Constitution Check: Does the Second Amendment need to be amended?

new.yahoo.com ^ | 04/15/14 | Lyle Denniston

[ForYourChildren]

Constitution Check: Does the Second Amendment need to be amended?

THE STATEMENT AT ISSUE: “As a result of [Supreme Court] rulings, the Second Amendment, which was adopted to protect the states from federal interference with their power to ensure that their militias were ‘well regulated,’ has given federal judges the ultimate power to determine the validity of state regulations of both civilian and militia-related uses of arms. That anomalous result can be avoided by adding five words to the text of the Second Amendment to make ti unambiguously conform to the original intent of the draftsmen. As so amended, it would read: ‘A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms when serving in the militia shall not be infringed.’ ”

– Retired Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, in an opinion column posted online April 11 by The Washington Post. It is excerpted from his new book, ..the article was republished in The Post on April 13.

WE CHECKED THE CONSTITUTION, AND… There is an old saying about the Constitution that, like a lot of old sayings, is at least partly an exaggeration: “The Constitution is what the Supreme Court says it is.” However, that is very close to the truth about the Second Amendment.

From its inclusion in the Constitution in 1791 until 2008, it was not understood to give Americans a personal right to have a gun. And then it changed, in a profound way.

Prior to 2008, there was a public conversation – often, in academic writings funded by the National Rifle Association – about whether the Amendment should go beyond protecting the arming of state militias, to allow Americans to arm themselves for personal use....

[B4Ranch]

[backwoods-engineer]

They are really pushing this hard, aren't they? This must be Reid and Obama's next push: "if these Constitutionalist teabaggers obey the Constitution, then we will make the Constitution say they can have no guns."

Inching ever closer--millimeter by millimeter!-- toward full-scale civil war, with massive bloodshed, famine, displacement, and misery for all Americans.

[backwoods-engineer]

The freedom-hating Left does not recognize McDonald v. Chicago. Hence the new gun ban laws in NY, CT, MD, CO.

[backwoods-engineer]

The words “well-regulated” meant “well-trained.”

Yes, and well-provisioned, and smoothly-operating. That sense is still with us in a few usages of the word, mainly relating to clocks and flow control devices.

[backwoods-engineer]

Anytime—ANYTIME—a Constitutional convention is called for the purpose of changing any part of it, ALL of it can be changed.

Not true! An Article V convention is for the purpose of introducing Amendments, not a wholesale replacement. But, yes, there could be some nasty Amendments introduced, then be ratified the same way Obama was elected, with wholesale fraud.