final drafts figured that people would understand what they were getting at (and, based on my own experience with committees, just changed things around simply to leave their mark on the proposed phrase)…obviously, they never figured on people attempting to parse things to the point of ridiculousness (What does the ‘The’ mean at the beginning of the sentence? Well, it’s a reflection of the later religious tendencies of the idiot Americans to the worship of their evil guns, obviously).
I meant to write “military grade weapons” but then I decided to make a point about how easy it is to have a typo* in a document like the Constitution which could alter its meaning.
Yeah, that’s my story.
*They were known as quillos in Madison’s era.
Seems clumsy to me (the second amendment), but I’ll concede the point. That doesn’t change the main point, however, which is that the introduction of the sentence is an irrelevancy to the absolute statement the sentence concludes with, however elegantly it’s worded in its entirety–which your cite supports (“The phrase has no grammatical connection with the rest of the sentence”).
My version of the second amendment provides identical protections to the official version: A really tasty pie, being a delicious element of a good holiday meal, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed. That’s the real point. The debate over what “well regulated” means is as academic as one can get. It doesn’t matter what it means.
“A free press, being necessary for the exchange of ideas, the right of the people to speak freely, shall not be infringed.”
Does that mean only the press has free speech rights?
I think it takes a tortured definition to infringe on the individual right because of the initial clause.
Ah yes, the insistence that the framers didn’t actually *mean *anything by what they said, always my favorite part …
It’s endlessly amusing, the idea that a clause one doesn’t like can be parsed narrowly, without regard to original (or any other) intent, and with cherry-picked logic, while a clause one *does *like is required to be interpreted within its context and intent.
Are there sections of any other amendments that can also be disregarded the same way?
The initial clause is not disregarded, it just has no impact on the second part. Well regulated militias are also required by the Constitution according to the amendment.
Is there anywhere else in the constitution, aside from the preamble, where the FFs used flowery words with no intention for those words to actually mean anything?
Are there other parts of the constitution you are comfortable pointing to and saying, “That part there…doesn’t matter what it means.”?
Let me get this straight: If it weren’t for those words at the beginning of that amendment, this country wouldn’t be required to have a government-controlled militia?
From Heller:
I think too much attention is focused on a particular word/phrase sometimes as if the discussion were about iambic pentameter or such.
Comparatively, the SC has ruled that the 4th AM protects People, not places, even though the text of the 4th states no such single thing.
[QUOTE=ElvisL1ves]
It’s endlessly amusing, the idea that a clause one doesn’t like can be parsed narrowly, without regard to original (or any other) intent, and with cherry-picked logic, while a clause one does like is required to be interpreted within its context and intent.
[/QUOTE]
Especially when, oh I don’t know, we have the original draft of the Amendment AND the writings of the authors, right? You are right…it IS endlessly amusing to see this fact constantly and consistently ignored for years on end by posters on a board dedicated to the fight against ignorance. Ah well…it’s taking longer than the original estimates…
It’s not being disregarded. It is being given the weight that it should.
The right of the people to keep and bear arms is apparently a sine qua non of having a well-regulated militia, which the Constitution says is necessary. So that right can’t be infringed, because then we couldn’t have what we need for our security.
I think what Stratocaster is saying is that the clause is unnecessary. It could be dropped off, without affecting the enumeration of the right of the people to keep and bear arms.
The Constitution enumerates the right to freedom of religion without explaining why it is important, so a rationale is not necessary to enumerate a right. I don’t know why Jefferson chose to throw it in, but his doing so doesn’t affect the right or who it applies to.
Regards,
Shodan
[QUOTE=Shodan]
I don’t know why Jefferson chose to throw it in, but his doing so doesn’t affect the right or who it applies to.
[/QUOTE]
This was the original draft of the proposed Amendment:
It’s pretty obvious in subsequent redrafts by the committee that they merely changed the sentence structure and took out the last part about compelling persons of religious scruples to render military service. If you look over the Wiki link I gave earlier you can see the progression in the redrafts that culminated in the final cluster fuck we got. I mean, what do you expect of a committee?? 
None spring to mind. Doesn’t change what the English words say, though, and if you’re truly interested in what the thought process was behind the words, XT provided a cite. The introduction of that sentence provides no foothold for torturing the close to mean anything other than what it says: the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Seriously, I don’t know why this is controversial. We know what the thought process was if we’re really interested, and the primary clauses of the amendment do not provide any wiggle room. I’m not a gun guy. Have none in the house, and I suspect I never will. But the amendment says what it says. That right shall not be infringed.
Here’s a version where you might have a point: So long as a well regulated Militia is necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
But no such qualifiers exist. That sentence says what it says with regard to latitude in infringing that right: there is none.
Yes, exactly.