2nd Amendment, Scalia and what the Founders meant: Commas, Common Sense and Justice. The question is how to interpret the comma after 'free state.'

[M14 Shooter]

I posted a website that has the debates of the Founding Fathers that says that "bear arms" is synonymous with "render military service" and "militia duty."

Repeating your disproven nonsense achieves nothing.

 

[RetiredGySgt]

Repeating your disproven nonsense achieves nothing.

it is simply amazing that progressives recognize that every other amendment that says the people is an individual right but somehow the second isnt according to them.

 

[M14 Shooter]

it is simply amazing that progressives recognize that every other amendment that says the people is an individual right but somehow the second isnt according to them.

They know they can lie faster than we can disprove them.
They know they can prey upon the emotions of the ignorant.
They know the state cannot have a monopoly on force as the citizenry remains armed.

They are exactly the people the 2nd Amendment was created to protect us from.

 

[2aguy]

Is it clear language?

I posted a website that has the debates of the Founding Fathers that says that "bear arms" is synonymous with "render military service" and "militia duty."

In fact different versions of the future 2A had different wording too.

June 8th 1789

"but no person religiously scrupulous of bearing arms shall be compelled to render military service in person."

August 17th 1789

"but no person religiously scrupulous shall be compelled to bear arms."

August 24th 1789

"but no one religiously scrupulous of bearing arms shall be compelled to render military service in person."

So, they went back and forth with this, using "render military service" and "bear arms" to mean the same thing.

In George Washington's SENTIMENTS ON A PEACE ESTABLISHMENT, 1783 he wrote:

"and consequently that the Citizens of America... from 18 to 50 Years of Age should be borne on the Militia Rolls,"

And:

""by making it universally reputable to bear Arms and disgraceful to decline having a share in the performance of Military duties;"

Clearly Washington also saw "bear arms" as the same thing.

Is that not clear?

And I doubt you even understand what I'm writing here.

I'm saying the right to keep arms is the right to own a weapon. And yet here you are saying my argument is about banning guns. Huh?

The right to bear arms is the right to be in the militia.


It's logical. The first words of the 2A are "A well regulated militia", what's the clause about? It's about protecting the militia.

How do you do this?

You prevent the govt from taking away people's guns. So they can use those guns in the militia, or give them to people to use in the militia. But if the government can ban people from being in the militia, then there could be no militia.

As Mr Gerry said in the House in 1789:

"Now, I am apprehensive, sir, that this clause would give an opportunity to the people in power to destroy the constitution itself. They can declare who are those religiously scrupulous, and prevent them from bearing arms."

Amendment II: House of Representatives, Amendments to the Constitution

He's saying that if they can say people are religiously scrupulous of being in the militia, they can ban whole groups of people, based on their religion, from being in the militia, and therefore destroy the militia as an effective check and balance and therefore destroy the Constitution by having a dictatorship take over.

But you just don't bother to read, or understand, what people post. You've decided already what you think I've said, and you go with that. It's ridiculous.

And the religious exemption for the militia has no bearing on the Right. The Right to keep and bear arms is not dependent on being in a militia. No matter how you try to word salad this issue, the Right is an individual Right.

 

[AZrailwhale]

Also, while many will read in terms of "only" firearms, "arms" includes swords, spears, battle-axes, bows-n-arrows, crossbows, catapults, cannons, bazookas, etc. ....

Not to mention privately owned warships.

 

[frigidweirdo]

it is simply amazing that progressives recognize that every other amendment that says the people is an individual right but somehow the second isnt according to them.

Who is saying it's not an individual right?

It's amazing that people decide what they think a person is saying without actually reading what they're saying.

We call this "******* STUPID".

 

[frigidweirdo]

And the religious exemption for the militia has no bearing on the Right. The Right to keep and bear arms is not dependent on being in a militia. No matter how you try to word salad this issue, the Right is an individual Right.

Get this.
I've not said it's not an individual right.

This isn't the issue we're talking about.

Why on EARTH do you think we're talking about an individual right?

Oh, because that's what happens when you come onto a forum like this. You fight these anti-gun people who tell you it's not an individual right, so you think anyone saying anything you don't like must be talking about it not being an individual right.

I HAVE NOT SAID ANYWHERE THAT THESE TWO RIGHTS ARE NOT INDIVIDUAL.

Post 244

"They made the "organized militia" and the "unorganized militia" so they could have a professional militia in which individuals could not demand to be in, because the "unorganized militia" is where you go if you want to exercise your right to bear arms. And it's very unorganized."

I refer to it as individual.

