Interpreting the Second Amendment--The key is why it was created in the first place.

FrontPageMagazine.com ^ | March 30, 2007 | Barry Loberfeld

[LibLieSlayer]

It is MUCH simpler... NOT ONE single Amendment empowers the government, but they do LIMIT the government. The Second Amendment limits government's power to prevent the PEOPLE from owning GUNS!

LLS

[Niteranger68]

Paging Zumbo.

[BufordP]

Here's another great article:

Grammatical Analysis of 2nd amendment, 1991

[Res Nullius]

The meaning of words change. The Second Amendment is very clear if you merely substitute only one word: regulated = supplied.

From where did the horses, arms and other essential supplies for the Militia come? From the people who could not supply what they did not have.

[saveliberty]

Thanks for the post. Glenn Reynolds linked from Jonah Goldberg on the Second Amendment here

http://instapundit.com/archives2/003740.php

This is the best part:

'Liberal journalist Michael Kinsley famously quoted a colleague as saying, “If liberals interpreted the Second Amendment the way they interpret the rest of the Bill of Rights, there would be law professors arguing that gun ownership is mandatory.”'

[mbynack]

Is this the whole article? I didn't see anything about duck hunting.

[GingisK]

The Second Amendment is very clear if you merely substitute only one word: regulated = supplied.

Gee, random word replacement. Now, there is a good way to make something say what you want it to say. Don't you suppose this is rather dangerous?

In the 1700s, "regulated" meant "organized and well trained".

[Res Nullius]

"In the 1700s, "regulated" meant "organized and well trained"."

Please provide one, or more, example.

[Yo-Yo]

Worth highlighting:

[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."

[BufordP]

And something worth repeating to any liberal friends you may have ... right before you take their books.

hehe.

[Copernicus]

P> Mary Carpenter In Her Own Words about gun control:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K73pWPAYg0g

http://www.grnc.org/mary_carpenter_letter.htm

Mary Carpenter's letter to the North Carolina General Assembly:

All the gun laws you can imagine cannot change the heart of a killer and you know it.

Until man's heart is changed, we will be like sheep led to the slaughter without our weapons of defense.

May you stand before God and man as my two precious grandchildren's killer if you pass any more gun legislation that will make me a felon should I own a handgun or any other gun for that matter.

Best regards,

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

The meaning of words change. The Second Amendment is very clear if you merely substitute only one word: regulated = supplied.

From where did the horses, arms and other essential supplies for the Militia come? From the people who could not supply what they did not have.

American Heritage Dictionary - Cite This Source

ord·nance     (ôrd'nəns) Pronunciation Key 
n.  

1. Military materiel, such as weapons, ammunition, combat vehicles, and equipment.
2. The branch of an armed force that procures, maintains, and issues weapons, ammunition, and combat vehicles.
3. Cannon; artillery.

[Middle English ordnaunce, variant of ordinaunce, order, military provision; see ordinance.]

The word it the Second Amendment is "regulated," but if it said "ordered" it would sound the same to the modern ear - yet as the above indicates, "ordered" definitely could most logically be read "supplied" had "ordered" been the word chosen by the framers.

[GingisK]

http://www.constitution.org/cons/wellregu.htm
http://www.guncite.com/gc2ndmea.html
http://yarchive.net/gun/politics/regulate.html
http://thesaurus.reference.com/browse/well-regulated
http://www.2asisters.org/unabridged.htm

If you read the "Federalist Papers", you will get a clear idea of what the Founders were thinking with respect to many aspects of our Nation. The ideas encompassed by the Second Amendment are very clearly enunciated as well. They were definitely thinking, "All People as individuals". This was core to their philosophy.

[goldstategop]

The Founders of our country did something unique in the Second Amendment... they constitutionalized the existence of parallel citizen armies along the government (federal and state) ones as a check on government power. They did this in the knowledge that in Europe, the rulers, then and now, where afraid to trust their citizens with arms. In America, it was taken for granted the whole people would armed from the outset as a matter of natural condition. The Second Amendment did not create anything new; it just acknowledged an existing fact as well as right, possessed by the American people.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus

[George W. Bush]

Had Judge Bork actually become Justice Bork, "pro-Second Amendment" conservatives would have learned soon enough that their support for him was not a mere miss, but a backfire.

Exactly so. And why I never gave a fig for him being confirmed.

Has anyone seen the movie Deacons For Defense? It sounds pretty good. None of that passive resistance MLK/Gandhi crap.

[George W. Bush]

'Liberal journalist Michael Kinsley famously quoted a colleague as saying, “If liberals interpreted the Second Amendment the way they interpret the rest of the Bill of Rights, there would be law professors arguing that gun ownership is mandatory.”'

Kinsley knows better. It is mandatory for members of the popular miltia, male citizens between 17 and 45. But it isn't enforced, sort of like our border laws.

[saveliberty]

Kinsley's point was that the argument of the "flexibility" of the Bill of Rights by the Left would have been stretched to extend beyond the militia.

But then again, you are a strict constructionist, Mr. Bush, which is the way that the Constitution should be viewed. ;-)

[Fred911]

Ping a Ling

[saveliberty]

Thanks, Fred911. Is there an update today? I hadn’t read this thread since March.