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To: neverdem
Second Amendment supports an individual’s right to bear arms or a state’s right to form a militia

It's not 'or', it's both. There is a semicolon between the two clauses indicating they are independent clauses, not either being dependent on each other.

31 posted on 06/03/2008 11:31:50 AM PDT by mnehring
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To: mnehrling
There is a semicolon between the two clauses indicating they are independent clauses, not either being dependent on each other.

There's no semicolon in any historical copy of the Second Amendment that I've ever seen. Some have one comma, some appear to have 3. Remember they were hand copied, and sometimes the scribes got a little creative with punctuation, which was not so formally defined in those days in any event.

But they are still independent clauses, with the second one being the operative one, "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed". (some versions have a comma between "arms" and "shall", which makes no sense grammatically, but commas need not, they can just be a place to take a breath.

47 posted on 06/03/2008 4:01:40 PM PDT by El Gato ("The Second Amendment is the RESET button of the United States Constitution." -- Doug McKay)
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