Post 236

"So, they can't prevent you from owning a gun. So, if they said "you can buy this and that and the other gun but you can't buy that gun over there", have they restricted you from owning a gun? No, they haven't."

Post 228

""The people" as in, all individuals, have the right to be in the militia. And they also have the right to own militia type weaponry (small arms mostly)."

This is posts I've written on THIS TOPIC in the last five days.

 

[frigidweirdo]

They know they can lie faster than we can disprove them.
They know they can prey upon the emotions of the ignorant.
They know the state cannot have a monopoly on force as the citizenry remains armed.

They are exactly the people the 2nd Amendment was created to protect us from.

You talk about lying, and yet I haven't said they're not individual rights, and you accuse me of lying because you think I'm talking about some kind of collective right.

You are so ******* stupid.

 

[Leo123]

This argument has been around for a very long time. The question is how to interpret the comma after “free state.” It's incredible that it took a heavily stacked court to rule as they did. I support gun ownership. Have been a gun owner. I have never been in or desired to join a militia. Why would I? I'm no Timothy McVeigh.


Opinion | Commas, Common Sense and Justice - John McWhorter - You’re reading the John McWhorter newsletter. A Columbia University linguist explores how race and language shape our politics and culture.

Like language itself, punctuation is always in a state of flux.

If you are of a certain age, notice how you are likely using exclamation points more lately. It has become a mark of agreeability in a way that would mystify a time traveler from as recently as a couple decades ago. “See you in a bit!” “I looked for you yesterday but you weren’t there!” I now email like that.

This is part of a long story Florence Hazrat tells in “On the Mark: From Periods to Interrobangs, How Punctuation Remade the World,” due out in August...

It’s a roller coaster of a story. Ancient Greek had no spaces between words, Hazrat writes, and Aristophanes of Byzantium, a librarian in Alexandria, found it cumbersome...

In considering how the history of punctuation can affect history itself, Hazrat touches on the role of commas in the 2008 Supreme Court ruling that the Constitution’s Second Amendment — “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” — protects the rights of all people, not just militia members, to possess firearms. Hazrat finds the reasoning behind the ruling, District of Columbia v. Heller, is absurd. I agree.

The question is how to interpret the comma after “free state.” Justice Antonin Scalia, the author of the ruling, wrote that the comma set apart a mere preface to the “operative clause” of the amendment — the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. Hazrat writes that Scalia’s analysis followed the tradition of the most conservative pro-gun advocates to take the part of the amendment before that comma as throat-clearing, with all the intention of the amendment coming after that comma. Scalia argued that that preface in no way qualified or limited the intention of the Bill of Rights’ framers.

Essentially Scalia argued that the Founders meant, “A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms — something separate — shall not be infringed.”

Hazrat argues that commas should play no role in interpreting the amendment...

Rather, we should accept the most plausible interpretation of what the words mean. Until this century there was a broad understanding that the Founders meant that all clauses of the amendment, no matter how many there are, should be read together. As in, people should be able to bear arms to serve in a militia, not just for any reason they want.

I would add that the comma is less the issue than that Scalia’s interpretation is hopelessly forced. Scalia persuasively argued that in the late 18th century, “bear arms” referred to using weapons in various ways, not just in a militia. But it still leaves a crucial question: Why would the Founders bring up one type of gun ownership — when serving in a militia — if they wanted to approve all kinds of gun ownership? If they wanted to preface their proclamation, as Scalia claimed, they could have mentioned not only serving in a militia, but self-defense and hunting.

Under Scalia’s analysis, the following sentence would pass muster: “Basketball, aiding in health, sports, shall be encouraged.” Such a sentence is beyond clumsy.

It insults the Founders to suppose that this sort of convolution was the best they could do when adjudicating something of such gravity.

It comes down to this: “Officials, being prone to partisan bias, Supreme Court justices, should interpret language according to what is most intuitive.”

If 'The People' were not allowed to bear arms, a militia would not be possible. Remember, a militia is not part of a regular army. The government has no control over a militia. Also a militia is the whole body of the physically fit civilians in the country. Sans any deployment of an organized government army, citizen civilians have the right to protect themselves with guns because by the time you call the government you could already be dead.

 

[Leo123]

Get this.
I've not said it's not an individual right.

This isn't the issue we're talking about.

Why on EARTH do you think we're talking about an individual right?

Oh, because that's what happens when you come onto a forum like this. You fight these anti-gun people who tell you it's not an individual right, so you think anyone saying anything you don't like must be talking about it not being an individual right.

I HAVE NOT SAID ANYWHERE THAT THESE TWO RIGHTS ARE NOT INDIVIDUAL.

