I need some freeper help!

I think you're referring to Michael Bellesiles and his (debunked) book, "Arming America: The Origins of a National Gun Culture"

Would you be thinking of Michael Bellesiles of Emory University and his book ARMING AMERICA? He was recently kicked out of the university after an independent panel studied his book and research and determined it was terrible scholarship. I have read a couple lengthy articles in local papers (one that comes to mind is the ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER, I think the author may have been Alan Bock - sp?). You should be able to find info via Google if this is what you are trying to track down.

Name: Michael Bellisles (not sure of spelling)
A professor at Emory University, Atlanta, Ga. He wrote a history of gun ownership in America. He proved that the 2nd amendment was not meant as an individual right, but as a right of state militias. He won several academic awards. Problem : he falsified his proof. It was all a big lie. Emory fired him.

People still quote him as if he's an authority.

Looks like Martin the the Princess beat me to it. If Bellesiles is who you are talking about, do a search on the forum using his name as keyword and title. You'll find a wealth of info.

You might be able to help this person out.

Perhaps you can use this "approach."

Copyright (c) 1991 by The New Gun Week and Second Amendment Foundation. Informational reproduction of the entire article is hereby authorized provided the author, The New Gun Week and Second Amendment Foundation are credited. All other rights reserved.

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 the Second 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.

After a brief telephone call to Professor Copperud in which I introduced myself but did "not" give him any indication of why I was interested, I sent the following letter:

*** "July 26, 1991

"Dear Professor Copperud:

"I am writing you to ask you for your professional opinion as an expert in English usage, to analyze the text of the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution, and extract the intent from the text.

"The text of the Second Amendment is, 'A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.'

"The debate over this amendment has been whether the first part of the sentence, "A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State," is a restrictive clause or a subordinate clause, with respect to the independent clause containing the subject of the sentence, "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

"I would request that your analysis of this sentence not take into consideration issues of political impact or public policy, but be restricted entirely to a linguistic analysis of its meaning and intent. Further, since your professional analysis will likely become part of litigation regarding the consequences of the Second Amendment, I ask that whatever analysis you make be a professional opinion that you would be willing to stand behind with your reputation, and even be willing to testify under oath to support, if necessary."

My letter framed several questions about the text of the Second Amendment, then concluded:

"I realize that I am asking you to take on a major responsibility and task with this letter. I am doing so because, as a citizen, I believe it is vitally important to extract the actual meaning of the Second Amendment. While I ask that your analysis not be affected by the political importance of its results, I ask that you do this because of that importance.

"Sincerely,

"J. Neil Schulman"

***

After several more letters and phone calls, in which we discussed terms for his doing such an analysis, but in which we never discussed either of our opinions regarding the Second Amendment, gun control, or any other political subject, Professor Copperud sent me the following analysis (into which I've inserted my questions for the sake of clarity):

***

[Copperud:] The words "A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state," contrary to the interpretation cited in your letter of July 26, 1991, constitute a present participle, rather than a clause. It is used as an adjective, modifying "militia," which is followed by the main clause of the sentence (subject "the right," verb "shall"). The right to keep and bear arms is asserted as essential for maintaining a militia.

In reply to your numbered questions:

[Schulman: (1) Can the sentence be interpreted to grant the right to keep and bear arms "solely" to "a well-regulated militia"?;]

[Copperud:] (1) The sentence does not restrict the right to keep and bear arms, nor does it state or imply possession of the right elsewhere or by others than the people; it simply makes a positive statement with respect to a right of the people.

[Schulman: (2) Is "the right of the people to keep and bear arms" "granted" by the words of the Second Amendment, or does the Second Amendment assume a preexisting right of the people to keep and bear arms, and merely state that such right "shall not be infringed"?;]

[Copperud:] (2) The right is not granted by the amendment; its existence is assumed. The thrust of the sentence is that the right shall be preserved inviolate for the sake of ensuring a militia.

[Schulman: (3) Is the right of the people to keep and bear arms conditioned upon whether or not a well-regulated militia is, in fact, necessary to the security of a free State, and if that condition is not existing, is the statement "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed" null and void?;]

[Copperud:] (3) No such condition is expressed or implied. The right to keep and bear arms is not said by the amendment to depend on the existence of a militia. No condition is stated or implied as to the relation of the right to keep and bear arms and to the necessity of a well-regulated militia as requisite to the security of a free state. The right to keep and bear arms is deemed unconditional by the entire sentence.

[Schulman: (4) Does the clause "A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State," grant a right to the government to place conditions on the "right of the people to keep and bear arms," or is such right deemed unconditional by the meaning of the entire sentence?;]

[Copperud:] (4) The right is assumed to exist and to be unconditional, as previously stated. It is invoked here specifically for the sake of the militia.

[Schulman: (5) Which of the following does the phrase "well-regulated militia" mean: "well-equipped," "well-organized," "well-drilled," "well-educated," or "subject to regulations of a superior authority"?]

[Copperud:] (5) The phrase means "subject to regulations of a superior authority"; this accords with the desire of the writers for civilian control over the military.

