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

Diogenes wrote:
> 
> Steve Krulick wrote:
> > Scout wrote:
> >
> >>"Leif Rakur" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> >>news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> >>
> >>>"Scout" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> >>
> >>news:<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>...
> >>
> >>>>"Leif Rakur" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> >>>>
> >>>>>"Do you think "bear arms" means "carry arms" in this passage from the
> >>>>>Journals of the Continental Congress?":
> >>>>
> >>>>Ok, then let's answer the question.
> >>>>
> >>>>Yes, they certainly must be large/strong enough to carry the arms they
> >>>
> >>would
> >>
> >>>>bear, before they could do so.
> >>>
> >>>Leif speaking:  Do you really believe that "healthy, robust" youths of
> >>>15 through 17 years of age wouldn't be able to carry arms?
> >>
> >>Some could, some may not be able to. That's why they had to show they could
> >>do so.
> >
> 
> <snip to the point>
> >
> > There is NOTHING in the drafting and debating and passage of the
> > 2nd Amen that speaks about "individual gun ownership"
> > independent of militia service! It's all about state versus
> > federal control and arming of the militia, and the virtues of
> > militias versus standing armies, since it's a MILITIA amendment
> > and NOT a GUN amendment!
> >
> 
> Half true, but an intentional deception intended to give one the impression
> the matter was never mentioned at all and nothing could be further from the
> truth, as witnessed by the Pennsylvania Dissent, the driving force behind
> the antifederalist demands for a statement of rights.

The drafting and debating and passage of the 2nd Amen took place
in Congress in 1789; the "Dissent" was in 1787, two years
earlier! The minority lost in PA and were roundly scorned; when
the federalists won big in the Congressional elections of 1788,
ALL anti-fed attempts to get a BoR would have gone down the
drain, but for the integrity of federalist Madison, who conceded
to drafting one IF he won, and he did.

But my statement is TRUE and you haven't shown otherwise from
the period I mentioned. NO SERIOUS critic of the Const was
arguing for a personal right to own and use guns independent of
militia service in that period and context.
 
> "That the people have a right to bear arms for the defense of themselves
> and their own state, or the United States, or for the purpose of killing
> game; and no law shall be passed for disarming the people or any of them,
> unless for crimes committed, or real danger of public injury from
> individuals; and as standing armies in the time of peace are dangerous to
> liberty, they ought not to be kept up; and that the military shall be kept
> under strict subordination to and be governed (p.143)by the civil powers."

Ha! the old hokum "Pennsylvania Minority Report!"

Well, since no such language like it appears in the BoR, clearly
this is NOT what Madison and the gang wanted to say! There were
enough other examples that WERE closer to what was eventually
written, that if this one piece never existed it wouldn't have
made a difference. That it was derided by such as Noah Webster,
and that the lone author (it was never debated item by item or
voted on item by item; the other printed works contradict it and
the other authors who contributed to the compilation, so we
don't know exactly what the "official" version of this
unofficial pastiche was), who only wanted to sink the federalist
plans, would be held up by Madison as the source of HIS agenda
(to sink the anti-fed plans to hold a new const convention) is
absurd.

In the entire history of the universe of the late 18th Century,
this is the ONE AND ONLY example of THIS particular usage the
hoplophiles have EVER dug up! Why is that? Why does DY and the
claque ignore the HUNDREDS of consistent and RATIFIED LEGAL
USES, and hold up as holy grail ONE, REJECTED draft by ONE CRANK
whose only purpose was to scuttle the Constitution process? IF
this were common usage, why are there NO OTHER similar uses?
NONE! EVERY debated, passed, ratified OFFICIAL document that
uses "bear arms" through the pre-Civil War era has only ONE
meaning, and HUNTING is NOT EVER referred to!

DY has not addressed my serious challenges to the validity of
this, but has side-stepped with irrelevant factoids, nor has he
refuted the comments of Wills and others that I presented.

What slim reeds these disingenuous hoplophiles build their cases
on!

It is one aberrant and questionable "fifth-leg"! Look at
how a REAL historian described the process,
Pulitzer-Prize-winner Gary Wills
(http://www.potomac-inc.org/garwills.html):

It is impossible to follow the gun people into every thicket of
their linguistic wild-hare chase, but one passage must be
considered since it comes up again and again in the new
writings. Even the sensible essay in the Tennessee Law Review by
Colonel Charles J. Dunlap, Jr., says that "the minority of the
Pennsylvania state convention that voted to adopt the
Constitution" put "killing game" among the objects of a "right
to bear arms." 19 That is now the customary way for the Standard
Modelers to refer to the passage at issue: it is the position of
"the minority" in the Pennsylvania ratifying convention. That
makes it sound like the view of a considerable body of men
(though not the majority). Dunlap took his information from an
article written in a law journal by Robert Dowlut, the General
Counsel of the National Rifle Association— an affiliation that
helps explain the wide dissemination of this argument. 20 

It is true that an omnium gatherum of arguments against the
Constitution was hastily assembled and published five days after
Pennsylvania's ratification of the Constitution. The author was
probably the propagandist Samuel Bryan, not himself a delegate
in the convention, but one who took what the minority delegates
gave him, including a hastily scribbled last-minute set of
objections raised by Robert Whitehill. 21 Whitehill is well
described in his Dictionary of American Biography entry: 

He was one of the small group which in this period fanned
jealousies and suspicions of the Pennsylvania back country into
an opposition which was probably the most vehement experienced
by any state and nearly resulted in armed conflict... At no
period of his official career did Whitehill reflect better his
back-country views than as a member of the Pennsylvania
convention to ratify the federal Constitution (1787). In the
Assembly he sought a delay in the election of delegates ...In
the convention he resorted to every device to delay and defeat
ratification. He insisted that there were inadequate safeguards
against a tyranny and on the day of ratification attempted,
without avail, to have fifteen articles incorporated as a bill
of rights. 

