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To: VeniVidiVici
"That's what "the People" is for."

That's what the well regulated Militia was for. It was a "well regulated Militia" that was necessary to the security of a free state, wasn't it? Isn't that what the second amendment says?

A select group of individuals, "the people", as members of the militia, had their right to keep and bear arms protected by the second amendment from federal infringement.

Everyone else's right to keep and bear arms was protected by their state constitution.

845 posted on 11/14/2007 11:50:21 AM PST by robertpaulsen
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To: robertpaulsen

So then you’re claiming “the People” of the 2d are different than the “the People” of the 10th? That the 10th only applies to those “People” who bear arms in the militia?


846 posted on 11/14/2007 11:55:58 AM PST by VeniVidiVici (No buy China!!)
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To: robertpaulsen
When Madison and his select committee drafted the Bill of Rights, they did their best to combine briefly the essential elements of the various state bills of rights as well as the many suggestions made by state ratifying conventions. The effort resulted in a good deal of cutting, revising, and synthesizing.[73] This drafting approach was certainly used with the second amendment, as the committee incorporated two distinct, yet related, rights into a single amendment.[74]

The brief discussion of the amendment in Congress makes clear that the committee had no intention of subordinating one right to the other.[75] Elbridge Gerry attacked the phrase dealing with conscientious objectors, those "scrupulous of bearing arms," that appeared in the original (p.137)amendment. Revealing a libertarian distrust of government, Gerry maintained that the declaration of rights in the proposed amendment "is intended to secured the people against the mal-administration of the Government," and indicated that the federal government might employ the conscientious objector phrase "to destroy the constitution itself. They can declare who are those religiously scrupulous, and prevent them from bearing arms."[76] This would return America to a European-style society in which governments systematically disarmed their citizens. Thomas Scott of Pennsylvania also strenuously objected to this phrase for fear it might "lead to the violation of another article in the constitution, which secures to the people the right of keeping arms."[77]

While congressmen firmly believed in the right of individual citizens to possess arms, no consensus existed regarding whether or not these people should be required to bear arms in the militia. One representative declared: "As far as the whole body of the people are necessary to the general defence, they ought to be armed; but the law ought not to require more than is necessary; for that would be a just cause of complaint."[78] But another representative observed that "the people of America would never consent to be deprived of the privilege of carrying arms. Though it may prove burdensome to some individuals to be obliged to arm themselves, yet it would not be so considered when the advantages were justly estimated."[79] Other congressmen even went so far as to argue that the states should supply firearms to those Americans without them.[80] Regardless of their voicers' feelings about the militia, such statements clearly revealed an urge to get arms into the hands of all American males between the ages of eighteen and forty-five, and not to restrict such possession to those in militia service.[81]

Please try to ensure a rebuttal includes cites instead of Paulsenisms.

847 posted on 11/14/2007 12:03:30 PM PST by VeniVidiVici (No buy China!!)
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