[Schulman: If at all possible, I would ask you to take into account the changed meanings of words, or usage, since that sentence was written two-hundred years ago, but not to take into account historical interpretations of the intents of the authors, unless those issues can be clearly separated.]

[Copperud:] To the best of my knowledge, there has been no change in the meaning of words or in usage that would affect the meaning of the amendment. If it were written today, it might be put: "Since a well-regulated militia is necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be abridged."

[Schulman: As a "scientific control" on this analysis, I would also appreciate it if you could compare your analysis of the text of the Second Amendment to the following sentence, "A well-schooled electorate, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and read Books, shall not be infringed."

My questions for the usage analysis of this sentence would be,

(1) Is the grammatical structure and usage of this sentence, and the way the words modify each other, identical to the Second Amendment's sentence?; and

(2) Could this sentence be interpreted to restrict "the right of the people to keep and read Books" "only" to "a well-educated electorate" -- for example, registered voters with a high-school diploma?]

[Copperud:] (1) Your "scientific control" sentence precisely parallels the amendment in grammatical structure.

(2) There is nothing in your sentence that either indicates or implies the possibility of a restricted interpretation.

***

Professor Copperud had only one additional comment, which he placed in his cover letter: "With well-known human curiosity, I made some speculative efforts to decide how the material might be used, but was unable to reach any conclusion."

So now we have been told by one of the top experts on American usage what many knew all along: the Constitution of the United States unconditionally protects the people's right to keep and bear arms, forbidding all government formed under the Constitution from abridging that right.

***************************************************************

I was looking at the "View" section of the LA Times from December 18, 1991 today -- an article on James Michener which my wife Kate had saved for me to read -- when the beginning of Jack Smith's column caught my eye: "Roy Copperud had no sooner died the other day than I had occasion to consult his excellent book, 'American Usage and Style: The Consensus.'"

Thus I learned of the death a few weeks ago of Roy Copperud, the retired USC professor whom I commissioned to do a grammatical analysis of the Second Amendment this past summer. (My article was published in the September 13th issue of "Gun Week".) It seems to have been one of the last projects he worked on. It is certainly one of the most important.

Roy Copperud told me afterwards that he, personally, favored gun control, but his analysis of the Second Amendment made clear that its protections of the right of the people to keep and bear arms were unaffected by its reference to militia. This sort of intellectual and professional honesty is sorely lacking in public discourse today.

In my several letters and phone conversations with Professor Copperud, I found him to be a gentleman of the old school. The planet is a little poorer without him.

J. Neil Schulman December 27, 1991

------------------------------ End of Article ---------------------------------------

Go to www.claytoncramer.com for all the details. Cramer is the guy that did the basic work debunking this fraud from Emory University. Bellesiles was allowed to "resign", which for tenured professor is spelled FIRED.

Here is another good refrence even if it is not the exact one you're after:

Link to J.P.F.O.

I have GOBS of 2nd amendment links on free republic. Be sure to go to this thread for links to other threads... people have included their own links...Also you can click on my name for a few more.

free republic links on gun control and more

Needin some help here..

That is a great resource to have on hand...

Just do a search for his name right here. Here's the link:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/search?m=any&o=time&s=Bellesiles

I read an excerpt from a book on the J.P.F.O. web site one time that chilled me. It was about all the times and places around the world where first came gun control, then genocide followed. First outlaw all the guns, get the citizens to turn them all in, then outlaw certain citizens and round them all up with no muss no fuss like sheep to a slaughter.

I worked for a German company one time and a certain old German told me that what happened there in Germany couldn't happen here in the U.S. because most of the citizens are armed. No group, be they black or Jew for instance, would allow themselves to be rounded up for extermination without a fight. Any such group would form a malitia or resistance which would make the "rounding up" extremely dangerous, if not impossible. He said "can you imagine a group of armed soldiers showing up in a neighborhood in jeeps and a couple trucks to load up people to be hauled away and out of every window, doorway and rooftop has a gun barrel sticking out of it?" He said "there was no such resistance in Germany at that time because all the private, personal guns had been turned in for 'the safety of the citizens' before hand.

I remembered what he said all those years ago and have been an NRA member a long time.

Don't ever think there are not people out there who would love to have a disarmed citizenry...of course, they themselves would be the only ones armed...

All you need to know can be found in the "Federalist Papers"

Plus: "The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in Government." Thomas Jefferson

They don't make Democrats like that anymore.

Bang

For an excellent compendium of gun facts and law, indexed by FAQ, visit guncite.com.

ask your gun control friends what they would do, if they could not speak out against the government, that it would be punishable by death... they'll say it could never happen because freedom of speech is a constitutional right... ask them what would they do if their property could be confiscated just on the suggestion that they were dealing drugs.... they'll say it couldn't happen because it is against the constitution, then tell them that it is happening, to your second amendment rights, and they are perpetrating it and when they succeed, no one will be able to stand up to the government that will take away their precious freedoms...

jmt teeman

I would like to thank you all for the excellent links and info.. Unbeleivers have been enlightened and scilenced!

I couldnt have done it without you

Could have heard a pin drop HA!