Whitehill brought his fifteen proposals into the convention, on
the day scheduled for a final vote, in order to abort the
process. He made them the basis of a motion to adjourn without
voting. The record of the Convention describes the turmoil over
this last-minute effort at obstruction: 

Some confusion arose on these articles being presented to the
chair, objections were made by the majority to their being
officially read, and, at last, Mr. [James] Wilson desired that
the intended motion might be reduced to writing in order to
ascertain its nature and extent. Accordingly, Mr. Whitehill drew
it up, and it was read from the chair... 22 

Whitehill's motion to adjourn was denied, the majority voted for
the Constitution, and Whitehill's fifteen destructive proposals
were never even debated by the convention. Some of Whitehill's
fifteen points resembled other calls for a bill of rights, calls
later answered in the first ten amendments; but others were
merely frivolous, or were aimed at entirely gutting the draft
Constitution. In the latter category was proposal fifteen, which
began, "That the sovereignty, freedom, and independence of the
several states shall be retained..." (exactly the state's
position under the existing Articles). 

Whitehill's objection to the militia clause of the Constitution
was put in these words: 

11. That the power of organizing, arming, and disciplining the
militia (the manner of disciplining the militia to be prescribed
by Congress) remains with the individual states, and that
Congress shall not have authority to call or march any of the
militia out of their own state, without the consent of such
state and for such length of time only as such state shall
agree. 23 

This would not only have canceled the militia clause in the
draft Constitution but would have repealed Articles VII and VIII
of the Articles of Confederation. Not even Whitehill had any
real hope of doing that. It is a measure of his desire to throw
up any, even the wildest, objection to the Constitution that he
could have drafted this proposal, one surely not backed by
others in the minority. 24 

Following his throw-in-the-kitchen-sink approach, Whitehill
introduced some language going back to English gaming laws and
"enclosures," 25 as if hunting were in peril from the
Constitution. 

8. The inhabitants of the several states shall have liberty to
fowl and hunt in seasonable times, on the lands they hold, and
on all other lands in the United States not enclosed... 

It is in the context of these scattershot objections, hastily
assembled to be purely destructive, that we should read the part
of Whitehill's list that gun advocates like to quote as the
"minority position": 

7. That the people have a right to bear arms for the defense of
themselves and their own state, or the United States, or for the
purpose of killing game... 

This sentence turns out to be redundant when he goes on, in
Proposal 8, to protect a separate right to hunt. He begins a
complex sentence with "right to bear arms" and then throws in
everything he can think of— illogically, since he is about to
take up hunting in a different proposal. He has confused, in his
haste, different things— war and killing game— under one head
("bear arms"). He is a desperate man by now, unable to make his
own motion coherently enough for the convention to understand
it, until he is forced to put it in writing. 

It is a sign of the desperation of the Standard Modelers that
they take these ill-conceived phrases of Whitehill as the
deliberated position of a whole "minority," and want to make
them the text that controls our interpretation of "bear arms" in
the Second Amendment— a text which was still to be drafted,
debated, and clarified in the entirely military context Madison
would give it. Did even Whitehill mean what he was saying? Or,
as in his attack on the Articles along with the Constitution,
was he just babbling to head off the impending vote? This was
not a serious proposal, and it was not treated seriously by the
convention. That Bryan included it in his response to the act of
ratification just shows that he needed to add quick bulk to a
publication that is not itself well organized or particularly
coherent, but repetitive, random, full of discordant elements.
26 

I must apologize for pursuing this one instance of the gun
advocates' mode of argument. It shows how difficult it is to
track down their many misrepresentations. They take an isolated
odd usage by an idiosyncratic man in a moment of little
reflection, misrepresent it as the considered position of a
group, and pit it against the vast body of normal usage, as that
is qualified by legal usage and military context. Yet this is
the argument that many gun advocates consider their "clincher."
Robert Whitehill did them a favor they repay by hiding his name
and confusing the responsibility for his frantic "proposals." 


And here's how I responded to Randy Sweeney, another grasper of
a very thin straw:

Sorry, but I've already given you very extensive arguments why
the "PA Dissent" (basically the confused and rushed writings of
one crank, for which Sweeney was NEVER able to provide an
original copy to prove it wasn't an error or typo) can't be
taken seriously in this regard. 

No, hunting was mentioned, in passing -- assuming it was even
SUPPOSED to be there, and not an error! -- strictly in the
larger CONTEXT of military organization!

If there are HUNDREDS, or even thousands, of military uses in
context, and ONE or even two questionable and probably erroneous
uses pop up, do we weigh the questionable and aberrant .001%
equally with the 99.999% that show consistent legal, official,
educated, STANDARD usage? "ALL STANDARD, official, and
legal times" or certainly at least 99.999%! Even in the supposed
Whitehill cite, the vast bulk of the article, in context, is
already military! The out-of-place reference to "game" looks
bizarre and makes no sense in any official and weighty treatment
of such an important governmental concern, particularly since he
goes on to THAT concern in the very next article anyway. To even
find "killing game" in the same line as "defense of... the
United States" is ludicrous on its face, and points to an
unreviewed and confused process, which the historical record of
the circumstances bears out. 

