Posted on 02/27/2017 9:00:10 AM PST by Sean_Anthony
Ignoring “militia,” “arms” and “shall not infringe” the court sounded more like Chief Justice Oprah Winfrey
The most confusing dependent clause in the history of the nation, at least as far as personal liberty goes, is the one that begins the 2nd Amendment to the Bill of Rights. The full text of the amendment reads:
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.
To understand what the Founders meant it helps to understand how much the former colonists disliked a standing army. As far as the Continental Congress was concerned the Revolution could be fought and won using an army composed entirely of citizen volunteers organized into local militia companies.
As an aside, the Mayor of Boston announced before the Patriots' SB LI victory parade, the End Zone Minutemen would not be permitted to join the Patriots in the parade. This, because one or two ninny hoplophobes complained about the fact that they carry [gasp!]...guns.
Geez. Sounds like a lot of mental retardation going on in the mayor’s office up there.
“the 2nd amendment is a contraint on Federal power”
The 2nd Amendment, like the 4th Amendment, is a constraint on federal and state (and local) governmental power.
Revolvers are very easy to make.
...also meant disciplined at the time of nearly early historical greek/roman warfare.
Troops lined up against each other, fired until the the other broke, and then ran down the remnants with cavalry or light infantry.
Here is an example of well regulated command inflection from a militia leader:
Double time march!
Quick time march!
Unit Halt!
Right Face!
Fix Bayonets!
Front rank kneel!
On my command: Volley fire by ranks 1,2,3!
Fire!
Reload!
At the ready!
Right Face!
Double time march!
If you didn't know what the above commands were, your unit would look like a soup sandwich and melt on the battlefield. You had to be well trained/regulated to perform battlefield actions in the 18th century.....and the 8th century for that matter.
“The Constitution doesn’t give us ANY rights whatsoever. It clearly defines and delineates what God given rights our elected Government officials my not violate or infringe on. How I wish the document had a definition of the word ‘infringe’ included in the Preamble.”
Very good.
Thanks for catching this and pointing it out!
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These words have always bothered me, “regulated Militia”
There’s a comma after that part of the sentence. The comma is very important. By putting the comma there it separates the individual right to own gives it its own standing.
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One need not even get into semantics: One cannot ‘regulate’ that which ‘shall not be infringed’. It would otherwise be logically self-conflicting.
IE: Your using the incorrect definition.
I really think that that this is treason and those judges should be hung!
Yes, sounds reasonable to ask the question, BUT: There is nothing in the wording of the amendment that even suggests that the right to keep and bear arms be limited to the militia. It simply acknowledges the desirability of and need for a militia.
The phrase “well-regulated” was in common use long before 1789, and remained so for a century thereafter. It referred to the property of something being in proper working order.
http://www.constitution.org/cons/wellregu.htm
Surely you are being censorious, criticizing one small part of my post. This wasn't the time or the place to discuss incorporation and McDonald vs. Chicago (2010).
It remains to be seen if the Court will honor stare decisis.
-PJ
My old ROTC manual defined "well regulated" as "uniform in training and organization", in the sense of well trained and organized.
See here
Many, perhaps most people take the word incorrectly, as you do. But at the time, (and still), the meaning is "able bodied men," or "men amenable to being pressed into military service."
It is undoubtedly true that all citizens capable of bearing arms constitute the reserved military force or reserve militia of the United States as well as of the states, and, in view of this prerogative of the general [federal] government, as well as of its general powers, the states cannot, even laying the constitutional provision in question [2nd amendment] out of view, prohibit the people from keeping and bearing arms so as to deprive the United States of their rightful resource for maintaining the public security, and disable the people from performing their duty to the general government.
Presser v. Illinois, 116 U.S. 252 (1886)
The Presser case was cited for decades, by federal appellate courts, for the opposite proposition. SCOTUS knew it, and did nothing. Lesson? The courts ignore precedent, and are hostile to the RKBA. The rule of law depends on the whims of the judicial branch, nothing more.
Gentleman Johnny Burgoyne defines “militia” explicitly in 1777, leaving zero doubts to its meaning in 1777 after the Battle of Bennington Aug 16, 1777 :
“The great bulk of the country is undoubtedly with the Congress, in principle and zeal; and their measures are executed with a Secrecy and dispatch that are not to be equaled. Wherever the king`s forces point, militia, to the amount of three or four thousand assemble in twenty-four hours; they bring with them their substance etc., the alarm over, they return to their farms. The Hampshire Grants [Vermont], in particular, a country unpeopled and almost unknown in the last war, now abounds in the most active and most rebellious race on the continent, and hangs like a gathering storm upon my left.”
-General John Burgoyne, “A State of the Expedition from Canada, as laid before the House of Commons, by Lieutenant-General Burgoyne, and Verified by Evidence; with a Collection of Authentic Documents, and an Addition of Many Circumstances Which were Prevented from Appearing before the House by the Prorogation of Parliament.
(London: J. Almon, 1780) xxv.
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