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The right to bear Arms? Not necefsarily.

Rob Larrikin

Rob Larrikin

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As you can see from the graphic, the original 2nd amendment was quite different from the copied version, which would give rise to men centuries later campaigning to have enemies of the state legally armed. When the amendment was ratified by the States, Jefferson had it copied by some scribe, working by candlelight, with poor glasses and failing eyesight, no doubt exhausted from hours of scribbling, using a quill. Whoever the poor chump was he copied the text incorrectly by removing commas and changing capital letters. That changed the whole meaning of the 2nd amendment.

It went from:

A well regulated Militia, being necefsary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

To:

A well regulated militia being necefsary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

There were five important changes. The M in ‘Militia’ was made into lowercase. The comma behind it was removed. The P in ‘People’ was made into lowercase. The A in ‘Arms’ was made into lowercase. The comma behind it was removed.

The sentence is centuries old and people spoke and wrote differently then, which is why it says ‘necefsary’ instead of ‘necessary’. What you have now is a changed version of the 2nd amendment instead of the original. For centuries it wouldn’t matter since everyone had a gun, but in our amazing and shrinking new world ‘Arms’ have evolved from muskets and horse drawn cannon into nuclear bombs, jets, missiles, machine guns and so on. The word ‘Arms’ comes from ‘Armaments’. People like you and I don’t have armaments. Armies, Navies and Air Forces have armaments.

Arms

“Weapons; armaments.”

https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/arms​
​


Given that it was ‘the militia’ the 2nd was referring to, and given that the militia was to be ‘regulated’, it is clear that ‘gun control’ is a part of the 2nd since regulating your militia means controlling its guns. Since the 2nd talks about the militia existing for the security of the state, it is clear that one of their roles would be to disarm the state’s enemies, and as you know, disarming people is gun control. So they were happy to use gun control among themselves and over their enemies.

“The people” are those served by the well regulated Militia. A ninety year old one-legged woman isn’t going to be part of the Militia, but it will still serve her. A mental patient won’t be part of it, but it will still serve him. A six year old blind girl won’t be a part of it, but it will still serve her.

Today we would write the Second amendment as follows:

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.

The bracketed section explains the first part, thus it is clear that a well regulated Militia is the right of the people.
 
Not sure what this has to do with the final finished product?

The Heller decision simply reaffirmed what we all knew.
 
Beaudreaux said:
This seems to me to have been mistakenly misplaced - the CT subforum is further down the main page.

Here's a little bit of official history that may help clarify the situation for everyone - https://www.loc.gov/law/help/second-amendment.php
Click to expand...

Every Tom Dick and Harry is talking about the second amendment on this forum in case you didn't notice, mostly because it is a hot political issue since the last massacre.

Yes, I've read all the usual ideas people have been pedaling for many decades, and they're wrong. Judges aren't gods - they make mistakes. The 2nd was not easy for them to figure out, mostly because English has evolved.
 
Polar Bum said:
Not sure what this has to do with the final finished product?

The Heller decision simply reaffirmed what we all knew.
Click to expand...

I'm not sure what you're going on about, but you failed miserably to address the points made in the OP.
 
Rob Larrikin said:
I'm not sure what you're going on about, but you failed miserably to address the points made in the OP.
Click to expand...

And I think you missed mine: "Not sure what this has to do with the final finished product?"
 
Rob Larrikin said:
Who wouldn't miss yours?
Click to expand...

Again, arguing semantics over whatever rough draft may or may not have been created has no bearing on the final copy...that's the one that stands today.

I keep hearing about a "hidden" painting under the Mona Lisa.....it does not change the current painting we all know.
 
Rob Larrikin said:


As you can see from the graphic, the original 2nd amendment was quite different from the copied version, which would give rise to men centuries later campaigning to have enemies of the state legally armed. When the amendment was ratified by the States, Jefferson had it copied by some scribe, working by candlelight, with poor glasses and failing eyesight, no doubt exhausted from hours of scribbling, using a quill. Whoever the poor chump was he copied the text incorrectly by removing commas and changing capital letters. That changed the whole meaning of the 2nd amendment.