Post 244

"They made the "organized militia" and the "unorganized militia" so they could have a professional militia in which individuals could not demand to be in, because the "unorganized militia" is where you go if you want to exercise your right to bear arms. And it's very unorganized."

I refer to it as individual.

Post 236

"So, they can't prevent you from owning a gun. So, if they said "you can buy this and that and the other gun but you can't buy that gun over there", have they restricted you from owning a gun? No, they haven't."

Post 228

""The people" as in, all individuals, have the right to be in the militia. And they also have the right to own militia type weaponry (small arms mostly)."

This is posts I've written on THIS TOPIC in the last five days.

They HAVE restricted you from owning a gun because that 'gun over there' is still a gun. The 2nd does not describe what type of gun you can own.

 

[frigidweirdo]

They HAVE restricted you from owning a gun because that 'gun over there' is still a gun. The 2nd does not describe what type of gun you can own.

No, it doesn't. But it's kind of implied in the nature of the amendment that it's militia type weaponry used by individual militia members.

It wasn't considered right to write what type of weaponry as it would make the amendment useless once muskets were obsolete.

 

[M14 Shooter]

You talk about lying

Yes.
Your statements...

The right to bear arms is the right to be in the militia.
"The people" as in, all individuals, have the right to be in the militia.

... is a lie. No such right exists.

 

[M14 Shooter]

So when the 2A says "shall not be infringed", it DOES NOT MEAN "shall not be infringed."

Tell us:
What did the people who wrote debated and ratified the Bill of Rights mean by "shall not be infringed"?
What restrictions on the possession and use firearms did they intend the 2nd Amendment to allow?
Prove your claims to be true.

 

[westwall]

No, it doesn't. But it's kind of implied in the nature of the amendment that it's militia type weaponry used by individual militia members.

It wasn't considered right to write what type of weaponry as it would make the amendment useless once muskets were obsolete.

Ok, so machine guns, artillery and the like are not to be regulated.

 

[Leo123]

No, it doesn't. But it's kind of implied in the nature of the amendment that it's militia type weaponry used by individual militia members.

It wasn't considered right to write what type of weaponry as it would make the amendment useless once muskets were obsolete.

I can find no description of the type of weapon a militia can have either and remember, the 'militia' encompasses all American citizens. There should be no restrictions at all. Besides even a Musket today can put a hole in you.

 

[Rumpole]

Now you're just lying.
You shan't waste any more of my time.

You don't know enough about the subject to make such a determination.

 

[Rumpole]

All of those reasons you have stated were secondary to the primary reason for the 2nd amendment, which is the ability to overthrow a corrupt, illegitimate government.

Please point me to any court ruling, ratification‑era debate, Patrick Henry's famous oratory, or historical document stating that the Second Amendment’s primary purpose is to empower citizens to overthrow a corrupt U.S. government.

But it's nice of you to show all of those beneficial reasons for gun ownership. Even the slave patrols may make a comeback as we American citizens are forced to rescue sex slaves from the cruel and depraved who are being protected by the government.

Uh, the 'militia' referred to in the Second Amendment is state controlled, and I doubt there is going to be any kind of band of militia types scouring the streets and back alleys looking for sex traffickers and pervs. You'll find some junkies and skid row types, but that's about it. WTF? You haven't thought that one through.

 

[Rumpole]

Nor is it now.

then explain to me why a number of court rulings are to that very point?

 

[Rumpole]

Actually it's you who have proven nothing. "The Right of the PEOPLE" is the only important part of the phrase. The militia part is merely the predicate

I'll accept that people have a constitutional right to own firearms. What the Second Amendment does not do is clearly define the scope of that right, and I think a modern amendment should. Fundamental questions about what weapons are protected, what regulations are permissible, and where the limits lie should not be left to the shifting interpretations of right- or left-leaning courts.

For that reason, I believe Bruen was wrongly decided and should be overturned. I also believe Heller rests on questionable historical interpretations. It should either be revisited and corrected or, if necessary, overturned outright. Constitutional rights should be governed by clear constitutional language, not by competing historical narratives filtered through the preferences of whichever judges happen to be on the bench.

 

[frigidweirdo]

Yes.
Your statements...

The right to bear arms is the right to be in the militia.
"The people" as in, all individuals, have the right to be in the militia.

... is a lie. No such right exists.

Except for the fact that I proved that the Founding Fathers used the term "bear arms" to mean "militia duty" and "render military service".

But you dismissed it without even looking because.... because you're an idiot who wants something to be true and will ignore ALL FACTS that get in the way.

So you can **** off.