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

On Tue, 02 Dec 2003 22:07:18 GMT, Steve Krulick <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

>Bert Hyman wrote:
>> 
>> [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Steve Krulick) wrote in
>> news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]:
>> 
>> > "THE PEOPLE" was a term of art that ONLY meant the enfranchised
>> > body politic in its collective and political capacity; it did
>> > NOT mean each and every person as an individual.
>> 
>> So, when the 1st Amendment says " ... or the right of the people
>> peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress
>> of grievances", or the 4th says "The right of the people to be secure
>> in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable
>> searches and seizures, shall not be violated..." they're not talking
>> about real people, but some imaginary hive-being that you've
>> invented?
>
>No, strawslinger. There is no "imaginary hive-being" I've
>"invented"! THE PEOPLE was defined precisely as it was used in
>the Const by the Bouvier Law Dictionary, THE authoritative
>sourcebook for how the terms were used IN the Const. YOU have
>not refuted it, nor offered a comparable alternative, only made
>silly straw hand waves.
>
>And it's NOT "real people" but "real persons" you mean to say.
>But as you are illiterate, I'm not surprised, nor why you make
>the same silly comments over and over.
>
>I've answered this one many dozens of times, but you were
>probably sleeping. I explained how the term ONLY related to
>individual FREEMEN IF the right described WAS distributive in
>nature. The rights in the 1st and 4th Amen ARE of that nature,
>and so the members of the PEOPLE CLASS, or FREEMEN who comprise
>the class, may invoke those distributive rights.
>
>So I'll just repeat the same answer I've given over and over,
>and maybe, just maybe, you'll actually READ it this time.
>
>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.
>
>Citizens, or "individuals," included women, children and other
>non-enfranchised persons; THE PEOPLE was ALWAYS the enfranchised
>body-politic in its corporate, collective sense!
>
>(BTW, it seems, according to the Bouvier Law Dictionary,
>"citizen" only originally and primarily referred to the
>enfranchised white male of age, which is ONLY the same class
>that is called... THE PEOPLE, and from which the militia is
>drawn as "the BODY of the PEOPLE"! Only in a wider and secondary
>use did "citizen" include the non-enfranchised WHITES; blacks
>before the War of the Rebellion did NOT have the title
>"citizen"!)
>
>The PEOPLE is not numerical, it is conceptual; IT is a singular
>entity, like a corporation, which also is made up of
>individuals, yet it has perpetual existence and powers
>independent and beyond the individuals comprising it.
>
>Some rights are of individuals, and some are of the THE WHOLE
>PEOPLE, just as Gallatin said:
>
>"The whole of the Bill [of Rights] is a declaration of the right
>of the people at large or considered as individuals... It
>establishes some rights of the individual as unalienable and
>which consequently, no majority has a right to deprive them of."
>- Albert Gallatin of the New York Historical Society, October 7,
>1789
>
>"The whole of the Bill [of Rights] is a declaration of the right
>of the people at large OR considered as individuals...
>
>And the 2nd Amen is a perfect example of a right of the people
>at large!
>
>"The people," as the "people at large," the "whole body of the
>people," the collective "body politic," have the populus armatus
>jus militiae right to be involved in the state's (or nation's)
>military function, by establishing, arming, controlling,
>maintaining the upkeep and readiness of the militia ("keep arms"
>as Adams meant it), and serving ("bear arms" as Madison meant
>it, if qualified) as citizen-soldiers (as opposed to "regular"
>professional soldiers in a standing army), drawn from the "body
>of the people," and "trained to arms" and "enrolled" into an
>organized, "well regulated" state militia.
>
>"It establishes some rights of the individual as unalienable and
>which consequently, no majority has a right to deprive them of."
>
>But the "right" to "own and carry guns" was never one of them.
>(See Pennsylvania Test Acts) 
>
