Explain what? I never said the Militia Act defined "the people".
"In that they required ALL able bodied male citizens to be enrolled in the militia and to possess a private firearm"
All able bodied white male citizens, 18-45. Congress established that as a minimal Militia requirement.
Certainly that included "the people", who were white male citizen landowners.
I'm sure there were white male citizen landowners who were not Militia members. I'm sure the were Militia members that were not landowners. I'm sure there were Militia members who were not white. So?
If the Founding Fathers wanted to protect the right of citizens to keep and bear arms (as you're suggesting), they would have said so in the second amendment.
They did.
Apparently you have difficulty with standard English.
So here is the 2nd in toto:
A well regulated militia being a necessity to a Free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.
Therefore the Fathers didn't intend to enumerate the right to bear arms merely for citizens. They could have easily written that word into the Amendment.
Instead they said "the people". They didn't say "the States" or "Free white landowning males" they said "the people".
They said that because that's what they meant.
Your lies, distortions, and obfuscations of this simple, clearly worded Amendment are tiresome.
L
You're in the minority here in believing that the Militia clause limited the scope of the pre-existing right to keep and bear arms. Are your rules of grammar different from other peoples'?
But you did state that in post 236. Here is what you said:
If we're looking for the original meaning of "the people" in the second amendment, then 1792 is the place to go. We have the Militia Act telling us exactly who was in the Militia.
You seem to be backtracking from your earlier statements now because you're locked into the interpretation of white property owners only as defining "the people". It's an important distinction because as far as I know women too were protected under the BoR from the very beginning as they were considered citizens of the US as were non-property owning males.
You are free however to show me case law that says otherwise or provide a precedent whereby they had no such rights. The only ones I'm aware of involve slaves who were not considered citizens.