Are Our Second Amendment Rights Hanging On A Comma?

Blogger News Network ^ | November 10, 2007

[Military family member]

a well regulated militia being necessary... is NOT a present participle.

The present participle is a verb form ending in -ing

[The KG9 Kid]

The learned vocabulary and classic punctuation style of our revered Founders being decided by a modern society that uses the 'F'-word as a comma.

Well, that's just F'in great.

[M Kehoe]

"Should the high court decide to grant review, Legal Times reports that its ruling may not hinge on the actual words comprising the Second Amendment, but to the commas that separate those words into clauses:"

"Our rights are God-given and implanted within us. They're not dependent on the placement of a comma for their existence." - goldstategop

Tell that to gun control advocates.

The only thing the "gun control advocates," need to know is that taking 280 million firearms from the People will be ugly, very ugly.

5.56mm

[tarheelswamprat]

The spacing of the words makes it seems that they did indeed goof and add an extraneous comma. But it is very difficult to confirm.

There was no "goof". The presence or absence of the commas makes absolutely no difference to the meaning of the sentence. It is simply a matter of style.

This whole line of argument is nothing more than a specious contrivance and sophistry.

[ASA Vet]

What part of “...shall not be infringed.” do they not understand?

They understand they haven't yet been tarred and feathered, so they assume they can infringe all they want.

[Gondring]

This link takes one to a download of an image of the Bill of Rights from the National Archives site. Zoom in on the amendment (remember that two didn't pass, so it's listed as the Fourth), and though it appears to just have a leader for the "s" character, it's probably meant as a comma (as in the sixth ([fourth] amendment). It's tricky, though, because the text isn't consistent in spacing or the character shape.

[ctdonath2]

Several “original” copies of the BoR are inconsistent on comma usage. Considering that other contemporary documents freely included or excluded commas, apparently commas were more optional decoration than definitive indicators of meaning.

Even if we go with the 3-comma version as definitive, what we end up with is a statement amounting to “a well-regulated militia IS the people keeping and bearing arms, whose right shall not be infringed”.

[nosofar]

The printing press was invented long before the U.S. Constitution was written. I wonder what the first *printed* copy of the Constitution looks like.

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

***“A Box of Jelly Donuts, being necessary to feed Elvis***

I like the way Charlie Reese said it years ago..

“A well educated elite, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to become educated shall not be infringed.”

Does this mean that ONLY the elite can be educated?

[17th Miss Regt]

I like to apply this approach to the 13th Amendment as well. It is clear from the commas that in the 13th Amendment that both slavery and involuntary servitude were prohibited unless as a result of sentencing by a court. (Thus the courts retained the ability to imprison people for various offenses.) Becuase of the ‘and’ connective and the comma, it is also clear that the courts retained the ability to enslave people for various offenses. Isn’t a lack of understanding of grammar fun?

[Spirochete]

The only thing the "gun control advocates," need to know is that taking 280 million firearms from the People will be ugly, very ugly.

It was a cakewalk in NOLA post-Katrina. I can't find any instances of homeowners shooting at gun-grabbing LEOs.

[Anti-Bubba182]

This is Horse Manure!!! The Militia at that time was every able bodied male. Commas and shyster courts be damned!

[M Kehoe]

It was a cakewalk in NOLA post-Katrina. I can't find any instances of homeowners shooting at gun-grabbing LEOs.

I appreciate your skepticism, but not exactly.

The city of New Orleans is in the middle of paying a price. I'm sure you are current with that (NRA Federal court).

Some people in New Orleans did refuse to part with their weapons. No shoot out occurred. Plus, the situation in Miami after Andrew was totally different. Everyone was armed, and there was little crime. Even in Liberty City.

Then again, in the Revolutionary War, only 33% of the colonists fought the King. Pretty bad odds, huh?

Again, I appreciate your skepticism, but what would go down, over time, would make our Civil War look like a walk in the park on a warm spring day.

Trust me.

5.56mm

[gpk9]

Any conclusion, however derived, that the 2nd amendment doesn't apply to individual citizens is a logical absurdity ignoring the text of the amendment itself.

To be able to call up a militia, the people from which that militia is called up must have arms... guns, and yes, even "assault" weapons.

[Sidebar: Switzerland is a beautiful example of what OUR Constitution says. The Swiss population is heavily armed... with military-style weapons.

The deterence of a heavily armed population is beyond argument. Hitler avoided Switzerland in WWII. Liberal historians claim it was the mountains that kept Hitler out. That is BS. Switzerland's heavily armed population kept Hitler out.]

The 2nd amendment is tied directly to Art 1 Sec 8 Par 12 declaring that no appropriation for an army shall be for more than two years, and Art 1 Sec 8 Par 16 declaring that militia officers and training shall be from the states involved, preserving state-loyalty.

Framers of the Constitution did not want America to have an ongoing military force. They intended that militias be called up from the population at large when the need for military force arises.

Reliance on called-up-militias is clear evidence that military force was intended to be used only to protect American soil from outside invasion or internal insurrection, and clear evidence that the Framers did not want America intervening in the affairs of other nations nor sending troops abroad.

I don't know how anyone can support the 2nd Amendment and support the war in Iraq. That war is clearly a violation of the Constitution's intent.

[Billthedrill]

...the trouble is there is sharp disagreement over which clause is dependent and which is independent.

Only among the completely illiterate. It says what it says and there isn't any honest doubt about it. There is a good deal of pettifogging, bluster, deliberate mischaracterization and wishful thinking, but no honest doubt.

The issue is over one of the most fundamental of civil rights, the right to self-protection and protection of one's family. That's one reason it is the Second, and not the Forty-fifth, Amendment. If there were needed any further proof of the utter corruption of the ACLU it would be the position they have taken on this civil right.

[SuziQ]

I think the amendment means exactly what it says. The militia was made up of men who owned their own guns, and could be called forward at a moment's notice. This idea of a ready militia is predicated on the RIGHT of those individuals to own a gun, thus being armed and available. If individuals didn't have the right to own a gun, what good would they have been, if their country had needed them?

So the right to own came before the militia.

[SuziQ]

Does this mean that ONLY the elite can be educated?

Interesting question. Considering the state of much of public education, and the fact that the wealthy send their kids to private schools, the writer might indeed have meant exactly what YOU interpreted. ;o)

[Old North State]

I think that if the you argue that the right of the people to keep arms is dependent on the need for a militia then it would be incumbent on you to make the argument that the militia is no longer necessary and then get enough votes to amend the constitution. The right is clearly enunciated and should not be canceled by interpretation. It is, as are all parts of the constitution, open to change by amendment but no one, not even the supreme court has the right just to nullify what they don’t like by fiat.

[ANGGAPO]

There was a lot of writing at the time of the constitution about the necessity of firearms in the hands of the “People”. Unfortunately the gun-grabbers of today can’t read.

[Beagle8U]

“Does this mean that ONLY the elite can be educated?”

No. And it wouldn’t mean that only Elvis could eat jelly donuts.

Bottom line is that it doesn’t matter the reason given for the right. It only matters that it is a right.