Posted on 06/29/2008 10:10:30 AM PDT by Oyarsa
Reprinted from the September 13, 1991 issue of GUN WEEK:
THE UNABRIDGED SECOND AMENDMENT by J. Neil Schulman If you wanted to know all about the Big Bang, you'd ring up Carl Sagan, right? And if you wanted to know about desert warfare, the man to call would be Norman Schwartzkopf, no question about it. But who would you call if you wanted the top expert on American usage, to tell you the meaning of theSecond Amendment to the United States Constitution?
That was the question I asked Mr. A.C. Brocki, Editorial Coordinator of the Los Angeles Unified School District and formerly senior editor at Houghton Mifflin Publishers -- who himself had been recommended to me as the foremost expert on English usage in the Los Angeles school system. Mr. Brocki told me to get in touch with Roy Copperud, a retired professor of journalism at the University of Southern California and the author of American Usage and Style: The Consensus. A little research lent support to Brocki's opinion of Professor Copperud's expertise.
Roy Copperud was a newspaper writer on major dailies for over three decades before embarking on a distinguished seventeen-year career teaching journalism at USC. Since 1952, Copperud has been writing a column dealing with the professional aspects of journalism for Editor and Publisher, a weekly magazine focusing on the journalism field.
He's on the usage panel of the American Heritage Dictionary, and Merriam Webster's Usage Dictionary frequently cites him as an expert. Copperud's fifth book on usage, American Usage and Style: The Consensus, has been in continuous print from Van Nostrand Reinhold since 1981, and is the winner of the Association of American Publishers' Humanities Award.
That sounds like an expert to me.
(Excerpt) Read more at thevrwc.org ...
An oldie but a goody!
Congressman Billybob
BTW, pretty soon about 73 people who have nothing better to do with their lives will show up and say “Already been posted!!” “yur wastin my time!!”... blah blah yada yada.
Ignore them. That gets their goat the most!
ONe thing about the language experts opinion that confuses me is his interpretation of the phrase “well-regulated”.
It's always been my belief that that phrase meant something completely different a couple hundred years ago. I thought well-regulated meant approximately “to run like clockwork”. Back in those days, clocks were hand built and one that kept accurate time was described as being “well-regulated”...which to me means an accurate, precise, and perfect machine. Applying this phrase to the description of a militia makes perfect sense to me. The best military of the times(think of the british redcoats) were well trained “machines” that marched, reloaded, fired in unison. Their survival depended on robot like precision and perfect, intantaneous execution of commands.
I have a book.
Manual of the Militia Laws of the United States and the State of Michigan
by William Shakespeare (not that Wm. Shakespeare!)
by the direction of the state Military Board
1883
The first 13 pgs or so cover UNITED STATES MILITIA LAW , title XVI, Secs. 1625-1667
It describes the makeup of the militia. The armaments various divisions are supposed to have. The skills of various militia members, like cannoneers, doctors, horsemen, etc.
It’s a very interesting book and maybe someday when I ain’t so busy, I’ll try to OCR it in.
Your understanding of “well-regulated” as it was understood 200 years ago is right on the mark.
Their survival depended on robot like precision and perfect, intantaneous execution of commands.
Yeah, the Redcoats did real good til the Minutemen found those coats made such good targets.
The non-infringement clause is intended to prevent the government from abrogating this good by fiat. However, the "regulation of the militia" is within the scope of gov't power. So if an act would infringe, it is forbidden, but if in aid, good thing. So for example the Civilian Marksmanship program is a good thing. If the local National Guard Armory offered training in how to use antiaircraft missiles or offered safe storage and inspection for your personally owned conventional/biological/chemical/nuclear weapons, this would also be a good thing.
The redcoats would’ve kicked america’s butt if it weren’t for the fact that the british forces were spread all over the planet and didn’t have time to deal with a few nobodies in the american colonies over a silly tea tax.
I love those old books like that...the kind whose content you can’t find on the internet anywhere.
My state's constitution (and I think most states' say something very similar) says that "The organized militia shall be designated "The National Guard of Arizona," But, at the same time it says that the militia "shall consist of all capable citizens of the state between the ages of eighteen and forty-five years....."
Doesn't that imply that we should keep and bear arms (and maybe even practice once in a while), just in case we are called?
I wonder how many citizens of various states know that, in time of dire need, they could be called to service?
Red Dawn, anyone? "What? You want me to do WHAT?!"
Don’t worry.
FEMA’s ready.
"We have assumed control. Well we tried anyway."
Snort.
Dave Kopel on National Review has a great article, Words of Freedom (May 16, 2001) that touches on the Schulman article as well.
One more thing. Schulman got to Copperud just in the nick of time. Copperud passed away in Dec 1991.
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