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

Pat Hines <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message news:<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>...
> Leif Rakur 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.
> > 
> > 
> > Leif speaking:  Sure, except Congress would have used the word "carry"
> > rather than "bear," since the phrase "bear arms" referred specifically
> > to armed military service.
> 
>       No, it most certainly does not.  That argument is barely lucid.

Leif speaking Do you think "bear arms" means "carry arms" in this
passage from the Journals of the Continental Congress?

"And to prevent all disputes respecting the proper age of the drafts
and recruits, it is farther resolved that no person shall be received
as such, who shall be under the age of eighteen, or above that of
fifty, except in the case here after mentioned…But if there should be
among such rejected drafts or recruits, youths of above fifteen years
of age, healthy, robust, and likely to make able bodied soldiers when
of sufficient age, the Officers may agree to take such of them as will
enlist during the war as part of the quota of the State, and they may,
and shall be marched to the army, and employed until able to BEAR ARMS
, as drummers, fifers and officers servants, provided that the number
of such youths do not exceed the number of officers who are the quota
of the State, from which said youths are respectively sent." (My caps)
(A report from the Board of War, Journals of the Continental Congress
vol. 16, p. 249, March  11, 1780)

http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/hlaw:@field([EMAIL PROTECTED](jc0162))

-Leif

> 
> >>   
> >>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?