[Gary Will's cite went here]

And IF "killing game" were an ordinarily understood application
of "bearing arms," why would Whitehall have to point it out? Why
mention it specifically? IF "bearing arms" JUST meant "carrying
and using guns" why mention any reason at all? Why not just say,
"People have the right to bear arms for any purpose."? Or
simply, "People have the right to bear arms"? WHY do all the
official uses tie the right and bearing arms to a purpose, a
SPECIFIC, NARROW, LIMITING purpose, which is consistently, as
Adams said, "the common defence" or "the security of a free
state," as Congress said? Why don't THEY mention hunting, or
private individual self defense, or overthrowing the govt, or
ANY purpose other than common defence, as Whitehall may have
done, IF it wasn't just a typo on his part? Wouldn't THEY have
wanted to be clear and inclusive by mentioning some more reasons
IF there were any other reasons THAN common defence, or if
"bearing arms" meant anything other than militia service and
duty?

Finding a cat with five legs doesn't mean that the proper and
ordinary state of cats isn't to have four legs. A five-legged
cat is a mistake, an accident, an aberration; finding one
doesn't mean we now say that cats are "sometimes" four-legged,
as not EVERY cat has four legs, since we have found ONE with
FIVE. When a five-legged cat appears, it stands out as jarring,
because it is NOT the norm, and we recognize it immediately as
such, if we've had ANY ordinary experience with cats.

When one ONLY sees, again and again, official, legal, educated
and deliberated usage of "bear arms" to ONLY have a
militia/military context, the sudden appearance of ONE LONE
variance, is equally jarring and abnormal.

In all the history of the world, THIS is the only cite the
hoplophiles can find and drag out over and over! Surely, if the
usage were that varied, more than ONE SINGLE example could be
found!

The ONE, single cite I've seen of a non-military reference to
"bear arms" -- the Whitehill cite WHICH seems plopped in out of
place, and IS STILL ONLY USED AFTER A VALID AND NORMAL REFERENCE
has already occurred -- is like a five-legged cat; it seems on
the face of it to be a mistake, an accident, an aberration.
Dictionaries and official usage did not seem to find Whitehill's
lone cite a justification to change or add to the meaning of the
term "bear arms" and thus modify the standard language usage,
and the spurious and trivial nature of some of his proposals --
which earned derision from the likes of Noah Webster himself --
bring the seriousness and thoughtfulness of his entire effort
into question, which, after all, was ONLY a ploy to sink the PA
ratification of the new Const.

Whitehill's cite is NOT credible enough to throw away
every other consistent use. Because one finds ONE counterfeit
bill in one's wallet, does one throw away ALL one's money as
suspect and worthless? The Whitehill reference is not proven to
be anything but hasty, confused, and likely erroneous, or just
stupid and illiterate. 

The existence of a five-legged cat does NOT change the fact
that a four-legged cat IS the normal and standard issue for
cats. Militia/military reference is the normal and standard 18th
Century issue for "bear arms;" there isn't even a second-place
standard variation to point to, except possibly the figurative
use "to fight, oppose, struggle" that may not refer to actual
warfare with actual weapons, as "to bear arms against a sea of
troubles." 

(Or was Shakespeare talking about Hamlet wearing a gun in his
coat! Yes, I know that Will said "take up arms against" but
that's the point; I looked up "bear arms against a sea of
troubles" in my search engine, and at least FOUR of these
erroneous examples showed up! So does THAT mean we should print
"alternative" versions of Hamlet, or suggest that there is now
"substantial published evidence" that Shakespeare MAY have said
something other than what 99.999% of all published versions say?
THIS is the bogus logic used by those holding up ONE lone and
questionable cite in ALL of pre-1789 documentation to deny what
EVERY official cite clearly says.)

People have tried to force stores to sell them the TVs
advertised in the papers for $15.99 even though that was a typo
of the REAL $159.99 price; the law says that the store in not
necessarily bound to honor errors of the newspaper's art
department. 

If I said, "A man can't live a 'normal' life with a crowbar
blown through his brain and lodged in his skull," most people
would accept that as accurate and self-evident, and it would
have been, until a railroad worker had just that happen to him,
and he lived for years, with a bar protruding from below his
jaw, up through his brain, and out the top of his head! So do we
now suggest that people routinely shove crowbars through their
heads as non-fatal activity because ONE guy beat the odds?
(Likewise, *A* man has fallen thousands of feet without a
parachute and lived, too; but the standard and normal reality is
that IF someone falls thousands of feet without a parachute, you
will have 99.999% likelihood of being right IF you think he died
as a result.) As a rule, the sentence remains practically and
statistically valid, and if you want to put an asterisk at the
end of it, to point to ONE known case that "disproves" its 100%
record, be my guest now.

Whitehill's five-legged cat tripped and fell into a vat of
black paint; the four-legged cat that Madison owns is grey. No
matter how many cats show up in other colors, Madison's
four-legged cat remains grey and four-legged, although some
people WANT to glue on legs (that jarringly say "killing game"),
and throw the cat in the same vat of black paint Whitehall's cat
fell into, to hide the fact that is IS grey and HAD four legs!

Madison's four-legged cat is grey; the PA Const's four-legged
cat is grey; Adams's MA Const four-legged cat is grey; Judge
Green's four-legged cat is grey; the RI and NH "bear arms"
articles' four-legged cats are grey. Hundreds of Rowland's
official four-legged cats are grey.

The color of Madison's cat is NOT dependent on the existence of
another cat, except its parents, and ALL "parental" sources
Madison used seem to have greyness genes and four legs. 

