Changing the 2nd Amendment

SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/69642_guned.shtml

It is disturbing, though not surprising, that the federal government has decided after numerous decades of settled thinking on the Second Amendment to reinterpret its position.

The marked shift, formalized in a pair of footnotes to legal briefs submitted Monday to the U.S. Supreme Court, occurs because of the deeply held beliefs of the man who is now leading the Justice Department, Attorney General John Ashcroft.

Last summer, in a letter to the National Rifle Association, Ashcroft foreshadowed the change in official thinking. "Let me state unequivocally my view that the text and the original intent of the Second Amendment clearly protects the right of individuals to keep and bear firearms," he wrote.

The department's departure is profound from philosophical and practical standpoints.

Until now, through Republican and Democratic administrations alike, the Justice Department has been in virtual lockstep with the high court's position on the Second Amendment, as last stated in the 1939 decision, United States v. Miller. In that case the court said the amendment protects only those gun ownership rights that have "some reasonable relationship to the preservation of efficiency of a well regulated militia."

While legal scholarship on the exceedingly volatile amendment has seesawed between the two disparate views, the courts have been generally unified in their thinking -- adhering to the Miller decision in more than 100 federal and state appellate cases -- until last fall.

Then, in the prosecution of a Texan for violating a 1994 federal gun law, the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals departed from precedent to maintain that the amendment protects the individual right to bear arms. It did say those rights could be subject to "limited, narrowly tailored specific exceptions."

It should be noted that the department, while announcing its change of heart on the basic thrust of the amendment, does not disagree that gun ownership can be curtailed to some extent. And the department would prefer that the high court not involve itself in the Texas case or its companion on appeal, the case of a man convicted of owning two machine guns in violation of the ban against them.

We disagree. Though couched in a footnote, the pointed challenge to decades of unified thinking by the judiciary -- the perspective that ultimately counts -- has been made.

The time is ripe, as is said in legal parlance, for the high court to weigh in again on the Second Amendment and, it can be hoped, reaffirm the position that the Constitution guarantees only a collective right to guns through state and federal militias, not an individual's absolute right. Otherwise, the door will open wide to weakening the responsible gun laws that protect us all.

This quote has always ended any argument I've ever had with a gun-grabber because, you really can't dispute an explanation of the Second Amendment made by one of the people who wrote the Second Amendment:

The project of disciplining all the militia of the United States is as
futile as it would be injurious, if it were capable of being carried
into execution. A tolerable expertness in military movements is a
business that requires time and practice. It is not a day, or even a
week, that will suffice for the attainment of it. To oblige the great
body of the yeomanry, and of the other classes of the citizens, to be
under arms for the purpose of going through military exercises and
evolutions, as often as might be necessary to acquire the degree of
perfection which would entitle them to the character of a well-regulated
militia, would be a real grievance to the people, and a serious public
inconvenience and loss. It would form an annual deduction from the
productive labor of the country, to an amount which, calculating upon
the present numbers of the people, would not fall far short of the whole
expense of the civil establishments of all the States. To attempt a
thing which would abridge the mass of labor and industry to so
considerable an extent, would be unwise: and the experiment, if made,
could not succeed, because it would not long be endured. Little more can
reasonably be aimed at, with respect to the people at large, than to
have them properly armed and equipped...

-Hamilton, The Federalist No. 29

It is clear to me that the posters here far exceed the Seattle Post-Intelligencer in both legal and historical knowledge of the subject of the Second amendment. This paper's editorial board is either completely at the command of anti constitutional leftists, or they belong to that agenda themselves. As pointed out in post after post, this paper's assertions are based on distortion, half, quarter, and non truths, and are meant to prejudice the thinking of the currently undereducated and ignorant. Their deliberate distortion of Miller is obvious, the omission of any mention the vast fund of writings and opinion that offer clarification of the intent of the Founding Fathers, from the Federalist Papers and the personal writings of Adams, Jefferson and others, is simply unforgivable. There is absolutely no ambiguity to the reading of the exact wording of the Second Amendment, unless it is dishonestly introduced for the purpose of dilution and obfuscation of the true intent of the amendment.

The way I understand it, the word "regulated" has a significantly different meaning in present day interpretation from that of the late 18th century. Today's definition of the word "regulated" would tend to bring joy the heart of any bureaucratic leftist, in other words, "burdensome rules, laws, restrictions, and red tape." This interpretation of meaning is born of two centuries of governmental detritus, the sedimentary concretions known to us as "governmental regulation". Though certainly the concept of bureaucratic burden was clearly known and a part of life in the late 18th century, that is not what was mean by "well regulated militia". What was meant was "well organized and equipped". This was an answer to the argument for the establishment of of a standing, professional army. This debate was a point of serious controversy at that time, largely forgotten today. In the light of this fact, the reading of

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.

becomes clear, the second clause supports the first, as a "people's" militia logically requires that the "people", made up of individuals and not of the State, each own their own form of "arms", be it swords, pistols, rifles, or particle beam weapons. This very open concept of a militia, meaning able bodied citizens, has remained to this day, regardless of the establishment of the professional military and the national guard. There can be no doubt as to what the final clause was meant to ensure, the right of the people to keep and bear arms. This paper advocates that right's infringement by the government. Therefore, this paper advocates opposition to and the dismantling of the United States Constitution. I recommend that local Freepers write this paper in volume, and make this fact absolutely clear to it's readers, in case there is or has ever been any doubt.

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