>THE PEOPLE is NOT each and every PERSON "considered as
>individuals"! It is the collective enfranchised body politic as
>its own corporate identity.
>
>Some rights are individual and apply to ALL individuals or to
>particular classes of individuals when applicable. Other rights
>are OF the collective entity itself, INDIVISIBLE, and not based
>on numbers:
>
>Rights are collective AND individual; collective in their
>formulation, individual OR collective in their exercise and
>application. It's a floor wax AND a dessert topping!
>
>But unless your name is engraved in the Const, you have the
>rights that accrue to you as a member of the class that IS
>engraved therein. Does the 6th Amen say "Joe Doe shall enjoy the
>right to a speedy and public trial &c"? Of course not! But if
>you are arrested, as one who qualifies as a member of the class
>of persons called "accused," you have the rights. Can you
>appreciate the subtle difference? Your 3rd Amen rights likewise
>depend on your being a homeowner. Not ALL homeowners, not a
>collective group of homeowners, but ONE OF A CLASS defined as
>"persons who own a home." GET IT?
>
>The 3rd Amen talks about the consent of "the owner" (singular),
>not "the people" (plural). The 5th Amen says "no person"
>(singular), not "no people" (plural). The 1st Amen talks of the
>right of "the people" to assemble (obviously plural; how can a
>single individual "assemble"?). The 6th Amen refers to "the
>accused," "him," and "his" (singular). The 8th Amen avoids the
>problem altogether. If they wanted to, the authors COULD have
>written "the right of persons to..." to clearly refer to
>individuals, or else written "the right to keep and bear arms,
>shall not be infringed" to be as vague as the 8th. Well, they
>didn't write "persons" when they could have, so there's no
>reason to see an individual right. As the courts have affirmed.
>
>In 1792, when the Militia Act was passed, WHO had the specific
>right to "bear arms" ("to render military service in person" as
>Madison defined it)? Did blacks have the right? Women?
>15-year-olds? Non-property owners? Cripples? Feeble-minded?
>Prisoners? "Injuns"? "Furreners"? Indeed, the MAJORITY of people
>in the country did NOT have the right to "bear arms" in the
>militia, hence they had no militia "right" to "bear arms."
>Indeed, laws were passed PREVENTING some, such as blacks, from
>even possessing guns, "carrying guns" being a separate action
>from "bearing arms."
>
>BUT the PEOPLE AT LARGE, the enfranchised body politic (who
>WERE, for the most part, the SAME free, white, property-owning
>males who could vote, serve on juries AND made up the militia)
>ALWAYS had the collective right to "keep and bear arms," a term
>of art first used in the 1780 Mass Const by John Adams, that
>referred to the democratic organization, control, arming, and
>preservation of the well-regulated state militias by the PEOPLE
>AT LARGE, the WHOLE PEOPLE as the populus armatus, exercising
>their jus militiae right to participate in the state's and
>nation's military function, and, if qualified, to serve in
>person as a citizen-soldier, as conscript duty if required, to
>forestall the need to rely on a standing army, the "bane of
>liberty"! The PEOPLE "keep" (keep permanently ready and maintain
>in public stores, as Adams and the Articles of Confederation
>meant it) and "bear" ("bear arms" meant to Madison in the 2nd
>Amen draft "to render military service") in their collective
>capacity. For example, a 70-year-old crippled white male could
>VOTE for state reps who organized and controlled the militia;
>though unable to "bear arms" in the militia personally, he COULD
>participate IN the collective function, exercising HIS PART of
>that collective right! A 30-year-old white women in 1792 could
>do NEITHER!
>
>The 1st Amen freedom of religion applies to EVERYONE, the 3rd
>Amen to homeowners (it isn't relevant to anyone else), the 6th
>Amen to those accused of a crime... NOT the same classes of
>persons, with decreasing levels of inclusion. The "People" of
>the 2nd Amen are ONLY those who qualified to vote or (for the
>most part) serve in the militia, which WAS NOT everyone by a
>long shot. Did blacks, women, 15-year-olds, non-property owners,
>have 1st Amen rights? Did those same persons have the right to