To get back to reality, there is nothing in Madison's language,
politics, history, personality, education, goals, intentions, or
context to infer ANY reason to see his "bear arms" article as
referring to ANYTHING other than the organization and
preservation of the militias, and there are MANY things in those
factors, including the very words he used to write it and the
words used to debate it, to infer that it ONLY refers to the
militia, which is ultimately all that this debate is about. 

> Not only does it's use render your statement false but additionally, Madison
> was familar with it as he wrote the second.

I answered this weak "argument" last year; here it is again:

Wow, Sweeney is STILL hanging on to that ONE straw of Whitehill!
HUNDREDS of examples of OFFICIAL, LEGAL, CONSTITUTIONAL usage of
"bear arms" from pre-1789 that ONLY mean military service or
context, but greater than ALL that overwhelming evidence is ONE
-- ONLY ONE! -- example ever found from the period that, even
though it too is still ONLY in a military context (and may even
be a printing error, or accident of rushed scribbling or hasty
compiling; we don't HAVE the original!), MENTIONS, totally out
of place to any rational mind, hunting, and THAT is to be the
model and standard that makes the 99.999% of the rest evaporate!

It's as if Pavarotti let out a fart in ONE performance of La
Boheme, and Sweeney would insist that any claim of universality
for all fart-free performances is bogus, and that surely Puccini
meant it to be fartful OR fartless!


Ah, the bogus "minority report"! The classic case of finding a
single, lone crank's questionable scribblings, that are probably
a misprint, grasping that one straw, and ignoring the HUNDREDS
of official documents that say otherwise!

There is NO 1780's official use I know of where the term "bear
arms," of itself, is used to refer to hunting game as it's only
reference, or indeed ANY use other than militia or military
context.

The example is NOT authoritative; it is NOT an official
document, written and passed by a deliberative body in a
reflective manner to stand as a law, but based only on 15
hurriedly scribbled articles to be read once to stall a certain
vote for ratification. It is most likely an error of haste or
confusion on the author's (Whitehill), or editor's (Bryan), or
printer's (Oswald) part, after who knows how many transfers.

Mistakes don't negate EVERY other standard-use example that IS
consistently military. Is there ANY evidence that Madison was
referring to "killing game" as part of what he was out to
protect in the 2nd Amen?

First, this was NOT an official use, but one crank's proposal,
not even voted on BY the so-called "minority of the convention."
It was written down hurriedly when demanded, but not even voted
on, so who knows how accurate it is; it was added, unedited, and
thrown together with other individual proposals, even
contradictory ones, by one publisher. There's no known original
document to check to see if the printed newspaper version was
copied correctly. More later.

IF you read the rest of the #7 proposal, "killing game" is NOT
the only reference, but it is stuck in absurdly in an otherwise
100% militia context; it's either a misprint or duplication of
the same mention of hunting in the subsequent #8 proposal, one
that doesn't mention "bearing arms" at all.

It had nothing to do with the debates over the Amendment, as it
preceded the ratification of the Const itself, much less the
BoR.

Besides the fact that it was only ONE person's possibly
misquoted or typoed hastily compiled draft, ADDED to a
compilation of other contradictory drafts, the proper focus of
the proposal was STILL on the militia and common defense; the
"killing game" reference doesn't even make grammatical or
logical sense in the printed version.

Does Randy have the original WRITTEN copy by Whitehill, or the
original edited collaboration of Bryan? Can WE see it? Was
either actually signed? Signed AS printed or as written? How do
we know the published version is accurate? IT was not an
official, accepted, passed ANYTHING, so who knows how much care
was attended to it; errors can be found in EVERY copy of the NY
Times every day, or any major newspaper or magazine, and
printing errors during that period are legion.

A mistake is a mistake. The existence of a five-legged cat
doesn't mean that the norm for cats isn't four legs. What
bearing did THIS document (Whitehill's or Bryan's) have on
Madison's thinking and writing? On the Congress's thinking and
deliberating?

That they wrote nothing like it means they either ignored it, or
they rejected it as NOT being what right they wanted to protect!

http://www.saf.org/LawReviews/FinkelmanChicago.htm
"The kind of amendments that the Pennsylvania minority wanted
would have undermined these powers and the new government
itself. Such amendments would have crippled the national
government's ability to suppress insurrections, regulate trade
with the Indians,[82] fight piracy, or even prevent crime in the
federal district (now Washington, D.C.), in the federal
territories, and wherever else federal jurisdiction existed.
Thus, in drafting the Bill of Rights, James Madison and his
Congressional colleagues emphatically rejected the sweeping
provisions of the Pennsylvania minority and other
Antifederalists relating to the military, the militia, and
firearms[83] and instead adopted a much more limited amendment,
directed at only one particular issue: the preservation of the
organized state militias as a military force. The Congressmen of
1789 were not interested in protecting the rights to "killing
game," "to fowl and hunt in seasonable times," "to fish in all
navigable waters," or even to guarantee that people should be
able to "bear arms for the defense of themselves."[84] Congress
was certainly on notice that demands for explicit protections of
such rights were on the table and could easily have put such
language into the Bill of Rights. Madison, along with the rest
of Congress, was well aware of the Reasons of Dissent, which was
printed in numerous Pennsylvania papers, including the important
Pennsylvania Packet, and was also published as a broadside.[85]
The fact that Madison and Congress did not propose amendments
along the lines demanded by the Pennsylvania minority leads to a
prima facie conclusion that they did not intend to incorporate
such protections into the Bill of Rights. [Page 213]...

