Now.......that is more than interesting (and more than frightening), indeed!
Indeed, if rejected language is any clue as to the meaning of that which was accepted, perhaps the most telling example was the Framers’ rejection of the following proposed amendment:“That each State respectively shall have the power to provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining its own militia, whensoever Congress shall omit or neglect to provide for the same. . . .” FIRST SENATE JOURNAL 126.This proposal stated, in unmistakably direct and concise fashion, exactly that meaning which Petitioners would divine in the Second Amendment through tortured linguistics, fanciful explanations, and “hidden history.” And it was rejected by the Framers. “[H]istory does not warrant concluding that it necessarily follows from the pairing of the concepts that a person has a right to bear arms solely in his function as a member of the militia.” Robert Sprecher, The Lost Amendment, 51 AM. BAR ASS’N J. 554, 557 (1965).11