Grammatically correct 2nd amendment

Currently;
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
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How about;
The right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
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or
Congress shall have no authority to regulate the possession of firearms.
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Or the other way;
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the state militias to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
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or
A well regulated population, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the state militia to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
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Ranb
 
I will go with
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the state militias to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
 
The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. The other clause is superfluous.
 
Brainster said:
The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. The other clause is superfluous.
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So you deny the need for the single state to be able to defend itself against the federal government. Are you against state rights?
Further the moment you make this a federal matter you open up for the courts to erode those rights.
No, keep them with the single state and allow it to choose to have strong militia which can defend itself against the federal government.
 
Undesired Walrus said:
If the second amendment was grammatically correct, what would it say?
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The main problem isn't the grammar, it's the semantics. The amendment begs the question of what "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms" actually is. All it actually states is that, once it's established what the nature of that right is, it won't be infringed.

Dave
 
Brainster said:
The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. The other clause is superfluous.
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Clearly not, otherwise it's moronic even to mention it. The two things are related in some way.

"A nicely seasoned stew, being desirable for the nutrition of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed. "
 
Apologies for the unintentional irony in my first sentence.

So is it essentially saying 'shall not be infringed' to both militias AND the people?
 
Undesired Walrus said:
Apologies for the unintentional irony in my first sentence.

So is it essentially saying 'shall not be infringed' to both militias AND the people?
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Well, it says "the people," not the militias.

I don't think the amendment is incorrectly worded, but it is ambiguous and not entirely unintentionally. It is likely that the times were different and the difficulties of today were not foreseen, but the framers of the amendment, not entirely sure what would come about in the future, left things rather vague and general. Once upon a time, I would guess it was presumed that a free people would be armed, that this characteristic, aside from being important in an agrarian society with growing frontiers, had helped the country to gain its freedom, and that tyrants would attempt to disarm us or ration our arming as a means of control. Nobody back than was foreseeing the epidemic of violence and easily acquired assault weapons.

I would suspect that even then as now there were multiple political points of view, and that the amendment was a compromise.
 
Undesired Walrus said:
So is it essentially saying 'shall not be infringed' to both militias AND the people?
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No, just “the people”.

Otherwise, you are postulating that intention of the second amendment is to prevent the state from disarming the state.
 
How about:


A well regulated Militia, open to all citizens over the age of 21, being necessary for the security of a free state, the right of the people to bear licensed firearms shall not be infringed.
 
Tommy Jeppesen said:
So you deny the need for the single state to be able to defend itself against the federal government. Are you against state rights?
Further the moment you make this a federal matter you open up for the courts to erode those rights.
No, keep them with the single state and allow it to choose to have strong militia which can defend itself against the federal government.
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That may be the way you would prefer it to be written, but it does not at all capture the transparent meaning of the words. You can't just wave away "the right of the people to keep and bear arms..."

If you read the Constitution carefully, you will begin to see that it is a document intended specifically to limit the rights and powers of the federal government. Basically the Constitution sets up a hierarchy of rights. The federal government is only allowed to do what is stated in the document. The states are free to do much more, with the exception of a few items reserved to the feds, like negotiating treaties, and going to war. However, the people are freer still--they have the right to do lots of things. The tenth amendment to the Constitution makes this clear:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
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Incidentally the constitutions of most US states contain the right to keep and bear arms, and quite a few have much more direct language. Florida's constitution, which is the current focus, for obvious reasons, has this provision:

Florida: (a) The right of the people to keep and bear arms in defense of themselves and of the lawful authority of the state shall not be infringed, except that the manner of bearing arms may be regulated by law.
(b) There shall be a mandatory period of three days, excluding weekends and legal holidays, between the purchase and delivery at retail of any handgun. For the purposes of this section, "purchase" means the transfer of money or other valuable consideration to the retailer, and "handgun" means a firearm capable of being carried and used by one hand, such as a pistol or revolver. Holders of a concealed weapon permit as prescribed in Florida law shall not be subject to the provisions of this paragraph.
(c) The legislature shall enact legislation implementing subsection (b) of this section, effective no later than December 31, 1991, which shall provide that anyone violating the provisions of subsection (b) shall be guilty of a felony.
(d) This restriction shall not apply to a trade in of another handgun.
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Belz... said:
Makes you wonder why they put it there...
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As best as I can see, it seems to be a bit of rationalization. We need a trained militia, and therefore it might help if the citizens were experienced with guns and knew how to point and aim them.

I seriously doubt that they were secretly hoping that this could somehow be misconstrued as only allowing militias to own guns.
 
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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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.
 
Brainster said:
As best as I can see, it seems to be a bit of rationalization. We need a trained militia, and therefore it might help if the citizens were experienced with guns and knew how to point and aim them.

I seriously doubt that they were secretly hoping that this could somehow be misconstrued as only allowing militias to own guns.
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I think it's the other way around: We need a militia, the citizenry exercising its rights is already effectively that, so let's not interfere with the the right.
 
theprestige said:
I think it's the other way around: We need a militia, the citizenry exercising its rights is already effectively that, so let's not interfere with the the right.
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You clearing don't understand the difference between a militia and a group of armed civilians.
The one is training in fighting, the other is not and at worst counterproductive to purpose of a militia.
 
Dave Rogers said:
The main problem isn't the grammar, it's the semantics. The amendment begs the question of what "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms" actually is. All it actually states is that, once it's established what the nature of that right is, it won't be infringed.

Dave
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And the Supreme Court has made it clear over the years that "the right" is not absolute.

There are lots of things that can be done to limit access to firearms and still be concistent with the current interpretation of the 2A. It is a political problem, not a legal one.

For example: The US could require a federal license to buy or sell any guns, ammo, or constituent parts of either, and it would not infringe "the right" so long as the license terms were not discriminatory or overly burdensome. It could also require that all such sales be reported so long as it provided a convenient platform for such reports. There is nothing in the 2A that prevents the government from knowing who is armed and what arms they have.
 
Tommy Jeppesen said:
You clearing don't understand the difference between a militia and a group of armed civilians [or a mob].
The one is training in fighting, the other is not and at worst counterproductive to purpose of a militia.
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Added my own contribution.
 
Belz... said:
Indeed. Within the states, it's the citizens, but the US is a federation of states.
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Are you saying that the purpose of the Second Amendment is that citizens can defend themselves against the tyrannical ambitions of their respective State governments rather than those of the Federal government? Because, if so, a lot of people seem to have misunderstood that.

Dave
 
Dave Rogers said:
Are you saying that the purpose of the Second Amendment is that citizens can defend themselves against the tyrannical ambitions of their respective State governments rather than those of the Federal government?
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No, I believe I said "Within the states, it's the citizens (who are the balance to the central government), but the US is a federation of states.". I was responding to a specific post, but I must admit I'm not sure where _he_ was going with it.
 
Why is it assumed that the people would not have to protect themselves from the STATE Government?

The real problem with the 2nd Ad is that technology has made it unclear. The right to bear arms is being infringed. When it was written I could buy the best military technology there was. I could buy any poison, any amount of black powder and any cannon I might want and in any amount.

Now days we don't allow such a right, no one I believe thinks that people should be able to by anti-tank missiles, anti-aircraft missiles, mines, poison gas, artillery, mortars, armored vehicles, nuclear weapons or heavy automatic weapons. So the 2nd Ad is already being infringed.

We just have to agree on where the infringement stops or is allowed.
 
Dave Rogers said:
The main problem isn't the grammar, it's the semantics. The amendment begs the question of what "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms" actually is. All it actually states is that, once it's established what the nature of that right is, it won't be infringed.

Dave
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This is what I was thinking.

I could probably change the grammar so the 2nd could state what I want it to state; and I'm sure most can do the same.

And, based on the OP's premise, we aren't adding words to the 2nd.
 
Belz... said:
More like a justification. Now it makes you wonder, if the justification no longer holds, is the amendment itself even relevant anymore?
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I think that having explicitly recognized the right, the Constitution requires it be protected as a right, regardless of what justifications may or may not be attached to it.

Giving one good reason to protect a right does not mean that it is the only possible reason. Nor does it oblige the reasoner to enumerate every possible reason, in order to secure the right.
 
Dr. Keith said:
......There is nothing in the 2A that prevents the government from knowing who is armed and what arms they have.
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Is there not case law establishing this, though? Genuinely curious, as I had long assumed that there must have a court ruling on this matter at some stage, otherwise things wouldn't be as they are now.
 
Brainster said:
The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. The other clause is superfluous.
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Only if it disturbs your stance on the matter. Interesting how some bits of the sacrosanct constitution (as amended) are dispensable/ ignorable when it suits.
 
MikeG said:
Is there not case law establishing this, though? Genuinely curious, as I had long assumed that there must have a court ruling on this matter at some stage, otherwise things wouldn't be as they are now.
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There is plenty of case law on the 2A. Most of it is rather recent, but none of it would prevent such licensing or registration so long as it wasn't discriminatory or overly burdensome. If the requirements are directly related to gun safety it would be be easy peasy.

As a political issue it may as well be the third rail of politics to suggest any sort of registration or licensing scheme. There is a goal minority that ***** its pants at any mention of the government knowing that they own guns. Registration is the first step to confiscation in their minds.
 
MikeG said:
Only if it disturbs your stance on the matter. Interesting how some bits of the sacrosanct constitution (as amended) are dispensable/ ignorable when it suits.
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Like an evangelical crawfish boil raising funds for pro-life causes. You can't do much but shrug.

Thing is, the constitution is not a suicide pact. We don't have to die like this.
 
theprestige said:
I think that having explicitly recognized the right, the Constitution requires it be protected as a right, regardless of what justifications may or may not be attached to it.
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Oh, legally, sure, but it raises the question anyway. Like, if I say, "repairing my house being important, I should set aside X dollars every month for a repair fund." and then I sell my house, there's really no need for that fund anymore.
 
MikeG said:
Thanks.
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I'm not a 2A scholar, but I looked into back when wildcat was open to conversation on this sort of thing. IIRC, all the cases were based on laws that were discriminatory, overly burdensome, or vague in some egregious way. I'm happy to be corrected on this since I'm riffing from memory.
 
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