In this context, to "keep and bear arms" is a right that is
intrinsically collective -- it is the right of the community to
"keep and bear arms" for the purposes of maintaining a "well
regulated" militia. The final insight to the meaning of the
language of the Amendment [Page 230] comes from its structure.
No other amendment explains its purpose. The First Amendment,
for example, prohibits Congress from "abridging the freedom of
speech"[176] but does not contain an explanation, such as "in
order to secure open political debate." Nor in the Free Exercise
Clause did Congress feel the need to say something like, "in
order to prevent religious intolerance, Congress shall make no
law . . . prohibiting the free exercise thereof." The Second
Amendment is different. There were calls, such as those from the
Pennsylvania minority, for protection of a personal right to own
weapons for hunting and or other nonmilitary reasons. Congress
clearly rejected this concept, limiting the right "to bear arms"
-- traditionally a phrase tied to military service -- to
collective service in the "well regulated Militia.""


AFTER clearly referring to ONLY a military use, the "killing
game" reference LOOKS and READS totally out of place,
particularly since the same "game" issue is brought up in the
next article, where "bearing arms" is NOT mentioned! It is like
the Josephus cite that supposedly mentions Jesus; it just LOOKS
bogus on sight.

IF bear arms DID mean "carrying guns" for "killing game" why is
there NO other known reference? NOT ONE! NOT in a single
official document! Where's the dictionary reference? Where are
the debate references? Why didn't Madison mention it; if it was
OBVIOUS, and ALWAYS meant "carrying guns for killing game" then
why did WHITEHILL have to mention it at all? Do we even know
WHAT Whitehill meant or what was said AT the convention, if we
don't have the original WRITTEN version BEFORE the printers got
it?

Is there a signed copy of the WRITTEN original of Whitehill's 15
Articles? OF Bryan's original compilation? How do we know Bryan
or the printer didn't just say to the NAY voters who contributed
their bits, "Can I put YOUR name at the end of the article?"
without them even seeing the version that was FINALLY in print?
IS what exists in print EXACTLY WHAT Whitehall wrote to be read
at the Convention, or was it modified later by Bryan to bulk up
his package, as Wills suggests? Is there a statement in the
printed version that these delegates signed off on either the
original or the printed version? And if they signed the
original, and the printed version is erroneous, how would we
know? Randy assumes a lot.

*I* have been quoted in the papers many times and I can think of
almost NO times when I was quoted 100% verbatim, with NO words
changed, left out, or incorrectly reported. Even in the age of
tape recorders!

EVEN if the "killing game" phrase WAS intended by
Whitehill, and Whitehill DID mean "bear arms" in the literal
rather than figurative sense to mean "carry guns" he ALSO
clearly DID mean it to mean "serve as a soldier" in the REST of
the article, JUST AS EVERY other contemporary usage did. The
article is clearly a military article, which is why the question
of the killing game phrase, all by itself, when there is a
hunting article that follows, is not idle speculation. How many
phrases or words do YOU know of that are only used ONCE in a
particular way and NEVER before or again, at least for many
years? THIS is one case, and it begs the question of how valid
and intentional it was. 

Reading the original article, which is entirely about military
matters, the intrusion of "killing game" sticks out like a sore
thumb, and makes no sense whatsoever; clearly there is a
reference to bearing arms for the common defense, but what
possible connection does "the defense of... the purpose of
killing game" have to that? It is obviously an error of haste or
confusion.

If there are HUNDREDS, or even thousands, of military uses in
context, and ONE or even two questionable and probably erroneous
uses pop up, do we weigh the questionable and aberrant .001%
equally with the 99.999% that show consistent legal, official,
educated, STANDARD usage?

It isn't "sometimes;" it's "ALL STANDARD, official, and
legal times" or certainly at least 99.999%! Even in the supposed
Whitehill cite, the vast bulk of the article, in context, is
already military! The out-of-place reference to "game" looks
bizarre and makes no sense in any official and weighty treatment
of such an important governmental concern, particularly since he
goes on to THAT concern in the very next article anyway. To even
find "killing game" in the same line as "defense of... the
United States" is ludicrous on its face, and points to an
unreviewed and confused process, which the historical record of
the circumstances bears out. 

And IF "killing game" were an ordinarily understood application
of "bearing arms," why would Whitehall have to point it out? Why
mention it specifically? IF "bearing arms" JUST meant "carrying
and using guns" why mention any reason at all? Why not just say,
"People have the right to bear arms for any purpose."? Or
simply, "People have the right to bear arms"? WHY do all the
official uses tie the right and bearing arms to a purpose, a
SPECIFIC, NARROW, LIMITING purpose, which is consistently, as
Adams said, "the common defence" or "the security of a free
state," as Congress said? Why don't THEY mention hunting, or
private individual self defense, or overthrowing the govt, or
ANY purpose other than common defence, as Whitehall may have
done, IF it wasn't just a typo on his part? Wouldn't THEY have
wanted to be clear and inclusive by mentioning some more reasons
IF there were any other reasons THAN common defence, or if
"bearing arms" meant anything other than militia service and
duty?


Look at the Library of Congress's graphic version of the
so-called minority proposal (start at
http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/bds:@field([EMAIL PROTECTED](C04-1))
and get the images); it's a three column PRINTED broadsheet.
THERE ARE NO SIGNATURES! There's merely a listing of names!
THESE are the people who contributed to the compilation Bryan
whipped together; as Wills says, there's no reason to believe
that EACH and EVERY name listed meant EACH ONE "signed" onto
agreeing with ALL the preceding material. There's no reason to
believe each one READ and agreed with all the material before it
was compiled. Reading it only confirms there are contradictions
and a lack of editing for consistency.

