Re: The 2ed Amendment as a Gun Nuts Wet Dream

The Lone Weasel wrote:

> [EMAIL PROTECTED] (ulTRAX) wrote in message news:<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>...
>
>
> > It's rather curious that the Gun Nuts find a universal right to bear
> > arms in language that clearly doesn't intend one: "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."
> >
> > If the First Congress intended a universal right all they had to do
> > was simply write "Congress shall make no law abridging the right to
> > bear arms." Now that would be a Gun Nut's wet dream. No more having to
> > rewrite history or force round pegs in square holes.
> >   
> > How about "People being necessary to the security of a free state, the
> > right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."
> >
> > Or better yet: "A unorganized rabble, being necessary to the security
> > of a free state, the right of untrained people to keep and bear arms,
> > shall not be infringed."
> >
> > Any others?
>
>
> That's an elegant and devastating argument.  Another variation
> available to Madison and the First Congress would have been language
> similar to the Pennsylvania Constitution of 1776:
>
> "XIII. That the people have a right to bear arms for the defence 
> of themselves and the state; and as standing armies in the time 
> of peace are dangerous to liberty, they ought not to be kept up; 
> And that the military should be kept under strict subordination 
> to, and governed by, the civil power."
>
> There was no debate of including such language in the militia
> amendment to the U.S. Constitution.  Your example: "Congress shall
> make no law abridging the right to bear arms" would have covered
> militia and personal rkba; no "preamble" required.
>
> I've never seen a credible rebuttal of this argument.


	The Second Amendment's wording offers a much higher protection of the right of 
the people to keep and bear arms than does the First Amendment which merely 
states that "Congress shall make no law".  The Second Amendment states that the 
right "shall not be infringed", which means not only shall no law be passed, the 
federal AND state government may not interfere in any way with the people's 
ownership of, possession of, and use of arms.

Pat Hines