>serve in the militia, and thereby "bear arms," or vote
>democratically (the Const also says "the People" choose the
>Congress every two years; did everyone vote? NO? That's why the
>People is ONLY the enfranchised body politic!) to participate in
>the organization and control of the militia ("keep and bear
>arms")?
>
>Were THOSE PERSONS not individuals? Weren't many even citizens?
>But they WERE NOT a part of THE PEOPLE!
>
>Laws are written in the collective and general class sense, but
>applied in specific individual and class instances IF you are in
>the applicable class. IF you are in the class known as
>"homeowner" you have individual 3rd Amen rights; IF you are in
>the class known as "accused" you have individual 6th Amen
>rights. 
>
>IF you are a member of the CLASS known as the PEOPLE, i.e., the
>enfranchised body politic, YOUR 4th Amen right to be secure in
>YOUR person and property is protected. THAT'S why it says THE
>PEOPLE. 
>
>Which is composed of Freemen, as they belong to the class known
>as the People; as Madison's ORIGINAL phrasing of this Amen
>indicated "The rights of the people to be secured in THEIR
>[emph. added] persons, THEIR homes, THEIR papers, and THEIR
>other property from all unreasonable searches and seizures..."
>protects the CLASS, so when a member of that class is abused of
>these rights, as formulated FOR the CLASS, he, as a member OF
>the CLASS, can invoke the rights under the Const for INDIVIDUAL
>APPLICATION.
>
>Is that so hard to understand? Hell, even Rehnquist, in
>Verdugo, suggested that foreigners, as NON-members of the CLASS
>known as The People, did NOT have 4th Amen rights that belonged
>TO the CLASS known as The People!
>
>The rights are different rights in each Amen. The People is the
>same The People. But some of the RIGHTS apply ONLY to the People
>in their collective capacity as the enfranchised body politic
>(the whole People), others to certain members of that class
>taken collectively (e.g. the militia drawn from "the body of the
>People), others to a specific sub-class of The People (The
>People of the State), others to the Freemen who comprise The
>People, taken collectively or as an individual Freeman. I drew
>the distinctions for the different "the People" amendments in
>the previous posts.
>
>
>
>Second Thoughts: What the right to bear arms really means. 
>by Akhil Reed Amar 
>http://www.constitution.org/2ll/2ndschol/103wha.htm
>
>"The amendment speaks of a right of "the people" collectively
>rather than a right of "persons" individually. 
>
>And it uses a distinctly military phrase: "bear arms." A deer
>hunter or target shooter carries a gun but does not, strictly
>speaking, bear arms. The military connotation was even more
>obvious in an earlier draft of the amendment, which contained
>additional language that "no one religiously scrupulous of
>bearing arms shall be compelled to render military service in
>person." Even in the final version, note how the military phrase
>"bear arms" is sandwiched between a clause that talks about the
>"militia" and a clause (the Third Amendment) that regulates the
>quartering of "soldiers" in times of "war" and "peace."
>Likewise, state constitutions in place in 1789 consistently used
>the phrase "bear arms" in military contexts and no other. 
>
>... anachronistically, libertarians read "the people" to mean
>atomized private persons, each hunting in his own private Idaho,
>rather than the citizenry acting collectively. 
>
>But, when the Constitution speaks of "the people" rather than
>"persons," the collective connotation is primary. 
>
>"We the People" in the preamble do ordain and establish the
>Constitution as public citizens meeting together in conventions
>and acting in concert, not as private individuals pursuing our
>respective hobbies. The only other reference to "the people" in
>the Philadelphia Constitution of 1787 appears a sentence away
>from the preamble, and here, too, the meaning is public and
>political, not private and individualistic. Every two years,
>"the people" -- that is, the voters -- elect the House. 
>
>To see the key distinction another way, recall that women in
>1787 had the rights of "persons" (such as freedom to worship and
>protections of privacy in their homes) but did not directly
>participate in the acts of "the people" -- they did not vote in