It went from:

A well regulated Militia, being necefsary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

To:

A well regulated militia being necefsary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

There were five important changes. The M in ‘Militia’ was made into lowercase. The comma behind it was removed. The P in ‘People’ was made into lowercase. The A in ‘Arms’ was made into lowercase. The comma behind it was removed.

The sentence is centuries old and people spoke and wrote differently then, which is why it says ‘necefsary’ instead of ‘necessary’. What you have now is a changed version of the 2nd amendment instead of the original. For centuries it wouldn’t matter since everyone had a gun, but in our amazing and shrinking new world ‘Arms’ have evolved from muskets and horse drawn cannon into nuclear bombs, jets, missiles, machine guns and so on. The word ‘Arms’ comes from ‘Armaments’. People like you and I don’t have armaments. Armies, Navies and Air Forces have armaments.

Arms

“Weapons; armaments.”

https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/arms​
​


Given that it was ‘the militia’ the 2nd was referring to, and given that the militia was to be ‘regulated’, it is clear that ‘gun control’ is a part of the 2nd since regulating your militia means controlling its guns. Since the 2nd talks about the militia existing for the security of the state, it is clear that one of their roles would be to disarm the state’s enemies, and as you know, disarming people is gun control. So they were happy to use gun control among themselves and over their enemies.

“The people” are those served by the well regulated Militia. A ninety year old one-legged woman isn’t going to be part of the Militia, but it will still serve her. A mental patient won’t be part of it, but it will still serve him. A six year old blind girl won’t be a part of it, but it will still serve her.

Today we would write the Second amendment as follows:

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.

The bracketed section explains the first part, thus it is clear that a well regulated Militia is the right of the people.
Click to expand...

Has the Second Amendment ever been invoked to protect the "right" bear nuclear Weapons?
 
Rob Larrikin said:
I'm not sure what you're going on about, but you failed miserably to address the points made in the OP.
Click to expand...

He did, actually.

Rough drafts can contain all sorts of spelling and grammar differences. That is the purpose of a draft. To present something to be considered, be debated over, and modified until one gets the final product.

It does not matter what existed before final publication, or how you might interpret it.

The only article that matters is the final product.

Still, consider this. Militia is a noun, Arms is a noun, People can be used as a noun or a verb. https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/people

The scribe responsible may have capitalized the two and not the third because he wasn't sure of the use of People in the sentence.

Or, conversely it was a personal quirk or error on the part of the scribe.

In any case, you still struggle to give too much meaning to something that is not the final product.

The operative phrase is the section that clearly links the object (i.e. who or what has the "right") with the subject (i.e. the people) in the third segment.

There is no getting over that no matter how much juggling one does.
 
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Captain Adverse said:
He did, actually.

Rough drafts can contain all sorts of spelling and grammar differences. That is the purpose of a draft. To present something to be considered, be debated over, and modified until one gets the final product.

It does not matter what existed before final publication, or how you might interpret it.

The only article that matters is the final product.
Click to expand...

The changes in the final draft made it very confusing, so they weren't the result of deliberate 'editing'. They happened because the scribe was tired and the candlelight was poor, and because they didn't appear to matter at the time. They were of little importance then. Only after centuries of gun evolution and misinformed judges did they become important, and then VERY important. None of the scribes at the time could have imagined that a couple of commas and a few capital letters would matter at all, and Jefferson would have hardly noticed the errors.
 
code1211 said:
Has the Second Amendment ever been invoked to protect the "right" bear nuclear Weapons?
Click to expand...

I have come across libertarians online who appeared to support this. They were so fanatical they refused steadfastly to say that nukes should be banned from common sale by ordinary folk.
 
Captain Adverse said:
Still, consider this. Militia is a noun, Arms is a noun, People can be used as a noun or a verb. https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/people

The scribe responsible may have capitalized the two and not the third because he wasn't sure of the use of People in the sentence.

Or, conversely it was a personal quirk or error on the part of the scribe.
Click to expand...

All good points, and I agree, the scribe may have had those motives. The man would have considered it all fairly insignificant as private gun ownership was not an issue then, so he would not have seen any ‘cross meaning’ inherent in his changed version. Today the poor man would turn in his grave if he knew what trouble he caused.

