[Repeal 16-17]

If the Supremes pull another Kelo (a decision that guts an enumerated Constitutional right), then this will be the top issue in Presidential election in the Red States.

[El Gato]

The version that Congress approved in 1789 had three commas, while several states ratified a two-comma version.

I never heard of a two comma version until someone pointed out that the Parker ruling at the Circuit court had two different versions, one of which had two commas, the other three. The version that appears in the United States Statutes at Large contains only one. A little additional research reveals that I'm wrong and there were one,two and three comma versions. But since whatever the original had, more could have been added, or some left out, in the process of hand copying the document for sending to the states for ratification, this is not very suprising. The same probably happened to the rest of the BoR, but no one particularly wants to ignore them or at least change their basic meaning..

[El Gato]

Are Our Second Amendment Rights Hanging On A Comma?

In the final analysis, they hang on our willingness to use them. Hopefully only in a deterrent mode, but should deterrence fail.... see tag line.

[firebrand]

Today's copyeditor would definitely take out the third comma.

I would take out the first as well, since the following phrase is restrictive (essential to the meaning of what precedes it), not nonrestrictive (parenthetical), although I still see many passages punctuated this way.

The middle one I think everyone would keep. For now.