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.
The present participle is a verb form ending in -ing
Well, that's just F'in great.
"Our rights are God-given and implanted within us. They're not dependent on the placement of a comma for their existence." - goldstategop
Tell that to gun control advocates.
The only thing the "gun control advocates," need to know is that taking 280 million firearms from the People will be ugly, very ugly.
5.56mm
There was no "goof". The presence or absence of the commas makes absolutely no difference to the meaning of the sentence. It is simply a matter of style.
This whole line of argument is nothing more than a specious contrivance and sophistry.
They understand they haven't yet been tarred and feathered, so they assume they can infringe all they want.
Several “original” copies of the BoR are inconsistent on comma usage. Considering that other contemporary documents freely included or excluded commas, apparently commas were more optional decoration than definitive indicators of meaning.
Even if we go with the 3-comma version as definitive, what we end up with is a statement amounting to “a well-regulated militia IS the people keeping and bearing arms, whose right shall not be infringed”.
The printing press was invented long before the U.S. Constitution was written. I wonder what the first *printed* copy of the Constitution looks like.
***“A Box of Jelly Donuts, being necessary to feed Elvis***
I like the way Charlie Reese said it years ago..
“A well educated elite, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to become educated shall not be infringed.”
Does this mean that ONLY the elite can be educated?
I like to apply this approach to the 13th Amendment as well. It is clear from the commas that in the 13th Amendment that both slavery and involuntary servitude were prohibited unless as a result of sentencing by a court. (Thus the courts retained the ability to imprison people for various offenses.) Becuase of the ‘and’ connective and the comma, it is also clear that the courts retained the ability to enslave people for various offenses. Isn’t a lack of understanding of grammar fun?
It was a cakewalk in NOLA post-Katrina. I can't find any instances of homeowners shooting at gun-grabbing LEOs.
This is Horse Manure!!! The Militia at that time was every able bodied male. Commas and shyster courts be damned!
I appreciate your skepticism, but not exactly.
The city of New Orleans is in the middle of paying a price. I'm sure you are current with that (NRA Federal court).
Some people in New Orleans did refuse to part with their weapons. No shoot out occurred. Plus, the situation in Miami after Andrew was totally different. Everyone was armed, and there was little crime. Even in Liberty City.
Then again, in the Revolutionary War, only 33% of the colonists fought the King. Pretty bad odds, huh?
Again, I appreciate your skepticism, but 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.
5.56mm
Only among the completely illiterate. It says what it says and there isn't any honest doubt about it. There is a good deal of pettifogging, bluster, deliberate mischaracterization and wishful thinking, but no honest doubt.
The issue is over one of the most fundamental of civil rights, the right to self-protection and protection of one's family. That's one reason it is the Second, and not the Forty-fifth, Amendment. If there were needed any further proof of the utter corruption of the ACLU it would be the position they have taken on this civil right.
So the right to own came before the militia.
Interesting question. Considering the state of much of public education, and the fact that the wealthy send their kids to private schools, the writer might indeed have meant exactly what YOU interpreted. ;o)
“Does this mean that ONLY the elite can be educated?”
No. And it wouldn’t mean that only Elvis could eat jelly donuts.
Bottom line is that it doesn’t matter the reason given for the right. It only matters that it is a right.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.