Posted on 11/10/2007 11:25:50 AM PST by theothercheek
Washington, D.C. Mayor Adrian M. Fenty made good on his vow to contest the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruling that the city’s 1976 handgun ban is unconstitutional, because the Second Amendment applies to individuals as well as to militias - and the Supreme Court is now considering whether to take up the issue of what the Founding Fathers meant by these words: "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."
Should the high court decide to grant review, Legal Times reports that its ruling may not hinge on the actual words comprising the Second Amendment, but to the commas that separate those words into clauses:
Another suddenly intense debate is enveloping the case - this one over what all those commas in the Second Amendment meant in late 18th-century America.
It may sound way beyond trivial, but it's not: The grammar war is under way.
You can blame the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit for igniting this esoteric debate. It ruled on March 9 that because of the Second Amendment's second comma, the first half of the amendment - the militia half - is basically a throat-clearing preface that does not qualify the individual right to bear arms that the second half protects.
Judge Laurence Silberman, who wrote the 2-1 decision, went on to conclude that the district's handgun ban violates that individual right.
Some grammarians believe that commas were often used to signal a breath pause for orators – which means there would be more of them than would be used today, and that they may not necessarily mean anything. Others argue that the commas divide the sentence into dependent and independent clauses – the trouble is there is sharp disagreement over which clause is dependent and which is independent.
Complicating matters even further the Second Amendment is a comma chameleon: The version that Congress approved in 1789 had three commas, while several states ratified a two-comma version.
The Stiletto shudders to think that her Second Amendment rights are dependent on the placement of a comma – especially considering what’s going on in Venezuela these days.
Note: The Stiletto writes about politics and other stuff at The Stiletto Blog.
"A well regulated sewer system, being necessary to the keeping of a sanitary home, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."
"A well maintained garden, being necessary to the production of vegetables, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."
All three are as equal grammatically as they were in the late 1700's. It establishes a "Right of the people", that "shall not be infringed".
Not by Congress. Not by the States. Not by anyone. You can lose access to your Rights as part of a criminal proceeding, but mere legislation can never be Constitutionally used while this clause is included in the "shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding."
Ratification was the only "incorporation" required until some idiot judge created a new judicial power from thin air.
“Lets see:
A militia in good order, being necessary for the security of a free society, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.
I can see the confusion. /s”
Your comment maybe closer to the source of the problem than you know. The word ‘regulated’ as used in the 1700’s did not mean ‘good order’; it more often meant ‘well-supplied’ or well provisioned.
As an experiment, try substituting the word ‘supplied’ for ‘regulated’ and it makes abundant sense: the milita is composed of people who, when they answered the call, brought their own provisions including horses, bedrolls, and firearms.
“...what would go down, over time, would make our Civil War look like a walk in the park on a warm spring day.”
Trust me.
Considering the dead from the civil war as a percentage of the population, such a conflict today would result in several million dead, I think the figure I read was 4 million.
Remember too, that there would no doubt be foreign players,
Russia, China etc that would want to influence the out come.
Not a pretty picture to contemplate.
Indeed... we stand ready to rip 'em a new colon.
(+)
No, the Bill of Rights doesn’t list our rights!
The founders instituted a *negative* system of rights, and this is crucial to understand from the git go - the BOR lists what the government CANNOT do, not what rights the people have.
A conventional “the people can do this, the people can do that, etc” would be nearly impossible, wasting paper and rational thought, and leaves no room for technological advance, etc.
In those days, a central armory where arms were stored en masse would have led in the event of a call-up much wasted time as members of the militia would have had to first be notified of trouble, travel from their home to the armory to pick up weapons, and then back again perhaps, or off to whereever the trouble was.
“Well-regulated” means nothing what people today think it means. It was certainly not the intent nor the meaning to imply thousands of conflicting and onerous laws and prohibitions nor hoops to jump through. Any idiot knows it meant that the militia had trained together repeatedly in drill and marching and cadence, camping, etc. They had worked together before, and operated as a whole rather than disparate elements.
Our second amendment rights had best be hanging on our hair trigger.
We only need to read the comments by the founding fathers to know their intent and they did not indend to give the government a collect right to firearms.
The entire Bill of Rights was about not about giving the government more powers. If that is the case then the press had better get ready for massive censorship.
After several more letters and phone calls, in which we discussed terms for his doing such an analysis, but in which we never discussed either of our opinions regarding the Second Amendment, gun control, or any other political subject, Professor Copperud sent me the following analysis (into which I've inserted my questions for the sake of clarity): [Copperud:] The words "A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state," contrary to the interpretation cited in your letter of July 26, 1991, constitute a present participle, rather than a clause. It is used as an adjective, modifying "militia," which is followed by the main clause of the sentence (subject "the right," verb "shall"). The right to keep and bear arms is asserted as essential for maintaining a militia.
In reply to your numbered questions:
[Schulman: (1) Can the sentence be interpreted to grant the right to keep and bear arms solely to "a well-regulated militia"?;]
[Copperud:] (1) The sentence does not restrict the right to keep and bear arms, nor does it state or imply possession of the right elsewhere or by others than the people; it simply makes a positive statement with respect to a right of the people. (end of excerpt)
Please, no more incorrect corrections.
A Militia being able to hit what it aims at, ...
Pretty much means the same as the original.
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.
What part of “...shall not be infringed.” do they not understand?
It's not the "...shall not be infringed.” part. It's "...the right of the people..." part that will settle this once and for all.
Abbrogate that statement in the second will mean that the very same statement, ""...the right of the people..." is also meaningless in the 4th, 9th and 10th amendments.
So, it ain't gonna happen.
Au contraire, mon ami. They will fight like hell to take away our rights, and fight equally hard to keep theirs.
From my cold, dead hands. Know what I mean?
LOL!
Great post!
"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."
Let's break this down by omitting two of the three clauses and see which clause makes more sense as the true subject of the sentence.
We can eliminate clause 2 as the subject of the sentence. Clearly, the clause 'Being necessary to the security of a free State' is descriptive and can not be the subject of the sentence. That clause, therefore, must refer to one of the other two clauses, (or perhaps both).
It works equally well in describing either of the other two clauses. Some people would argue that it can only refer to the Militia and not to the right of the people. That argument is a red herring which distracts from the proper meaning of the sentence.
To find the true subject of the sentence, clause 1 or clause 3, we must now examine the predicate "... shall not be infringed."
To infringe upon a Militia, organization, or other group of people is not possible. Only a 'right', rule, or law can be infringed. Thus, "The right of the people to keep and bear Arms " is the proper and only possible true subject of the sentence. It's meaning is crystal clear.
Molon Labe!
Oh, oh. Looks like a Ronbat is on this thread.
Yes, I agree. I am hoping the Supreme Court refuses to grant cert, figuring that the DC Appeals Court did it’s dirty work for them. Then the decision stands and the DC ban is history. Unfortunately, absent a clear ruling from the high court, each local ban will have to be contested. But as in D.C., the NRA will find willing citizens to step up.
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