Thus, the answer is that only ONE person we know of MAY have
thought one can bear arms to "kill game"... and even THAT is not
certain, as there are any number of likely reasons for it to
have been a mistake.

ONLY one person with ONLY ONE reference (any examples from
Whitehill in any OTHER cites that confirm he REALLY believed one
could "bear arms" to "kill game," or was this a one-time-only
deal?) out of nearly 4 million people and hundreds of documented
references that ONLY speak of military context is hardly
indicative of a "claim" much less a "trend" much less a
"consensus."

http://www.saf.org/LawReviews/UvillerAndMerkelChicago.htm
"In Pennsylvania, as several commentators have pointed out,[345]
an address favoring a personal right to arms was circulated by a
disaffected [Page 486] "minority" after that state's convention
concluded its affairs.[346] Yet this "minority report" turns
out, on closer inspection, to reflect no more than the ramblings
of a single embittered eccentric who departed the convention in
disgust when he was unable to scuttle ratification.[347] As
such, the failure of Pennsylvania's one man "minority" merely
accentuates the fact that opinion favoring a personal right to
arms independent of the militia remained highly marginal...

"Bearing arms" and "Militia," in particular, were freighted in
the late eighteenth century with significance not perhaps
apparent at a first casual examination in our own time.[452] In
large measure, this significance becomes understandable only in
the light of detailed examination of the rich, textured
intellectual history in which those terms existed. Yet, in the
end, only the language written into the final version of the
Amendment -- passed by both houses and ratified by the states --
remains binding. While little discussion of eighteenth-century
context and theory will be entirely off point, many of the ideas
long associated with arms or the militia did not work their way
into the words finally expressing the right to bear arms that
comes down to us [Page 510] today. And notwithstanding citations
by "standard modelers"[453] to English game-law cases[454] and
the Address and Reasons of Dissent of the Minority of the
Convention of Pennsylvania,[455] one of these related constructs
not codified into the Second Amendment was the right to keep
arms for private purposes...

We are left instead with the single sentence of Madison's --
rearranged,[459] culled,[460] and, in two instances,
altered[461] -- giving us the familiar Second Amendment ratified
in 1791. Understanding its terms, and its terms only, in the
light of then-familiar usage and theory, a right serving a
collective, essentially [Page 511] republican purpose emerges: a
right of the people of the states and of the Union to keep and
bear arms in the militia - for federal purposes when duly
required under the Constitution, and for state purposes when
federal demands fall silent. The Amendment's introductory
clause, meanwhile, leaves us with a wish, expressed in precatory
words, by which our constitutional testators implored their
heirs to rely, to the extent possible, on the citizen militia
rather than on a corruptible standing army, and by which they
defined expressly the context that gives meaning to the right
the Amendment secures."

Does Randy have an ORIGINAL hand-written version, to determine
exactly WHAT Whitehill DID say in article #7? Is there a
hand-written or printed version with ACTUAL signatures, and the
common styling above it like: "We here assembled, do solemnly
affix our right names and true..." Does the LOC have such a
document? HOW can THEY say these printed names are signatures
unless there IS an actual signed copy? Where is it?

Besides, as mentioned, none of that precludes there being an
error or oversight by author, editor, or printer, or whether,
even if they signed, they each READ, carefully as a proofreader,
EVERY single word of Bryan's compilation. I think the use of the
word "signed" by the LOC in this case is presumptive and
questionable, unless an actual signed original exists, or unless
there was confirming substantiation. I see no evidence presented
of either by the LOC or Sweeney.

Where's the original? Where are signatures? And even if there
ARE signatures somewhere, it still doesn't mean that they each
agreed with ALL that preceded, only the parts THEY wrote
individually; and that STILL doesn't preclude the inclusion of a
mistake or misprint regarding article #7. Read through the whole
printed copy and tell me there are NO typos or inconsistencies!

Your claim is not substantiated, since this ONE single example
in ALL known US pre-1800 history, is neither confirmed accurate,
nor backed up by corroborating proof. 

Nor is it relevant to Madison's AND Congress's usage in the 2nd
Amen and in EVERY known OFFICIAL, EDUCATED, LEGAL DOCUMENT. This
one five-legged cat mistake does NOT negate the NORMALCY and
STANDARD nature of four-legged cats. If Humpty Dumpty uses the
word "glory" to mean whatever HE chooses it to mean, does THAT
mean that there isn't a standard, recognized meaning in ALL
other uses? Does Mr. Egg's one idiosyncratic use negate and
falsify ALL other uses?

My original challenge, from last year, still hasn't been
answered:

The challenge still stands:

> > I'm STILL waiting for a VALID, credible, legitimate
> > cite from a comparable LEGAL document to the US Const, or even
> > from an educated person writing about "guns" or "the militia"
> > that shows "bearing arms" being used in ANY way independent from
> > a context of militia/military service! What people have done to
> > twist or misinterpret or expand usage SINCE that era is
> > irrelevant, and does NOT change what Madison and Congress had in
> > mind.

> > for U.S. Bill of Rights provisions are understood as
> > describing a right of individuals.

Even if "killing game" had made it to "round one," much less the
final round, the mere inclusion of "the PEOPLE" as the class
referenced, takes it out of the realm of a right of ALL
individuals, as I've demonstrated elsewhere. ONLY the Freeman
class would have been able to invoke such a right, IF
distributive, which is one more reason that this silly insertion
among the weighty matters of common defense, particularly when
it is covered in another section, suggests an error by the
printer or editor.


