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

Why do you have to delete half the militia amendment to make 
it say what you want?

"A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of 
a free state..."

Here's what Joseph Story thought about the well-regulated 
militia and the security it afforded a free state:

[begin excerpt] 

Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution 3:§§ 1890--91 
1833

§ 1890. The importance of this article will scarcely be 
doubted by any persons, who have duly reflected upon the 
subject. The militia is the natural defence of a free 
country against sudden foreign invasions, domestic 
insurrections, and domestic usurpations of power by rulers. 
It is against sound policy for a free people to keep up 
large military establishments and standing armies in time of 
peace, both from the enormous expenses, with which they are 
attended, and the facile means, which they afford to 
ambitious and unprincipled rulers, to subvert the 
government, or trample upon the rights of the people. The 
right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been 
considered, as the palladium of the liberties of a republic; 
since it offers a strong moral check against the usurpation 
and arbitrary power of rulers; and will generally, even if 
these are successful in the first instance, enable the 
people to resist and triumph over them. And yet, though this 
truth would seem so clear, and the importance of a well 
regulated militia would seem so undeniable, it cannot be 
disguised, that among the American people there is a growing 
indifference to any system of militia discipline, and a 
strong disposition, from a sense of its burthens, to be rid 
of all regulations. How it is practicable to keep the people 
duly armed without some organization, it is difficult to 
see.


Story, Joseph. Commentaries on the Constitution of the 
United States. 3 vols. Boston, 1833.

From:http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/
amendIIs10.html

[end excerpt]

You sound like those old Americans who didn't care about the 
militia if it meant following discipline laid out by Congress 
according to Article I, Section 8, Clause 16 of the US 
Constitution, eh Ol' Dreg?

A lengthy security crisis in the states caused by that 
indifference Story refers to is what led to the organization 
of new volunteer militia units, almost all of them called the 
"National Guard" by 1879 - decades before the Dick Act of 
1903 adopted the name.

"Ol' Reb" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]: 

> What part of  "the right of the people to keep and bear
> arms shall not be infringed." don't you understand?
> 
> 
> "ulTRAX" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 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?
> 
> 
> 



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