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Former Member of the Supreme Court Wants to Add These Five Words to the Second Amendment
The Blaze ^ | 22 Feb 2014 | Jason Howerton

Posted on 02/22/2014 10:25:10 AM PST by mandaladon

Pro-gun advocates will likely be relieved that John Paul Stevens, 93, is now retired and no longer serving as a member of the Supreme Court. In his upcoming book, “Six Amendments: How and Why We Should Change the Constitution,” he argues for a slight change to the Second Amendment that would fundamentally alter its meaning.

As written by the Founding Fathers in the U.S. Constitution, the Second Amendment reads:

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. Stevens argues that the authors of the Second Amendment were mostly concerned about being oppressed by a national standing army, not so much about the right to self-defense.

So in order to reflect the changing times, he says, the Second Amendment should be altered to add five key words:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms when serving in the militia shall not be infringed.

“Emotional claims that the right to possess deadly weapons is so important that it is protected by the federal Constitution distort intelligent debate about the wisdom of particular aspects of proposed legislation designed to minimize the slaughter caused by the prevalence of guns in private hands,” Stevens writes in his defense of the change.

Stevens retired in 2010 after serving on the nation’s highest court for 35 years.

The odds of his crusade to transform the Second Amendment has little chance of even receiving serious consideration as Americans have rejected gun control efforts at the state and federal levels.

(Excerpt) Read more at theblaze.com ...


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Extended News; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: 2ndamendment; banglist; guns; scotus; secondamendment
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To: mandaladon

"I'm from the government and I'm here to help."
61 posted on 02/22/2014 12:08:50 PM PST by A Formerly Proud Canadian (I once was blind, but now I see...)
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To: JimRed
"are automatically considered to be part of and serving in the unorganized but well regulated militia.
Well regulated means that the rules say you belong. Did I overlook anything?"
Yes, arming them, like the (well regulated/armed) Swiss National Army Reserve.
(imho :) sell all unused/modern rifles to vets/well-trained & educated citizenry, the M-1/M-2/M-14, sell them
all @ a very discounted price.."a well-armed society, Is a polite society" and make any/all gov't. entities,
fear the well-armed & educated citizenry.

62 posted on 02/22/2014 12:10:40 PM PST by skinkinthegrass (The end move in politics is always to pick up a gun..0'Caligula / 0'Reid / 0'Pelosi)
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To: Hardastarboard

Punctuation is a clarifier...

She helped her Uncle Jack off the horse.
She helped her Uncle, Jack, off the horse.


63 posted on 02/22/2014 12:15:10 PM PST by xrmusn (6/98 --When you have them by the short hairs, the minds and hearts soon follow.)
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To: mandaladon

Control-freak nut and SCJ. How does that happen?

I don’t need their help to understand my Constitution.


64 posted on 02/22/2014 12:16:14 PM PST by 1010RD (First, Do No Harm)
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To: Campion
The whole point was that citizens would provide their own arms and ammmunition (and be experienced in using them); that was what made the militia “well-regulated”.

Absolutely.

In my summary of the Federalist Papers regarding the 2nd Amendment, which I recently reposted, it is clear in Federalist #29 that Hamilton's minimum expectation of the citizenry was that they would assemble periodically to prove that they could use their arms.


``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; and in order to see that this be not neglected, it will be necessary to assemble them once or twice in the course of a year.

-PJ

65 posted on 02/22/2014 12:16:38 PM PST by Political Junkie Too (If you are the Posterity of We the People, then you are a Natural Born Citizen.)
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To: Noumenon

How much damage have Marx, Engels and Keynes done from the grave?


66 posted on 02/22/2014 12:16:53 PM PST by 1010RD (First, Do No Harm)
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To: JimRed

States could pass laws stating that all citizens serve in the militia.


67 posted on 02/22/2014 12:17:28 PM PST by Perdogg (Ted Cruz-Rand Paul 2016)
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To: mandaladon

Contemplate the mangled bodies of your countrymen, and then say “what should be the reward of such sacrifices?” Bid us and our posterity bow the knee, supplicate the friendship and plough, and sow, and reap, to glut the avarice of the men who have let loose on us the dogs of war to riot in our blood and hunt us from the face of the earth? If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude than the animated contest of freedom — go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen!


68 posted on 02/22/2014 12:27:52 PM PST by Clinging Bitterly (I will not comply.)
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To: mandaladon

Stevens with his words shows how far away he has been from a free people. It bothers me that such people get to be high judges in a free society.


69 posted on 02/22/2014 12:28:06 PM PST by noinfringers2 ( /*)
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To: Political Junkie Too

“The militia was the general citizenry,................”

Might I add that the citizenry was ALREADY ARMED, militia or
no militia. I recommend James Madison’s ‘Federalist 46’ for
details.


70 posted on 02/22/2014 12:36:37 PM PST by Sivad (NorCal red turf)
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To: mandaladon

Oppression by a standing army is resisted by making certain that the government does not possess a monopoly on lethal force, thereby enabling the citizens upset the plans of the wicked. It is not a hard concept to understand, which means that those who advocate for gun control, are in fact advocating for a repressive government, and lying when any other reason is given.


71 posted on 02/22/2014 12:39:54 PM PST by GenXteacher (You have chosen dishonor to avoid war; you shall have war also.)
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To: goodnesswins

“Who are the Militia? The whole of the People, except for a few politicians.”

Attrib. to Noah Webster, nephew of Daniel Webster, MA congressman.


72 posted on 02/22/2014 12:40:30 PM PST by Pete from Shawnee Mission
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To: Sivad
Read this post of mine for a summary of Hamilton's Federalist #8 and #29, as well as Madison's #46, as regards the 2nd amendment.

The original meaning is all there, plain to see.

-PJ

73 posted on 02/22/2014 12:48:23 PM PST by Political Junkie Too (If you are the Posterity of We the People, then you are a Natural Born Citizen.)
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To: mandaladon

The people of the Ukraine to not agree with this Stevens moron.


74 posted on 02/22/2014 12:53:20 PM PST by Savage Beast (Hubris and denial overwhelm Western Civilization. Nemesis and tragedy follow.)
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To: eddie willers

Wish he’d retired in 2007.....


75 posted on 02/22/2014 12:57:47 PM PST by The_Media_never_lie (The media must be defeated any way it can be done.)
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To: mandaladon
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms when serving in the militia shall not be infringed.

So, Stevens would have us believe the US existed almost 250 years since the constitution was adopted, and no one in all that time knew what the founders meant until it dawned on him during the 21st century? Even the founders who lived years after the constitution was adopted never realized what they meant.

What a self-important fool he is, but unfortunately, the left is made up of millions just like him.

76 posted on 02/22/2014 1:12:36 PM PST by Will88
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To: Will88

Amazingly everyone thought the first 10 amendments were about individual rights all this time


77 posted on 02/22/2014 1:14:34 PM PST by GeronL (Vote for Conservatives not for Republicans!)
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To: mandaladon

Yea! Keep on wishing you old SOB!!!


78 posted on 02/22/2014 1:22:31 PM PST by ontap
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To: mandaladon

The left loves to point out our rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness but what value is a right to a life I cannot effectively defend?


79 posted on 02/22/2014 1:28:07 PM PST by muir_redwoods (When I first read it, " Atlas Shrugged" was fiction)
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To: mandaladon

Unacceptable.


80 posted on 02/22/2014 1:29:49 PM PST by matt1234 (Hitler blamed the Jews. Obama blames the Tea Party.)
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