>constitutional conventions or for Congress, nor were they part
>of the militia/people at the heart of the Second Amendment. 
>
>The rest of the Bill of Rights confirms this communitarian
>reading. The core of the First Amendment's assembly clause,
>which textually abuts the Second Amendment, is the right of "the
>people" -- in essence, voters -- to "assemble" in constitutional
>conventions and other political conclaves. So, too, the core
>rights retained and reserved to "the people" in the Ninth and
>Tenth Amendments were rights of the people collectively to
>govern themselves democratically.
>
>"The Fourth Amendment is trickier: "The right of the people to
>be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects against
>unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated."
>
>Here, the collective "people" wording is paired with more
>individualistic language of "persons." And these words obviously
>focus on the private domain, protecting individuals in their
>private homes more than in the public square. Why, then, did the
>Fourth use the words "the people" at all? Probably to highlight
>the role that jurors -- acting collectively and representing the
>electorate -- would play in deciding which searches were
>reasonable and how much to punish government officials who
>searched or seized improperly. An early draft of James Madison's
>amendment protecting jury rights helps make this linkage obvious
>and also resonates with the language of the Second Amendment:
>"[T]he trial by jury, as one of the best securities to the
>rights of the people, ought to remain inviolate." Note the
>obvious echoes here -- "security" (Second Amendment), "secure"
>(Fourth Amendment), and "securities" (draft amendment); "shall
>not be infringed," "shall not be violated," and "ought to remain
>inviolate"; and, of course, "the right of the people" in all
>three places. 
>
>If we want an image of the people's militia at the Founding, we
>should think first of the militia's cousin, the jury. Like the
>militia, the jury was a local body countering imperial
>power -- summoned by the government but standing outside it,
>representing the people, collectively. Like jury service,
>militia participation was both a right and a duty of qualified
>voters who were regularly summoned to discharge their public
>obligations. Like the jury, the militia was composed of amateurs
>arrayed against, and designed to check, permanent and
>professional government officials (judges and prosecutors, in
>the case of the jury; a standing army in the case of the
>militia). Like the jury, the militia embodied collective
>political action rather than private pursuits. 
>
>Founding history confirms this. The Framers envisioned Minutemen
>bearing guns, not Daniel Boone gunning bears. When we turn to
>state constitutions, we consistently find arms-bearing and
>militia clauses intertwined with rules governing standing
>armies, troop-quartering, martial law, and civilian supremacy.
>Libertarians cannot explain this clear pattern that has
>everything to do with the military and nothing to do with
>hunting."
>
>
>
>Amar's overall 4th Amen explanation makes tentative sense, but
>I'm not totally convinced by it, as I've said, and my latest
>hypothesis would suggest a more limited right than is normally
>thought, but, hey, that is the same situation with the 1st and
>2nd Amens too, isn't it? 
>
>Here's something based on what I posted in 2001, before I read
>Amar's piece:
>
>"It would be awkward to have said 'right of persons to be secure
>in their persons, etc.'
>
>Look at Madison's ORIGINAL phrasing of this:
>
>"The rights of the people to be secured in THEIR [emph. added]
>persons, THEIR homes, THEIR papers, and THEIR other property
>from all unreasonable searches and seizures..." 
>
>Why in the plural, even collective, sense at all?
>
>This could have been rewritten to emphasize the individual
>nature of the right, for example, the NY proposal (and likewise
>the VA proposal) said:
>
>"That every Freeman has a right to be secure from all
>unreasonable searches and seizures of his person his papers or
>his property..."
>
>but it was merely shortened and tightened by Congress. There was
>almost no House debate over this amendment other than a few
>minor insertions, as it was late August and they were trying to
>wrap up. Perhaps they were not as fastidious as Adams was in
>the Mass Const for maintaining consistency of usage.
>
>No question, this, at first, seems to us to be an INDIVIDUAL
>right, but the phrasing should have been more consistent to
>reflect that if it were.
>
>Of all the amendments, THIS one varies MOST from the
>recommendations of the state proposals in this regard, and
>strays most from otherwise consistent usage of plural "the
>people" and individual "person" or cognates (including the 1st
>AND 2nd Amens, to be addressed separately). 
>
>Unless there is collective sense I'm missing."
>
>
>Since then, I've read Amar's piece, and I find it less than
>wholly satisfying re the 4th, but I see his point; in any case,
>there is more reason to accept ONE amen, the 4th, as being able
>to be seen as involving the collective people, in some
>philosophical and abstract way that isn't readily apparent, and
>as *I* have now further suggested, than to see at least THREE
>amens, plus OTHER uses in the Const, as involving individuals
>when it is so clear that the collective sense IS meant, based on
>ALL the other clues and contexts.
>
>Even the 1st Amen reference to THE People, which some harp on,
>WAS originally written to refer ONLY to THE People in their
>collective role! In one of the longest and most divided ongoing
>House debates in 1789, the original phrase in what was to become
>the 1st Amen was the flashpoint for what divided those who
>sought more democratic input from those who wanted the
>representatives to be more independent. The original words read:
>
>"The people shall not be restrained from peaceably assembling
>and consulting for their common good; nor from applying to the
>legislature by petitions, or remonstrances for redress of their
>grievances." (Madison, June 1789)
>
>Rep. Tucker wanted to add after "consulting for their common
>good," "to instruct their representative." THIS was the nature
>of the PEOPLE assembling that the Congress had in mind.
>
>When the Mass Const is referenced against this, which Madison
>surely had access to, there is less doubt that the intention was
>for collective consistency; however, unlike in Mass, the US
>Const was picked apart and reassembled by many authors, and the
>end result may have lacked the unifying hand of one single
>author or editor, as Mass did with Adams.
>
>So, the enfranchised persons who made up THE PEOPLE, and who
>COULD serve in juries/militias/legislatures/conventions, rather
>than EACH "person" per se (which included women, children, and
>other "second class citizens") were those Madison was primarily
>concerned with protecting, since THEY were the only persons
>whose right and expectation to be free from govt snooping
>affected their ability to act freely and independently in the
>public arena (juries/legislatures/conventions) free from fear or
>intimidation. And this even comports with the NY and VA
>proposals that said:
>
>"That every FREEMAN has a right to be secure from all
>unreasonable searches and seizures of his person his papers or
>his property..."
>
>Why did this say FREEMAN (sometimes FREEHOLDER) rather than just
>person/citizen/individual? FREEMAN is the ONLY singular term
>that leaves out ALL the citizens/persons/individuals who are NOT
>those included in the enfranchised (AND propertied!) class known
>as THE PEOPLE, and so referred to in every other instance!
>
>Perhaps Madison and the Congress WERE JUST AS consistent as
>Adams was in the MA Const of 1780 in using that term, even if we
>didn't notice it at first!
>
>IF this is so, than Amar, himself, is wrong to focus on the
>right of privacy as being for ANY person who was not otherwise
>part of the ENFRANCHISED PEOPLE! (This NOW includes blacks and
>women, of course, but not, for example, kids, which would allow
>school locker searches as clearly NOT being a 4th Amen
>violation.) 
>
>Doesn't it make more sense that the same guys who OK'd slavery
>and that women couldn't vote were not so concerned about those
>same "second-class citizens" not having various "security"
>rights as well? What rights and powers did blacks, kids, and
>women have that were to be "retained" by them in Amens 9 and 10?
>Which of these persons were going to "consult" or "petition the
