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To: Dead Corpse

Thomas Jefferson was against a Constitution that did not contain a bill of rights to protect the people not against themselves, but from the federal government: "I hope, therefore, a bill of rights will be formed to guard the people against the federal government as they are already guarded against their State governments, in most instances." --Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1788. ME 7:98


Because a mind is a terrible thing to waste without facts, see here:

http://federalistblog.us/2007/03/dc_circuits_2nd_amendment_holding_too_weak_to_survive.html


154 posted on 03/13/2007 11:13:16 AM PDT by AZRepublican ("The degree in which a measure is necessary can never be a test of the legal right to adopt it.")
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To: AZRepublican
"When an instrument admits two constructions, the one safe, the other dangerous, the one precise, the other indefinite, I prefer that which is safe & precise. I had rather ask an enlargement of power from the nation, where it is found necessary, than to assume it by a construction which would make our powers boundless." Thomas Jefferson, letter to Wilson Cary Nicholas, Sept. 7, 1803.

The next amendment is: "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 importance of this article will scarcely be doubted by any persons, who have duly reflected upon the subject. The militia is the natural defence of a free country against sudden foreign invasions, domestic insurrections, and domestic usurpations of power by rulers. It is against sound policy for a free people to keep up large military establishments and standing armies in time of peace, both from the enormous expenses, with which they are attended, and the facile means, which they afford to ambitious and unprincipled rulers, to subvert the government, or trample upon the rights of the people. The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered, as the palladium of the liberties of a republic; since it offers a strong moral check against the usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers; and will generally, even if these are successful in the first instance, enable the people to resist and triumph over them. James Madison 1833.

The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed, and this without any qualification as to their condition or degree, as is the case in the British government. St. George Tucker. 1803

Game. Set. Match.

155 posted on 03/13/2007 12:01:38 PM PDT by Dead Corpse (What would a free man do?)
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To: AZRepublican
Further, incorporation is a myth. Made up from whole cloth as legislation by the judicary to give them more power than they are Constitutionally empowered to have. For proof... see the text of the legislation for ratifying the BoR...

The First 10 Amendments to the Constitution as Ratified by the States
December 15, 1791
Preamble

Congress OF THE United States begun and held at the City of New York, on Wednesday the Fourth of March, one thousand seven hundred and eighty nine.

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: And as extending the ground of public confidence in the Government, will best insure the beneficent ends of its institution

RESOLVED by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled, two thirds of both Houses concurring, that the following Articles be proposed to the Legislatures of the several States, as Amendments to the Constitution of the United States, all or any of which Articles, when ratified by three fourths of the said Legislatures, to be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of the said Constitution; viz.:

ARTICLES in addition to, and Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America, proposed by Congress, and ratified by the Legislatures of the several States, pursuant to the fifth Article of the original Constitution.

This is all the "incorporation" the BoR's protections for pre-existing Rights requires.

156 posted on 03/13/2007 12:06:38 PM PDT by Dead Corpse (What would a free man do?)
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