In any case, you still struggle to give too much meaning to something that is not the final product.

The operative phrase is the section that clearly links the object (i.e. who or what has the "right") with the subject (i.e. the people) in the third segment.

There is no getting over that no matter how much juggling one does.
Click to expand...

The original meaning of the Founders (in our modern language) was:

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.

Their first version was:

A well regulated Militia, being necefsary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

The Founders weren’t talking about private ownership of muskets, because everyone had a musket and that was not an issue. There was no reason to bring it up. They were talking about a Militia being armed, which was, in their opinion, the right of the people.
 
Rob Larrikin said:
I have come across libertarians online who appeared to support this. They were so fanatical they refused steadfastly to say that nukes should be banned from common sale by ordinary folk.
Click to expand...

Any court cases?
 
Captain Adverse said:
He did, actually.

Rough drafts can contain all sorts of spelling and grammar differences. That is the purpose of a draft. To present something to be considered, be debated over, and modified until one gets the final product.

It does not matter what existed before final publication, or how you might interpret it.

The only article that matters is the final product.

Still, consider this. Militia is a noun, Arms is a noun, People can be used as a noun or a verb. https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/people

The scribe responsible may have capitalized the two and not the third because he wasn't sure of the use of People in the sentence.

Or, conversely it was a personal quirk or error on the part of the scribe.

In any case, you still struggle to give too much meaning to something that is not the final product.

The operative phrase is the section that clearly links the object (i.e. who or what has the "right") with the subject (i.e. the people) in the third segment.

There is no getting over that no matter how much juggling one does.
Click to expand...

lol.

The Intent and Purpose for the second clause, is in the first clause.
 
Rob Larrikin said:
All good points, and I agree, the scribe may have had those motives. The man would have considered it all fairly insignificant as private gun ownership was not an issue then, so he would not have seen any ‘cross meaning’ inherent in his changed version. Today the poor man would turn in his grave if he knew what trouble he caused.



The original meaning of the Founders (in our modern language) was:

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.

Their first version was:

A well regulated Militia, being necefsary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

The Founders weren’t talking about private ownership of muskets, because everyone had a musket and that was not an issue. There was no reason to bring it up. They were talking about a Militia being armed, which was, in their opinion, the right of the people.
Click to expand...

danielpalos said:
lol.

The Intent and Purpose for the second clause, is in the first clause.
Click to expand...

Again, not quite. You keep trying to put the cart before the horse.

The purpose behind the Bill of Rights as these Amendment's came to be known, was to limit the power of the Federal government in favor of protections for States and individual citizens, i.e. the people.

The intent of the phraseology was not to protect the State's right to organize a militia, but rather a protection against the power of central government to disarm the people and thereby prevent insurrection.

In order to form a militia one must have a body of people armed and willing to organize into one. Otherwise, the government could create a "select militia" by central control of all arms and the power to determine who they could be issued to.

Again, if the primary purpose was to protect the existence of State militia, then the subject would have remained "militia" throughout...including the operative phrase being the right of the militia to keep and bear arms, not the right of the PEOPLE themselves to keep and bear arms.
 
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code1211 said:
Any court cases?
Click to expand...

Lawyers would tell them not to bother because there are plenty of laws that regulate such things, and nobody objects. The gun nuts never moan and groan about 'nuke grabbers', since the vast majority don't want nukes, missiles, tanks, cannon, etc., they just want guns. Now when you have hundreds of millions who would like guns there is plenty of incentive for lawyers to get involved, and so they bray in court about what the 2nd meant, and convince many a doddering old judge.

You have to look at language and history here to see the truth, not legalese and persuasion in court.

There was no need to include a 'right to have muskets' just as there was no need to include a 'right to have a door'. Everyone had both; it wasn't an issue.

A well armed militia for the people - now that was a worthwhile issue.

It was just a shame they didn't think of clearer words, or hire better scribes...
 
Captain Adverse said:
Again, not quite. You keep trying to put the cart before the horse.

The purpose behind the Bill of Rights as these Amendment's came to be known, was to limit the power of the Federal government in favor of protections for States and individual citizens, i.e. the people.

