Simply stating “I didn’t say ‘A’, I said ‘B’” is not an explanation of how A is completely different from B.
No, the mere fact that I say “I have considered it, and I find that it does not have an effect on the rest of the Amendment” shows that I am not ignoring it. I’ve tried really hard to show you how this is so. This has not seemed to have an effect on your opinion. Are you therefore ignoring me?
Odd, though, that as example of my faults, you would choose a thread in which other people were lying about me, and you would present other people’s torture of the English language as evidence of my propensity to do so. Also odd that after taking such a strong stance agaisnt lying in an OP, you would have nothing to say about it when it was directed against someone you don’t like. And especially odd that you would describe me as defending the indefensible, and then repeatedly refuse to explain what that means.
Here’s how I see the phrasing of the 2nd amendment:
The portion between the commas - the right of the people to keep and bear arms - is parenthetical in nature. The previous clause between commas is an adjective in nature. So you could read it thusly (eliminate the adjective clause and put parenthesis in):
“A well regulated militia (which is, the right of the people to keep and bear arms), shall not be infringed.”
Now, some would say this is self-serving, however; I believe the original writers were clarifying the justification (“being necessary to the security of a free state”), and the nature of the justification is understandable considering the relatively recent end of the revolution.
Just my $.02.
Just an additional couple of thoughts:
It might also be read as a list. Again, disregarding the adjective clause:
“A well regulated militia, (and) the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.”
Understand that parenthetical information actually enclosed in parenthesis is a relatively new invention of language - and my college English professor abhorred it…he constantly made sure my parenthetical info was accurately enclosed in commas, not parenthesis.
Even if the amendment is read with the adjective phrase modifying the second comma-separated clause, it still reads as a right of the people, not the state. To read it in this manner, you would have to drop the “well regulated militia” portion to avoid a clumsy construction, leaving:
“Being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people…”
Lastly, another way of reading it is to apply the word “state” as a verb, and not a noun:
“…being necessary to the security of a free [state of being; condition; status]…” - or - “…being necessary to the security of [being a free person]…”
Again, just my .02, which I guess is now .04…
minty green mentioned earlier that there was no such thing as an inalienable right…I’m not convinced that is necessarily true. Now, I realize the Declaration of Independence is not the Constitution, but it does have a partial enumeration of what inalienable rights are:
“…certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness…”
I would be hard-put to declare outright that persons are not born with these rights, but rather that oppressive governments or other oppressive entities deny them at birth or before. I also find it interesting that the authors of the D of I indicated that we are endowed by our “Creator” (be that deity, man, or whatever power-of-the-week you prefer) with these rights…but did not say we were born with them…rather that we were created with them, which removes all possible privileges or restrictions that may be inherint due to one’s family status or position in society.
It should be remembered that the Constitution was created in order to both establish a government that would protect the rights of the citizens, and limit the powers of that government. It might also be helpful to understand that, unless limited specifically by the constitution or legal amendment, that a right is a right, whether it is enumerated or not. In other words, had the 2nd amendment not ever been written, then the right to keep and bear arms would simply be assumed, just as the right to breathe is.
Sure they exist, and America was founded under the principle of such rights. For example, human beings have the inalienable right to self-defense. Agree?
But this is precisely what you are doing when you ignore “the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed”.
Of course it is important, but the first clause of the amendment is dependent on the second clause. See, the people could retain the right to keep and bear arms, while the state could be restricted from forming militias.
You are reading the Amendment in the context of the second clause being dependent on the first clause. That’s bass-ackwards.
I emphatically do not “ignore” that text. I read it together with the introductory clause and thereby construe the amendment as a whole. That construction expressly recognizes that there is an individual right to keep and bear arms that the federal government may not infringe, but the scope of that right is limited to the context of a “well-regulated militia.” See? Both parts, read together quite successfully.
Let’s see if we can put this hijack to bed. The problem with the concept of “inalienable rights” is the word “inalienable”. It simply doesn’t hold up when juxtaposed with the very real, if somewhat cynical, viewpoint that all power flows from the barrel of a gun. There is nothing about your “right to life” which prevents another from putting a gun to your head and pulling the trigger. Your “endowed inalienable right to life” isn’t a force field and it won’t stop bullets. Nor will it stop the Gestapo. The idea that “all men are endowed by their creator with inalienable rights” didn’t do a damn thing to stop the holocaust.
In reality, and reality is what matters, there is no such thing as an “inalienable” right. An “inalienable right” only exists, as minty noted, in the presence of a government which recognizes and protects it. If a government refuses to protect your “right”, as the Nazis refused to protect the right to life of the non-Aryan’s they executed by the millions in the holocaust, then in what meaningful sense do you still have it? All the moralizing about it being wrong for them to abridge your right by the use of coercion does absolutely no good when you get down to the nitty-gritty, real, physical world.
minty, could you give me an example of a time when a person is being threatened with bodily harm and, as a matter of both law and morality, they are not allowed to defend themselves?
Lord Ashtar: An example would be a convicted murderer facing execution by lethal injection. He has no right, morally(well, with the generally accepted morality in the state he is being executed in at least) or legally, to defend himself against the bodily harm he is about to be subjected to. His right to life has been revoked by the state as a punishment for his actions. This could not happen if rights truly were “inalienable”.
No, he’s saying that the constitution doesn’t gurantee you the right to use a gun to protect yourself. It only gurantees you the right to use a gun to protect the ‘security of a free state’.
It’s possibly, even likely, for the people of your state to collectively decide that they want the laws that govern them to provide for a right to self-defense gun use. The constitution neither gurantees nor prohibits that.
And since when does “The right to defend yourself” necessarily imply the use or ownership of a gun?
Agreed. But neither can you count on the constitution to protect your self-defense gun use if the majority want to pass laws take it away from you. (Not that I would favor such laws…)
DirkGntly:
I see tow problems with your interpretation:
“Infringed” is not a word I expect to be applied to “A well regulated militia”. What does that mean? Does that mean that the government may not in any way interfere with the militia? The idea that the framers meant the second amendment to set a particular organization above the law seems farfetched to me.
How can a material entity be an abstract concept? “A well regulated militia (which is, the right to keep and bear arms)” makes as much sense to me as “The Empire State Building (which is, Occam’s razor)”.
I also think that some clarification is in order. Do you think that by saying “a well regulated militia… sha.ll not be infringed”, the framers were saying that there is to be a well regulated militia which shall not be infringed, or that any militia which is well regulated shall not be infringed?
I can’t understand what objection he would have to it.
Mtgman
Huh? Guns can take away your life, but they can’t take away your right to life. It is your right to life which is inalienable, not you life itself. I’m having Braveheart flashbacks: “You may take our lives, but you will never take our right to life!” (note to those that think that quotation marks denote ean exact quote: he didn’t actually say that).
Cold comfort as you’re drawn and quartered for the amusement of the king.
As I said above, and as Mtgman obviously picked up on, a right isn’t worth the breath you used to claim it unless it is recognized and protected by a government capable of doing so. Just ask anybody in, say, Cuba.