To: kevkrom
In any event, the meaning of bear arms that petitioners and JUSTICE STEVENS propose is not even the (sometimes) idiomatic meaning. Rather, they manufacture a hybrid definition, whereby bear arms connotes the actual carrying of arms (and therefore is not really an idiom) but only in the service of an organized militia. No dictionary has ever adopted that definition, and we have been apprised of no source that indicates that it carried that meaning at the time of the founding. But it is easy to see why petitioners and the dissent are driven to the hybrid definition. Giving bear Arms its idiomatic meaning would cause the protected right to consist of the right to be a soldier or to wage waran absurdity that no commentator has ever endorsed. See L. Levy, Origins of the Bill of Rights 135 (1999). Worse still, the phrase keep and bear Arms would be incoherent. The word Arms would have two different meanings at once: weapons (as the object of keep) and (as the object of bear) one-half of an idiom. It would be rather like saying He filled and kicked the bucket to mean He filled the bucket and died. Grotesque.
456 posted on
06/26/2008 7:36:58 AM PDT by
kevkrom
(2-D fantasy artists wanted: http://faxcelestis.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=213)
To: kevkrom
More ripping on Stevens:
14 Faced with this clear historical usage, JUSTICE STEVENS resorts to the bizarre argument that because the word to is not included before bear (whereas it is included before petition in the First Amendment), the unitary meaning of to keep and bear is established. Post, at 16, n. 13. We have never heard of the proposition that omitting repetition of the to causes two verbs with different meanings to become one. A promise to support and to defend the Constitution of the United States is not a whit different from a promise to support and defend the Constitution of the United States.
More meat:
c. Meaning of the Operative Clause. Putting all of these textual elements together, we find that they guarantee the individual right to possess and carry weapons in case of confrontation. This meaning is strongly confirmed by the historical background of the Second Amendment. We look to this because it has always been widely understood that the Second Amendment, like the First and Fourth Amendments, codified a pre-existing right. The very text of the Second Amendment implicitly recognizes the pre-existence of the right and declares only that it shall not be infringed. As we said in United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U. S. 542, 553 (1876), [t]his is not a right granted by the Constitution. Neither is it in any manner dependent upon that instrument for its existence. The Second amendment declares that it shall not be infringed . . . ."
484 posted on
06/26/2008 7:41:42 AM PDT by
kevkrom
(2-D fantasy artists wanted: http://faxcelestis.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=213)
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson