Grammatically correct 2nd amendment

angrysoba said:
US constitutional amendments are not made by national referendum.

Typically, two-thirds of both Houses of Congress must pass the amendment and then three-quarters of state legislatures have to ratify the amendment.

This currently has an extremely small chance of success.
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Depends on how you look at it. There have been nine amendments passed in the last century. Two others were passed by Congress, but were not ratified by the necessary number of states.
 
Brainster said:
The first half of the amendment is just explaining their reasoning. This example is not original with me, but I do find it pretty interesting. Suppose one of the amendments to the constitution said as follows: "A well-educated Congress being necessary for the governance of a free state, the right of the people to keep and read books shall not be infringed." Would anybody see that as saying that only members of Congress can keep and read books?
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No, but that's not a good analogy nor a valid response. Suppose, for example, we found ourselves in a world where the majority of knowledge was disseminated not by books, but by some other medium. Would it not become more important that access to that other medium was protected? Might it even become irrelevant that the right to keep and read books be protected? If the statement of the justification of the imperative statement becomes obsolete, it seems reasonable to re-examine whether the imperative is still appropriate.

Dave
 
theprestige said:
The courts have established a clear standard for infringement of rights under the constitution:

There must be a compelling government interest in solving the problem. The proposed solution must be narrowly tailored to that problem. The proposed solution must be the least restrictive solution that meets the first two requirements.

So you can't just say the solution is to "infringe" a little more. You'll have to identify a specific problem, describe a specific solution to that problem, and show that there's no less-restrictive solution to the problem.

So. I think we can stipulate that school shootings are a serious problem, and that the government has a compelling interest in solving it, even if it means infringing on constitutional rights. Meeting the other two requirements is left as an exercise for the reader.
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I was referring to the fact that 2nd AD has been infringed before quite successfully - the full canopy of military gear is not available to the US buyer which it should be if the 18th century meaning of the phase was to be met.

I suspect that in time further infringement will occur.
 
Giz said:
No, just “the people”.

Otherwise, you are postulating that intention of the second amendment is to prevent the state from disarming the state.
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That seems like a perfectly reasonable goal in view of the conflict they had been engaged in only a few years before they drafted it.

The first actual battle of the American Revolutionary War was fought to prevent British soldiers from seizing militia arms stored at Concord.

That alone suggests to me that the section about "A well regulated militia" was far more than superfluous.
 
theprestige said:
At some point, discussing it should involve actual discussion. Even reinventing the wheel at some point must progress beyond people saying "hey, has anybody ever thought about reinventing the wheel?"
<snip>
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And so it has. The wheel gets reinvented all the time, in many different applications.

Just look at the history of the automobile over the last century. The wheels on the cars you ride in now have gone through a constant process of reinvention.

And it continues today.
 
theprestige said:
The courts have established a clear standard for infringement of rights under the constitution:

There must be a compelling government interest in solving the problem. The proposed solution must be narrowly tailored to that problem. The proposed solution must be the least restrictive solution that meets the first two requirements.

So you can't just say the solution is to "infringe" a little more. You'll have to identify a specific problem, describe a specific solution to that problem, and show that there's no less-restrictive solution to the problem.

So. I think we can stipulate that school shootings are a serious problem, and that the government has a compelling interest in solving it, even if it means infringing on constitutional rights. Meeting the other two requirements is left as an exercise for the reader.
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Yes, that responsibility lies with the reader, not their representatives in the US government.

Less sarcastically: requiring a license to purchase or posses firearms passes that test pretty easily so long as the requirements to obtain that license are not onerous or discriminatory.

The problem is political, not legal.
 
Dr. Keith said:
Yes, that responsibility lies with the reader, not their representatives in the US government.

Less sarcastically: requiring a license to purchase or posses firearms passes that test pretty easily so long as the requirements to obtain that license are not onerous or discriminatory.

The problem is political, not legal.
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Why the sarcasm? I seriously consider it a fundamental principle that the responsibility for formulating and understanding policy is first and foremost an individual responsibility of each and every citizen.

Even if the authority to decide matters of law is ultimately delegated to elected representatives and appointed judges, citizens still owe it to themselves and to each other to be able to follow along with such decisions, and confidently present their own agreement or dissent with such decisions. Nobody with sincere concerns about the issue should blindly leave it up to the legislature and the courts to decide these questions, without having already done their own reasoning about them.

As for your proposed solution: What specific problem does it aim to solve? Is it narrowly tailored to that problem? Is it the least restrictive solution to that problem?

I agree that it's a political problem, mainly in the sense that people are more interested in political shenanigans than legal solutions.
 
theprestige said:
As for your proposed solution: What specific problem does it aim to solve? Is it narrowly tailored to that problem? Is it the least restrictive solution to that problem?
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Unsuitable people having access to firearms. There are red flags that surround most people who use firearms illegally. A better system to review those red flags BEFORE selling the firearm would be a narrowly tailored approach to that problem.

Side benefit: once the license is obtained it is a quick check to see if it is still valid. So the requirement could be extended to personal transactions.

Assuming it's not guns that kill people, it must be people. So, lets focus on the people. And which ones get to own guns.

I agree that it's a political problem, mainly in the sense that people are more interested in political shenanigans than legal solutions.
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Agreed.
 
Brainster said:
So it is with the Second Amendment. We want a well-regulated militia (again, drawn from the populace). Making guns available to everyone will help in that goal (because at least we will have people who are familiar with firearms and can shoot well).
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I thought you said we could ignore the first clause entirely, and all that is left is the right to bear arms? Probably my mistake - it's late here - so accept my apologies if it wasn't you.

eta: Ah ...

Brainster: "The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. The other clause is superfluous. "
 
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quadraginta said:
That seems like a perfectly reasonable goal in view of the conflict they had been engaged in only a few years before they drafted it.

The first actual battle of the American Revolutionary War was fought to prevent British soldiers from seizing militia arms stored at Concord.

That alone suggests to me that the section about "A well regulated militia" was far more than superfluous.
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I'm not sure that the Minutemen would have been seen as part of the British State.

"Minutemen were civilian colonists who independently organized to form well-prepared militia companies self-trained in weaponry, tactics, and military strategies"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minutemen

The minutemen were closer to being "The People" than a "National Guard" equivalent.
 
Dave Rogers said:
True, but as some of us have seen, the results of a referendum can provide a major motivator to legislators to execute what has clearly been stated as the will of the people.

Dave
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Or not depending upon the result. One thing to look at would be polling figures on this issue.

Perhaps a better tactic for those who want to amend the second amendment would be to have grassroots candidates in state legislatures and running for Congress on the platform.
 
Brainster said:
Depends on how you look at it. There have been nine amendments passed in the last century. Two others were passed by Congress, but were not ratified by the necessary number of states.
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I mean, specifically, amending the second amendment has little chance of success right now.
 
Giz said:
I'm not sure that the Minutemen would have been seen as part of the British State.

"Minutemen were civilian colonists who independently organized to form well-prepared militia companies self-trained in weaponry, tactics, and military strategies"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minutemen

The minutemen were closer to being "The People" than a "National Guard" equivalent.
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I think you are trying too hard.

From your link;

In the British colony of Massachusetts Bay, all able-bodied men between the ages of 16 and 60 were required to participate in their local militia.[2] As early as 1645 in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, some men were selected from the general ranks of town-based "training bands" to be ready for rapid deployment. Men so selected were designated as minutemen.
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That sounds like "the state" to me. The colonies were governed by authority of the British Crown. Under that authority they were required to establish and maintain militias.

In other words, "the state"

There was a militia. It was formed for the defense of the residents and the Crown by the residents, at the behest of the Crown. "The state", AKA the British, mandated militia groups as a ready source of recruits for military actions. The British tried to disarm the militia at Concord in the lead-up to the war by confiscating the arms in their militia armory.

They weren't trying to take the weapons out of individual homes.

This was a simple, straightforward example of the state trying to disarm the state, and one of the key incidents of the beginning of full-out war between the Colonies and the British home rule.

I'm not surprised in the least that the writers of the Bill of Rights made a point of not only including the protections of the 2nd Amendment, but also made a point of connecting that protection to militias, since they had already been burned that way.
 
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Brainster said:
The first half of the amendment is just explaining their reasoning. This example is not original with me, but I do find it pretty interesting. Suppose one of the amendments to the constitution said as follows: "A well-educated Congress being necessary for the governance of a free state, the right of the people to keep and read books shall not be infringed." Would anybody see that as saying that only members of Congress can keep and read books? (I guarantee a few "skeptics" will say yes, but they are being obstinate).

No, the plain reading of that amendment would be that since we want a well-educated Congress, and since the Congress is drawn from the populace at large, we also need a well-educated populace, and making books available to everyone will help in that goal. And an even plainer reading is that the first clause is superfluous.

So it is with the Second Amendment. We want a well-regulated militia (again, drawn from the populace). Making guns available to everyone will help in that goal (because at least we will have people who are familiar with firearms and can shoot well).
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That would seem to be an argument for the abolition of the second amendment? It's purpose, as stated in the document, is no longer in play. A well regulated militia is now no longer necessary for the security of a free state.
 
Dr. Keith said:
Unsuitable people having access to firearms. There are red flags that surround most people who use firearms illegally. A better system to review those red flags BEFORE selling the firearm would be a narrowly tailored approach to that problem.
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Or we can accept that political violence(terrorism) is a feature of our constitutional right to arms and not a bug.

"I Disapprove of Who You Shoot, But I Will Defend to the Death Your Right to Shoot Them"
 
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3point14 said:
The jihadis will be delighted.
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Fighting the government and political violence in general is supposedly the reason behind the second amendment, so we should celebrate and accept when it is used. But that would only be the case if people actually believed their own arguments and the gun advocates clearly do not.
 
3point14 said:
That would seem to be an argument for the abolition of the second amendment? It's purpose, as stated in the document, is no longer in play. A well regulated militia is now no longer necessary for the security of a free state.
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Not the purpose - - one benefit to the state. And the purpose of recognizing rights isn't to benefit the state, but to benefit the individual. Specifically, to provide the individual with due process and the rule of law, against the risk overreach by the state.

Even if this particular benefit to the state is deprecated, the right still exists with no need to justify it than before.
 
theprestige said:
Not the purpose - - one benefit to the state. And the purpose of recognizing rights isn't to benefit the state, but to benefit the individual. Specifically, to provide the individual with due process and the rule of law, against the risk overreach by the state.

Even if this particular benefit to the state is deprecated, the right still exists with no need to justify it than before.
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One wonders why they didn't just write "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed" rather than cock it up and make us waste ink and pixels on this.
 
Belz... said:
One wonders why they didn't just write "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed" rather than cock it up and make us waste ink and pixels on this.
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Because they like putting a bunch of unnecessary crap in their, see all the stuff about the press in the first amendment and people who think that supports fake news CNN.
 
Belz... said:
One wonders why they didn't just write "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed" rather than cock it up and make us waste ink and pixels on this.
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One wonders indeed. The specific reasons for compromising the wording of this clause appear to have been lost to time.

But we know from other writings that they probably didn't mean it to be a necessary or complete justification for recognizing the right.

And we know from our own ideas of what rights are and how they work, that it probably doesn't make sense to think of it that way.
 
theprestige said:
One wonders indeed. The specific reasons for compromising the wording of this clause appear to have been lost to time.
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Only for those who aren't looking.

But we know from other writings that they probably didn't mean it to be a necessary or complete justification for recognizing the right.
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I guess "we" are looking for "other writings".

Luckily not "lost in time", I guess.

And we know from our own ideas of what rights are and how they work, that it probably doesn't make sense to think of it that way.
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Who are "we"?
 
theprestige said:
Not the purpose - - one benefit to the state. And the purpose of recognizing rights isn't to benefit the state, but to benefit the individual. Specifically, to provide the individual with due process and the rule of law, against the risk overreach by the state.

Even if this particular benefit to the state is deprecated, the right still exists with no need to justify it than before.
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Why was it justified in the original text if it does not need to be justified now?
 
If these 'other writings' are relevant, are they part of the legislation? Or just correspondences?

If they are only correspondences then, had the framers wanted those writings to be part of any conversation about the constitution, then surely they would have included them?

Are the framers of the constitution in universal agreement within the other writings?
 
Brainster said:
The first half of the amendment is just explaining their reasoning. This example is not original with me, but I do find it pretty interesting. Suppose one of the amendments to the constitution said as follows: "A well-educated Congress being necessary for the governance of a free state, the right of the people to keep and read books shall not be infringed." Would anybody see that as saying that only members of Congress can keep and read books? (I guarantee a few "skeptics" will say yes, but they are being obstinate).

No, the plain reading of that amendment would be that since we want a well-educated Congress, and since the Congress is drawn from the populace at large, we also need a well-educated populace, and making books available to everyone will help in that goal. And an even plainer reading is that the first clause is superfluous.

So it is with the Second Amendment. We want a well-regulated militia (again, drawn from the populace). Making guns available to everyone will help in that goal (because at least we will have people who are familiar with firearms and can shoot well).
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That's not a bad analogy.
 
This is going back to political science class in the late 1980s, so take it with that grain of salt. My recollection was that at least some states forbade ownership of guns unless the owner was registered with the militia. The militia was not just drawn from the general population, but rather the eligible members of the population signed up to be part of the militia and this gave them not only the right but the responsibility to own their own firearm. I recall there was some considerable debate over this amendment in the House at the time, all concerned with the mechanics of the militia.
 
quadraginta said:
I think you are trying too hard.

From your link;

​

That sounds like "the state" to me. The colonies were governed by authority of the British Crown. Under that authority they were required to establish and maintain militias.

In other words, "the state"

There was a militia. It was formed for the defense of the residents and the Crown by the residents, at the behest of the Crown. "The state", AKA the British, mandated militia groups as a ready source of recruits for military actions. The British tried to disarm the militia at Concord in the lead-up to the war by confiscating the arms in their militia armory.

They weren't trying to take the weapons out of individual homes.
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Actually the British colonial government also did some of that. They stopped when it was clear it would take so much bloodshed for complete disarmament that sympathy for the colonists within the UK would undermine their attempt at putting down the citizen's revolt.

quadraginta said:
This was a simple, straightforward example of the state trying to disarm the state, and one of the key incidents of the beginning of full-out war between the Colonies and the British home rule.

I'm not surprised in the least that the writers of the Bill of Rights made a point of not only including the protections of the 2nd Amendment, but also made a point of connecting that protection to militias, since they had already been burned that way.
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A small point, the militia that the British were disarming were no longer state militia (as in part of a legally recognized government) but were citizen's militia. Prior to the April 1775 attempt to capture the arms, the government had already seized the largest powder supply and was starting to disarm citizens with warrant less house searches and seizures.

Although the cities and towns formed their own governments and claimed the militia as their own they were not recognized by any other world governments as being anything other than citizens in revolt. This is why the creators of the 2nd did not mandate that right to keep & bear be only for state militia, they knew that to overthrow a tyrannical government you would need a citizen's militia with no internationally recognized legal standing.

A good article on this topic is:
How the British Gun Control Program Precipitated the American Revolution
From the abstract:
This Article chronologically reviews the British gun control which precipitated the American Revolution: the 1774 import ban on firearms and gun powder; the 1774-75 confiscations of firearms and gun powder, from individuals and from local governments; and the use of violence to effectuate the confiscations. It was these events which changed a situation of rising political tension into a shooting war. Each of these British abuses provides insights into the scope of the modern Second Amendment.
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Dave Rogers said:
No, but that's not a good analogy nor a valid response. Suppose, for example, we found ourselves in a world where the majority of knowledge was disseminated not by books, but by some other medium. Would it not become more important that access to that other medium was protected? Might it even become irrelevant that the right to keep and read books be protected? If the statement of the justification of the imperative statement becomes obsolete, it seems reasonable to re-examine whether the imperative is still appropriate.
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I seriously doubt there would be some kind of a movement to repeal the right to read books in that event. But if you want to repeal the right to keep and bear arms, you actually have to pass a constitutional amendment. You can't just say, "Oh, we don't actually need a well-regulated militia anymore, so now the second amendment is meaningless and you folks can't have guns."
 
Brainster said:
.........You can't just say, "Oh, we don't actually need a well-regulated militia anymore, so now the second amendment is meaningless and you folks can't have guns."
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I haven't seen a good argument yet as to why this is the case.

Of course, it is also perfectly possible to foresee a situation in which there is no second amendment, but people still can get guns. It is actually how the rest of the world works.
 
GlennB said:
I thought you said we could ignore the first clause entirely, and all that is left is the right to bear arms? Probably my mistake - it's late here - so accept my apologies if it wasn't you.

eta: Ah ...

Brainster: "The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. The other clause is superfluous. "
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Yes it is. I was simply explaining that providing a rationale for the right does not mean that the right ceases to exist simply because the rationale ceases to matter.
 
The Great Zaganza said:
In a Federation, the balance to the central government are the states, not the citizens.
That is so obvious that only Americans can't seen to get that.
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That is clearly not the case. The US Constitution addresses and offers protection for the rights of the individual against both the federal and state governments. Rights belong to the individual. The individual may address a violation of rights by the state without the help or consent of the federation or a violation by the federation without the state.
 
smartcooky said:
Its nothing to do with semantics, or grammar, its to do with technology.

The Second Amendment was adopted along with the other nine amendments that makes up the Bill of Rights, on December 15, 1791. At that time, all pistols and long guns (at least those readily available in the US) were single fire, muzzle loaders. The first long guns that fired all-metal pinfire and rimfire cartridges weren't available until the 1840's; the first revolvers came along in the 1850s, and the first magazine fed semi-automatics didn't appear until the 1880s.

Those Founding Fathers could not possibly have imagined such advances in weaponry, and in their worst nightmares, they would never have believed that in their future, the constitution they were writing would allow unrestricted access to weapons with rates of fire measured in hundreds of round per minute, to people who would walk into schools and use them to murder grade schoolers and teenage students by the dozen.
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This is an excellent point. The muzzle loading flintlocks at the time the Bill of Rights were certainly lethal, but they were single shot weapons, and reloading one took a few minutes. I think there were a few double-barrel weapons around, which would allow two shots, and one could carry more than one weapon, but a mass shooting by one or two people simply wasn't feasible. At most, a handful of people could be killed, and once the weapons were empty, the perpetrators could be easily subdued or shot.
 
CORed said:
This is an excellent point. The muzzle loading flintlocks at the time the Bill of Rights were certainly lethal, but they were single shot weapons, and reloading one took a few minutes. I think there were a few double-barrel weapons around, which would allow two shots, and one could carry more than one weapon, but a mass shooting by one or two people simply wasn't feasible. At most, a handful of people could be killed, and once the weapons were empty, the perpetrators could be easily subdued or shot.
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According to Dana Loesch, spokesbabe for the NRA, speaking to the survivors and families of victims in Florida last week;

“When the Second Amendment was ratified, they were talking about muskets. We're not talking about muskets,” Biegel Schulman said. “We're talking about assault rifles. We're talking about weapons of mass destruction that kill people.”


Loesch pushed back, noting “fully automatic weapons that were available” at that time.
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Surely she wouldn't tell a lie, being the representative of the NRA.


And we all know from threads on this board just how particular the gun-nut crowd is about specifics of nomenclature. (See "magazine" vs. "clip", "assault rifle", and of course "automatic" weapon, etc., etc., distinctions pulled out with stupefying regularity to derail any substantive conversation on sane gun control.)


So it can't be that she misspoke.
 
quadraginta said:
According to Dana Loesch, spokesbabe for the NRA, speaking to the survivors and families of victims in Florida last week;

​

Surely she wouldn't tell a lie, being the representative of the NRA.


And we all know from threads on this board just how particular the gun-nut crowd is about specifics of nomenclature. (See "magazine" vs. "clip", "assault rifle", and of course "automatic" weapon, etc., etc., distinctions pulled out with stupefying regularity to derail any substantive conversation on sane gun control.)


So it can't be that she misspoke.
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I have seen different ideas expressed:

Double barreled musket, with tiny holes drilled between the barrels.
Load barrel #1 with powder, wadding and ball. Then load barrel two with powder, wadding and ball.
Then, load barrel #1 with another round of powder, wadding and ball. Then barrel #2. Maybe do it again, maybe even a 4th time.

Ignite the distal load on barrel #1. It fires the ball out the barrel, some of the charge goes through one of the tiny holes and ignites the distal charge in barrel #2. That shoots the ball out of the barrel, with some of that charge going through another of the little holes and ignites the next layer of powder in barrel #1, which shoots the next ball and ignites the next layer of powder back in barrel #2. And so on, until all layers of powder and ball have been discharged. Less than a second to pop off all layers, real loud and lots of smoke.

Another option would be the Puckle gun

These sorts of things may be what Loesch was describing, I think I saw in this forum. They are counting that as fully automatic. I have seen that used as the argument that the framers totally anticipated fully automatic rifles and would have wanted them freely available in public ownership.
 
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