> 
> Noting could be clearer and individual right.

For ALL individuals? No, simply because the term of art THE
PEOPLE is still there! Under standard usage, the right of a
woman, kid, or black to "bear arms" to kill game would still not
be protected under the Const! 

> But what of the amendment's wording?
> 
> The ONLY known published complaint with it comes, again, from the
> Pennsylvania Dissent authors.

Says who? Can't you credit your cite or claim?
 
> "It is remarkable that this article only makes the observation, 'that a
> well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, is the best
> security of a free state;' it does not ordain, or constitutionally provide
> for, the establishment of such a one. The absolute command vested by other
> sections in Congress over the militia, are not in the least abridged by
> this amendment. The militia may still be subjected to martial law ... may
> still be marched from state to state and made the unwilling instruments of
> crushing the last efforts of expiring liberty."

Oh, did you bother to read the REST OF THIS PART? You seem to
avoid any part that goes against your little snippet's point,
eh:

Did you look at the rest of the document to see if this bizarre
usage was corroborated? Here's the relevant passages about the
militia and the ONLY other time "bearing arms" is mentioned in
the entire piece; HERE, the reference to "conscientiously
scrupulous of bearing arms" is EXACTLY the concept as Madison
mentions it in HIS 2nd Amen draft and it ONLY refers HERE to
militia service, and is consistent with ALL other known uses of
THAT phrase by contemporary authors!:

A standing army in the hands of a government placed so
independent of the people, may be made a fatal instrument to
overturn the public liberties; it may be employed to enforce the
collection of the most oppressive taxes, and to carry into
execution the most arbitrary measures. An ambitious man who may
have the army at his devotion, may step up into the throne, and
seize upon absolute power. 

The absolute unqualified command that congress have over the
militia may be made instrumental to the destruction of all
liberty, both public and private; whether of a personal, civil,
or religious nature. 

First, The personal liberty of every man probably from sixteen
to sixty years of age, may be destroyed by the power congress
have in organizing and governing of the militia. As militia they
may be subjected to fines to any amount, levied in a military
manner; they may be subjected to corporal punishments of the
most disgraceful and humiliating kind, and to death itself by
the sentence of a court martial: To this our young men will be
more immediately subjected, as a select militia, composed of
them, will best answer the purposes of government. 

Secondly, The rights of conscience maybe violated, 

*as there is no exemption of those persons, who are
conscientiously scrupulous of bearing arms.*

[And does THIS mean "for killing game"???!!! CAN it even mean
that??? HERE is proof enough that the author(s) and "signer(s)"
of this "document" clearly understood "bearing arms" to mean "to
render military service in person! THIS is the "four-legged cat"
that conforms to EVERY other known use of the era!]

These compose a respectable proportion of the community in the
state. This is the more remarkable, because even when the
distresses of the late war, and the evident disaffection of many
citizens of that description, inflamed our passions, and when
every person, who was obliged to risque his own life, must have
been exasperated, against such as on any account kept back from
the common danger, yet even then, when outrage and violence
might have been expected, the rights of conscience were held
sacred. 

At this momentous crisis, the framers of our state constitution,
made the most express and decided declaration and stipulations
in favor of the rights of conscience: but now when no necessity
exists, those dearest rights of men are left insecure. 

Thirdly, the absolute command of congress over the militia, may
be destructive of public liberty; for under the guidance of an
arbitrary government, they may be made the unwilling instruments
of tyranny. The militia of Pennsylvania may be march to
New-England or Virginia to quell an insurrection occasioned by
the most galling oppression, and aided by the standing army,
they will, no doubt, be successful in subduing their liberty and
independency; but in so doing, although the magnanimity of their
minds will be extinguished, yet the meaner passions of
resentment and revenge will be encreased, and those in turn will
be the ready and obedient instruments of despotism to enslave
the others; and that with an irritated vengeance. Thus may the
militia be made the instruments of crushing the last efforts of
expiring liberty, of rivetting the chains of despotism on their
fellow citizens and on one another. This power can be exercised
not only without violating the constitution but in strict
conformity with it, it is calculated for this express purpose,
and will doubtless be executed accordingly. 

> Note that his ONLY complaint is with the precious Militia Clause that he
> opines is NOTHING but an OBSERVATION which does not address even one WHIT
> of the State POWERS issues raised visa vie the militia.

Only when YOU leave out the REST of what he said! Then you see
he also complains about conscientious objection being left out,
and uses the term "bearing arms" to ONLY mean militia service!
 
> But, the people who penned and demanded "That the people have a right to
> bear arms for the defense of themselves... or for the purpose of killing
> game" be included, have not ONE word of complaint, or problem, with "the
> right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."

but only when one isn't COMPELLED to "bear arms" if religiously
scrupulous, just as Madison said!
 
> The reason, of course, is that, with no limiting qualifier attached, it
> covers every one of their stated purposes, plus anything else, for keeping
> and bearing arms.

Only if you leave out what doesn't conform to your claim!
 
> The reason there is "NOTHING in the drafting and debating" regarding
> individual rights to keep and bear arms is that there isn't anything to
> 'debate'.

The fallacy of argument from ignorance. It wasn't brought up in
Congress because it wasn't the issue at hand, which was simply
the organization, control, and manning of the militia, which is
ALL they DID discuss!

You CLAIM they were dealing with individual rights and cite as
proof that they never brought up individual rights! Bogus!

