Posted on 09/23/2006 11:02:00 AM PDT by cryptical
History lesson: Second Amendment requires regulation
First, a calming caveat: Saul Cornell doesn't want to take away your guns. He's neither antigun nor progun. He really isn't a gun guy at all. His thing is history.
Cornell, a professor at Ohio State University, passed through town the other day with much to say about regulating guns. Yet his aim isn't to take sides in the modern gun-control debate -- a squabble he thinks has strayed rather off-topic. It's far more interesting, he thinks, to look back to learn what this country's founders actually thought about gun regulation.
They couldn't imagine life without it, says Cornell. That's the point of his new book, "A Well Regulated Militia: The Founding Fathers and the Origins of Gun Control in America." In it, Cornell excavates the foundations of the Second Amendment and offers some startling conclusions.
"As long as we've had guns in America," says Cornell, "we've had gun regulation." In fact, the Second Amendment's chief purpose is to assure such regulation. Without it, the founders feared, anarchy might take hold.
(Excerpt) Read more at startribune.com ...
I have a rather simple question: If the Founding Fathers wanted gun regulations, why didn't they say so in the 2nd Amendment?
What this fool thinks the founders were thinking is irrevelant. What the founders actually said in the Constititution is the law of the land. The words "shall not be infringed" are pretty straightforward.
Well regulated meant armed and trained.
More moonbat nonsense.
It says the Militia shall be regulated, not guns..built on a false premise.
I'm not so sure of this. The Constitution itself is supposed the limit the powers of the federal government, delegated to it by the Several States, and the People. The Bill Of Rights was supposed to be a declaration of the powers that remained with the People and the Several States, rather than a limit on the Federal Government.
In other words, instead of saying that the Federal Government had all powers except for what's in the Bill of Rights, the Bill Of Rights was trying to say that the People and the States kept all powers except for what's in the Constitution.
Also, why all the talk of militias in the Federalis papers if the only mention of militias is in the Bill Of Rights?
-PJ
Not quite. It says that a well-regulated militia *is necessary*. Necessary for the security of a *free state*. It doesn't say who shall make it "well regulated". The main body of the Constitution speaks to that, but does not define who is in the militia. Thus Congress has changed the definition over the years.
It may have once been all "free white males", but now, by federal law, it's all males 17-44, plus female members of the National Guard. (Title 10 section 311 US Code) (until relatively recently it was only female Guard officers.) Also included are certain Guardsmen outside of that age range.
However each state has its own definition, and in Texas it's all persons 18-60. (GOVERNMENT CODE SUBTITLE C. STATE MILITARY FORCES AND VETERANS CHAPTER 431 section 431.081). I'm still a member of militia as defined by law. I'm also on the roles as member of the retired reserve of the United States Air Force.
The 10th amendment, part of the Bill of Rights, says exactly that, just to make that clear. However, what the first 9 amendments of the BoR do is restrict the manner of or purposes for execution of those powers delegated to the federal government. Thus, in regulating interstate commerce, which is an explictly called out federal power, the federal government is not supposed to restrict freedom of speech or of the press, or infringe on the right of the people to keep and bear arms. The introduction to the Bill of Rights, not so often seen anymore explains this clearly.
That introduction was and remains:
The conventions of a number of the States having at the time of their adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added.
I had assumed a "well regulated malitia" meant that citizens should be prepared to be regulated as a part of the malitia ainto the regulars or regular army.
It's not, as I posted above, the body of the Constitution defines the powers of Congress and of the President with respect to the militia, without defining it (they thought it obvious I guess, modern courts are more obtuse :) )
In the second amendment, they made it clear that those powers did not extend to infringement of the people's right to keep and bear arms, and could be exercised in such a manner as to do so. From a legal standpoint, if those powers could have been read to allow such, the second amendment removed that portion of governmental militia powers.
The Federalist papers discussed the militia powers of the federal government precisely because some people opposed giving the federal government even that much power over the militia. These were the anti-federalists, which included Thomas Jefferson although being ambassador to France at the time, he was not in much of a position to make his influence felt, in the debates surrounding the establishment of the Constitution as a replacement for the Articles of Confederation.
Just out of curiosity, why do some FReepers insist on misspelling "militia" as "malitia"? The "mil" part of "militia" has the same Latin root as "military". "mal" is generally a bad thing with negative connotations, as in "malformed", "maladjusted", "malodorous" and so forth.
There is nothing "mal" about the Militia, except that today it is badly mal-regulated rather than "well-regulated. The militia of Flight 93 excepted of course. That was a well regulated, even though disarmed, militia!
fast typing?
I'll just observe that the "a" and "i" are quite far apart on the keyboard. The "a" is pressed by the little finger of the left hand, and is on the "home" row, while the "i" is pressed by the middle ("the" finger") of the right hand, and is on the row above the home row. Kind of a hard typo to make.
However, I guess certain dialects of American English, including mine now that I think about it, might have that first "i" sounding somewhat like a short "a", and thus the error. I've seen it done consistently by some posters, not necessarily you, both in multiple uses in the same post, as well as across posts and even across threads.
However, the spell checker is our friend. It most assuredly is mine. I used it at least 3 times as I composed this reply :)
FIRST
there was the United States Constitution
Article I - Section 8 - which says:
"The congress shall have power to:
...provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States, reserving to the states respectively, the appointment of the officers, and the authority of training the militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress..."
THEN AFTERWARDS
came Amendment II - which says:
"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."
The truth about 2nd Amendmt, Part 2: Mitilia history as founders knew it
The Right to Keep and Bear . . . What? The Second Amendment Definition of "Arms"
-PJ
"I had assumed a "well regulated malitia" meant that citizens should be prepared to be regulated as a part of the malitia ainto the regulars or regular army".
U.S. Code - TITLE 10 - Subtitle A - PART I - CHAPTER 13
Paragraph 311 - Militia: composition and classes
(a) The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age and, except as provided in section 313 of title 32, under 45 years of age who are, or who have made a declaration of intention to become, citizens of the United States and of female citizens of the United States who are members of the National Guard.
(b) The classes of the militia are—
(1) the organized militia, which consists of the National Guard and the Naval Militia; and
(2) the unorganized militia, which consists of the members of the militia who are not members of the National Guard or the Naval Militia.
Yes, a fine illustration of the Peter Principle.
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