The intent of the phraseology was not to protect the State's right to organize a militia, but rather a protection against the power of central government to disarm the people and thereby prevent insurrection.

In order to form a militia one must have a body of people armed and willing to organize into one. Otherwise, the government could create a "select militia" by central control of all arms and the power to determine who they could be issued to.

Again, if the primary purpose was to protect the existence of State militia, then the subject would have remained "militia" throughout...including the operative phrase being the right of the militia to keep and bear arms, not the right of the PEOPLE themselves to keep and bear arms.
Click to expand...

dude; you only appeal to ignorance with our Second Article of Amendment, since it is not a Constitution unto itself.
 
danielpalos said:
dude; you only appeal to ignorance with our Second Article of Amendment, since it is not a Constitution unto itself.
Click to expand...

:doh

(Sigh) "Dude." It is and always was a restriction on the power of the Federal government, and now thanks to the SCOTUS decision in McDonald v. Chicago, 561 U.S. 742 (2010) it has been incorporated under the 14th Amendment as applying to the States as well.
 
Rob Larrikin said:
Lawyers would tell them not to bother because there are plenty of laws that regulate such things, and nobody objects. The gun nuts never moan and groan about 'nuke grabbers', since the vast majority don't want nukes, missiles, tanks, cannon, etc., they just want guns. Now when you have hundreds of millions who would like guns there is plenty of incentive for lawyers to get involved, and so they bray in court about what the 2nd meant, and convince many a doddering old judge.

You have to look at language and history here to see the truth, not legalese and persuasion in court.

There was no need to include a 'right to have muskets' just as there was no need to include a 'right to have a door'. Everyone had both; it wasn't an issue.

A well armed militia for the people - now that was a worthwhile issue.

It was just a shame they didn't think of clearer words, or hire better scribes...
Click to expand...

The intent of the Second Amendment is to protect "the People" and "the Various States" from the Federal Government.

That's how it got into the Bill of Rights.
 
Captain Adverse said:
Again, not quite. You keep trying to put the cart before the horse.

The purpose behind the Bill of Rights as these Amendment's came to be known, was to limit the power of the Federal government in favor of protections for States and individual citizens, i.e. the people.

The intent of the phraseology was not to protect the State's right to organize a militia, but rather a protection against the power of central government to disarm the people and thereby prevent insurrection.
Click to expand...

That is the usual interpretation these days, and has been for quite a while. We hear it over and over every day, from every quarter, and it’s wrong. It is a misunderstanding that happened because the second draft was not copied properly. Gun owners have clung to the badly copied version ever since, using it as their bible when it comes to justifying the keeping of any kind of gun – including guns the Founders would have balked at. In their day the only firepower that would equal an MP7 for instance would be a whole column of soldiers with muskets. The punk with the MP7 could take out those men easily, while they were busy loading. The Founders would never allow the punk to walk around free, with what they would call a weapon of mass destruction. You know that’s true. We all do.
 
code1211 said:
The intent of the Second Amendment is to protect "the People" and "the Various States" from the Federal Government.

That's how it got into the Bill of Rights.
Click to expand...

Yeah - that's the modern notion, and it's flawed. There was no need to protect people from not having guns. Everyone had muskets and nobody ever suggested taking them away.
 
Captain Adverse said:
:doh

(Sigh) "Dude." It is and always was a restriction on the power of the Federal government, and now thanks to the SCOTUS decision in McDonald v. Chicago, 561 U.S. 742 (2010) it has been incorporated under the 14th Amendment as applying to the States as well.
Click to expand...

Judicial activism. Our Second Article of Amendment cannot do what is claimed by the right wing simply Because, it is Not, a Constitution unto itself.
 
Captain Adverse said:
:doh

(Sigh) "Dude." It is and always was a restriction on the power of the Federal government, and now thanks to the SCOTUS decision in McDonald v. Chicago, 561 U.S. 742 (2010) it has been incorporated under the 14th Amendment as applying to the States as well.
Click to expand...

Judges get things wrong all the time, so that's not really an argument. If it is, then homosexuals should all be in jail since thousands of judges ruled that homosexuality was a criminal act, for hundreds if not thousands of years.
 
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