> It's plainly obvious to even the most casual Federalist, as
> stated by that Federalist writer Alexander White when arguing that NO
> statement was needed:
> 
> "There are other things so clearly out of the power of Congress, that the
> bare recital of them is sufficient, I mean the "rights of conscience, or
> religious liberty--the rights of bearing arms for defence, or for killing
> game--the liberty of fowling, hunting and fishing ...." (p.151)These things
> seem to have been inserted among their objections, merely to induce the
> ignorant to believe that Congress would have a power over such objects and
> to infer from their being refused a place in the Constitution, their
> intention to exercise that power to the oppression of the people."

He doesn't say what you claim he says. He is not addressing the
specific point in question. Where is his comment about the
obviousness of individual rights being the subject of the 2nd
Amen? 

> What's to discuss?

What WAS actually said, not what you say didn't need to be said
because it was so obvious by its absence! 

> The distribution of State and Federal powers visa vie the militia, however,
> was another matter and one of much debate.

And that was basically resolved and over by 1787. Most of what
YOU cite was from THAT debate, and you try to make it apply to
1789, two years later! But go through Mason and Henry, two of
the strongest critics, and you will NOT find them arguing for a
personal individual right to own and carry guns independent of
service in STATE militias!
> 
> Unfortunately for those who wished for a statement of State Militia Powers,
> NONE of the many submitted were approved, as the Pennsylvania complaint
> above expresses in no uncertain terms.

The Const compromised with dual control of the militia. The 2nd
Amen confirmed that. The Militia Act of 1792 spelled out the
details.

> Concluding, the Second Amendment, as Pennsylvania opined,

How could "they" (it was actually several individual opinions
stitched together, even though they were NOT consistent even to
each other) opine in 1787 about something two years in the
future?!!!

> says absolutely
> NOTHING about State Militia Powers, much less provide any 'guarantee' of
> them. It is a statement of the people's right, collectively,

Well, as per Bouvier, THAT is correct; THE PEOPLE IS ONLY the
enfranchised body politic.

> or in any
> portion (as Webster would approve),

Webster is talking about ANOTHER word, "people," with a
different meaning than the term of art "THE PEOPLE"!

Apples and oranges. There is no "portion" of "the people"! It is
not a numerical concept, but a political one; the PEOPLE is a
singular entity, indivisible and separate from its component
members of the Freeman class.

> to keep and bear arms, for any
> (peaceable) purpose.

Whoa! Where did THAT bit of blatant assertion come from?!!!

There's NOTHING in the 2nd Amen about any purpose other than to
maintain a well regulated militia for security. Only ONE purpose
is mentioned, as the courts confirm.

> It also includes a declaration of principle: that a
> well regulated militia is necessary to the security of a free state.
 
> Webster's 1828 Dictionary
> PEOPLE, n. [L. populus.]
> 
> 1. The body of persons who compose a community, town, city or nation. We
> say, the people of a town; the people of London or Paris; the English
> people. In this sense, the word is not used in the plural, but it
> comprehends all classes of inhabitants, considered as a collective body, or
> any portion of the inhabitants of a city or country.

More bogus selective citing!

The logical fallacy you are NOW employing (assuming you are
clever enough to do this disingenuously; I'll wager you are just
ignorant and grasping at straws!) is one of ambiguity,
specifically the Fallacy of Equivocation, where one word has
multiple uses, and YOU have picked the irrelevant one to this
usage as if it WERE the correct one.

This is NOT the legal dictionary definition that applies to how
the term of art THE PEOPLE is used in the Const!

See, if we take ALL the definitions of PEOPLE in a current
dictionary, we get:

> 1 plural : human beings making up a group or assembly or linked by a
> common interest
> 2 plural : HUMAN BEINGS, PERSONS -- often used in compounds instead of
> persons
> 3 plural : the members of a family or kinship
> 4 plural : the mass of a community as distinguished from a special
> class -- often used by Communists to distinguish Communists from other
> people
> 5 plural peoples : a body of persons that are united by a common
> culture, tradition, or sense of kinship, that typically have common
> language, institutions, and beliefs, and that often constitute a
> politically organized group
> 6 : lower animals usually of a specified kind or situation
> 7 : the body of enfranchised citizens of a state

For legal/political/constitutional purposes, #7 is the SINGULAR
and relevant term; the others can go take a hike!

The LEGAL concept of THE PEOPLE is not numerical or even
geographical, but conceptual and political, and THAT definition
is: "the body of enfranchised citizens of the state." IT is a
SINGULAR, collective entity.

YOU want to take what is clearly a definition identical to #5,
where the Const is only using the #7 meaning!

The 2nd Amen doesn't say "the right of the AMERICAN people"!
THEN, by so qualifying "people," it changes it so that it would
mean everyone! THE People is NOT the same as "American people"!

The phrase "the British people" means ALL Brits, even those no
longer IN Britain, and covers ALL individuals, as per Webster's
use, and #5 above.

When a rock band says to a crowd of thousands in Madison Square
Garden, "People of New York, we love you!" one isn't addressing
ALL the persons of New York, but only a PARTIAL segment, as
Webster's mentions, nor the enfranchised body politic that would
be "The People of the City of New York vs. John Doe"! 

But THE PEOPLE, when used constitutionally, is NOT numerical,
and not capable of being made partial.
 
> The right of the people, collectively, or in any portion, to keep and bear
> arms shall not be infringed.

Bogus straw, based on your logical fallacy of equivocation. It's
not "people" but "THE PEOPLE"! Go back to Bouvier to see how it
IS used, not how you can twist it.

-- 
Steven Krulick / [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Ellenville NY 12428-130727