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To: theothercheek
I am one of many to have gone and specifically checked for it on the original document at the National Archives.

The spacing of the words makes it seems that they did indeed goof and add an extraneous comma. But it is very difficult to confirm.

The best I could do under the ambient light, the handheld camera I had, and the press of the line behind me, is this...

Unfortunately, photobucket converts to a jpg, but I hope that it's clear that there's a gap, but the lead-in of the "s" in "shall" takes up much of that gap. Is there really a comma, or is that just the lead-in to the "s" character?

28 posted on 11/10/2007 12:04:30 PM PST by Gondring (I'll give up my right to die when hell freezes over my dead body!)
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To: Gondring; theothercheek
The spacing of the words makes it seems that they did indeed goof and add an extraneous comma. But it is very difficult to confirm.

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.

44 posted on 11/10/2007 12:23:50 PM PST by tarheelswamprat
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To: Gondring

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”.


47 posted on 11/10/2007 12:25:42 PM PST by ctdonath2 (The color blue tastes like the square root of 0?)
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To: Gondring

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.


48 posted on 11/10/2007 12:27:09 PM PST by nosofar
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