>legislature" when they couldn't vote or serve? Which of these
>persons were going to serve on juries or in the militia, or vote
>on the maintenance of the militia, and who needed to be "secure
>in their persons... papers... property" to prevent intimidation
>when serving in office, on juries, or as voters? Which of these
>persons voted each two years on the House races? NONE, and so,
>THEY weren't PART OF THE PEOPLE the Const speaks of in EACH
>case!
>
>"Individuals" included women, children, and other
>non-enfranchised persons; THE PEOPLE was ALWAYS the enfranchised
>body-politic in its corporate, collective sense! The PEOPLE is
>not numerical, it is conceptual; IT is a singular entity, like a
>corporation, which also is made up of individuals, yet it has
>perpetual existence and powers independent and beyond the
>individuals comprising it. As a single stockholder in AOL, could
>*I* buy up the whole Time-Warner Company? NO, only the corporate
>entity can do that, whether *I* agree or not.
>
>Checks to the Boys Scouts of America can be tax-deductible, but
>NOT checks made out to an individual boy scout; Congress can
>declare war, but not an individual congresscritter; a jury has
>the right to send someone to prison, but not an individual jury
>member; THE PEOPLE can democratically decide how to organize and
>control the militia's upkeep and readiness ("keep arms" as Adams
>meant it), and who gets to serve in it ("bear arms" as Madison
>meant it), but there are NO one-man militias and each or any
>single militiaman doesn't get to unilaterally set policy or
>order himself into battle. 
>
>THE PEOPLE have the right to alter or abolish their govt... but
>ONLY when they are acting as THE WHOLE PEOPLE, THE PEOPLE AT
>LARGE, THE BODY POLITIC; individuals don't have that right, and
>are correctly treated as rebels and insurrectionists when they
>do.
>
>Mr. Madison: "The honorable gentleman from Massachusetts
>(Gerry), asks if the sovereignty is not with the people at
>large; does he infer that the people can, in detached bodies,
>contravene an act established by the whole people? My idea of
>the sovereignty of the people is, that the people can change the
>constitution if they please, but while the constitution exists,
>they must conform themselves to its dictates. But I do not
>believe that the inhabitants of any district can speak the voice
>of the people, so far from it, their ideas may contradict the
>sense of the whole people..."
>
>Notice that Madison is using PEOPLE to refer to several levels
>of collective "wholeness," from the "whole people," also the
>"people at large," to "people... in detached bodies," to the
>"inhabitants of any district." And note too, that "the
>inhabitants of any district" which is a certain number of
>individuals fewer than "the whole people" are not considered to
>be able to "speak the voice of the people," and that even a
>goodly number of individuals DO NOT equal or make up "the whole
>people." Clearly, "the whole people," "the people at large,"
>"the voice of the people," is NOT the same thing as EVEN plural
>individuals, much less ANY particular individual!
>
>Does "people" always mean the same thing, as some contend?
>HERE, in ONE paragraph, ONE MAN, the MAN WHO WROTE THE BOR, uses
>people in multiple senses: "people... in detached bodies" is
>NOT "THE whole people." Can "people" (persons) as a bunch of
>individuals "change the constitution"? NO, only "The whole
>people" in their collective political capacity can do that.
>There are things that ONLY THE PEOPLE as a whole can do, such as
>"bear arms" against another nation, that each and every
>individual can't do on his own.
>
>That is why THE PEOPLE, collectively, can, and have the "right"
>to, "keep and bear arms" since there ARE no one-man militias or
>one-man declarations of war!
>
>When it says THE PEOPLE, it MEANS THE PEOPLE, the enfranchised
>body politic, taken collectively, just as Heyman says Adams
>meant in the Mass Const:
>
>http://www.saf.org/LawReviews/HeymanChicago.htm
>
Heyman uses material from the thoroughly discredited 
pseodohistorian Michael Bellesiles to support his work.  Heyman is 
nothing more than another cog in the Joyce Foundation sponsored 
Chicago-Kent Law Review Symposium on the Second Amendment mutual 
admiration scoiety circle jerk.

http://www.saf.org/LawReviews/HeymanChicago.htm
Chicago-Kent Law Review
Symposium on the Second Amendment
vol. 76, 2000: 237

Heyman
     NATURAL RIGHTS AND THE SECOND AMENDMENT
"This Article was presented as part of the Symposium on the Second
Amendment: Fresh Looks held at Chicago-Kent on April 28, 2000. I would
like to thank Michael Bellesiles, Harry Clor, John Goldberg, Mark
Rosen, and David Williams for their thoughtful comments, and Ross
Friedman and Adrianne Zahner for their valuable research assistance."

      Uses:
        Michael A. Bellesiles, The Second Amendment in Action, 76
CHI.-KENT L. REV. 61 (2000); 
For a fuller account of Bellesiles's research, see MICHAEL A.
BELLESILES, ARMING AMERICA: THE ORIGINS OF A NATIONAL GUN CULTURE,
(2000).
      The book that cost him the Bancroft because he "remanufactured"
material that was  destroyed in a fire back in 1906 or so. 

       Carl T. Bogus, The Hidden History of the Second Amendment, 31 
U.C. DAVIS. L. REV. 309 (1998); Carl T. Bogus, Race, Riots, and Guns,
66 S. CAL. L. REV. 1365 (1993); 

     Keith A. Ehrman & Dennis A. Henigan, The Second Amendment in the 
Twentieth Century: Have You Seen Your Militia Lately?, 15 U. DAYTON L.

REV. 5 (1989); Dennis A. Henigan, Arms, Anarchy and the Second 
Amendment, 26 VAL. U. L. REV. 107 (1991).
Attorney for the Brady Campaign

      Jack N. Rakove, The Second Amendment: The Highest Stage of 
Originalism, 76 CHI.-KENT L. REV. 103 (2000).

      Paul Finkelman, "A Well Regulated Militia": The Second Amendment

in Historical Perspective, 76 CHI.-KENT L. REV. 195 (2000).

I didn't really realize what a real circle jerk this was untill I
recently looked at how most of them use each others material from the
same symposium they were attending to support their assertions.

>
>



>"Gun advocates claim that the "right of the people" to keep and
>bear arms is distributive, the right of every individual taken
>singly.  But the militia as "the people" was always the populus
>armatus, in the corporate sense (one cannot be a one-person
>militia; one must be formed into groups). Thus Trenchard calls
>the militia "the people" even though as we have seen, the groups
>he thought of were far from universal. The militia literature
>often refers to "the great body of the people" as forming the
>militia, and body (corpus) is a necessarily corporate term. The
>great body means "the larger portion or sector of" (OED,
>"great," 8:c). This usage came from concepts like "sovereignty
>is in the people." This does not mean that every individual is
>his or her own sovereign. When the American people revolted
>against England, there were loyalists, hold-outs, pacifists who
>did not join the revolution. Yet Americans claimed that the
>"whole people" rose, as Madison wrote in the Federalist, since
>the connection with body makes "whole" retain its original, its
>etymological sense— wholesome, hale, sound (sanus). The whole
>people is the corpus sanum, what Madison calls "the people at
>large." Thus "the people" form militias though not every
>individual is included in them." (Historian Garry Wills)
>
http://www.nationalreview.com/kopel/kopel031601.shtml

Faith of Our Fathers
What the Second Amendment means.


Mr. Kopel, research director of the Independence Institute, & author
of 
The Second Amendment in the Nineteenth Century
March 16, 2001 9:35 a.m.

     Begin excerpt:
 
That someone as smart as Wills can make such preposterous arguments 
shows how desperate are the emotional needs, in some quarters, to make

the Second Amendment disappear by sheer will-power. Garry Wills
despises 
"the sordid race of gunsels" and "gun fetishists" whose mere ownership

of defensive firearms makes them "traitors, enemies of their own
patriae
." [Garry Wills, "Gun Rules...or Worldwide Gun Control?" Phil. Inq.,
May 
17, 1981, page 8E; Garry Wills, "John Lennon's War," Chi. Sun-Times, 
Dec. 12, 1980.] 

Wills' problem is he believes, as he wrote in 1981, "Every civilized 
society must disarm its citizens against each other" Unfortunately for

Wills, he lives in a nation whose Supreme Court has declared that the 
right to keep and bear arms "is found wherever civilization exists." [
United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U.S. 542, 551 (1876).]