Fixing the Second Amendment

#26
#26
Obsessed said:
Can't read the link, but I was taught the comma means "and".

Is this correct?
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A recent poll suggests Americans will consider the gun debate a pivotal point in the 2014 elections. So we wanted to explore how Americans kept the right to bear arms in the first place. As it turns out, grammar is the culprit.

Take a look at the Second Amendment:

"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."

That little, red comma caused the Supreme Court to strike down D.C.'s ban on handguns, the country's strictest gun control law to date.

Before the Supreme Court heard the case, the D.C. circuit court of appeals nixed the ban, too. "According to the court, the second comma divides the amendment into two clauses: one 'prefatory' and the other 'operative.' On this reading, the bit about a well-regulated militia is just preliminary throat clearing; the framers don’t really get down to business until they start talking about 'the right of the people ... shall not be infringed,'" The New York Times reported.

Gun control proponents argue the founders used commas more frequently than common English today, Ross Guberman wrote in his legal writing blog. Some historians even claim that many states ratified a version of the Second Amendment with only two commas, not three. The extra commas don't mean much in that context, the argument goes.

Anti-gun academics have also argued the framers really meant "A well regulated militia ... shall not be infringed," the Times said. Phrases surrounded by commas can often be left out of a sentence without damaging the meaning.

Regardless of the grammatical volleying, the Supreme Court upheld the D.C. court's decision in 2008, invalidating the gun law. The high court invoked the same grammar logic as the appeals court.

"The Amendment's prefatory clause announced a purpose, but does not limit or expand the scope of the second part, the operative clause. The operative clause's text and history demonstrate that it connotes an individual right to keep and bear arms," Justice Antonin Scalia wrote in the majority.

The majority opinion said the court took the problem of handgun violence "seriously," but they couldn't "pronounce the Second Amendment extinct."

The Supreme Court has set the precedent on the grammar issues at the heart of the gun debate for now. However, the court may revisit gun control in an upcoming challenge to gun limits for people under 21.
 
#27
#27
Obsessed said:
Can't read the link, but I was taught the comma means "and".

Is this correct?
Click to expand...

.

That little, red comma caused the Supreme Court to strike down D.C.'s ban on handguns, the country's strictest gun control law to date.

Before the Supreme Court heard the case, the D.C. circuit court of appeals nixed the ban, too. "According to the court, the second comma divides the amendment into two clauses: one 'prefatory' and the other 'operative.' On this reading, the bit about a well-regulated militia is just preliminary throat clearing; the framers don’t really get down to business until they start talking about 'the right of the people ... shall not be infringed,'" The New York Times reported.
Click to expand...
 
#30
#30
lawgator1 said:
The purpose of the well-regulated militia language, which is so often just ignored by the NRA and gun proponents on this board, was so that the states could protect themselves from a national army, should the national army ever come to threaten them.

So yes, I have no problem with an individual state's well-regulated militia having firearms.
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Problem is, no state has a regulated militia and hasn't for many years.
 
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#38
#38
Obsessed said:
Is this not what the national guard is considered?
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No, the National Gaurd can be Federalized at any time by POTUS see AL during the civil rights era. A militia with the intent of defending the state from a tyrannical federal government could not be federalized.
 
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#40
#40
The point is, for 200 years the courts believed that the so-called "prefatory" clause, the mere surplusage "throat-clearing," had meaning.

Its in there, after all. If not necessary or even flatly irrelevant, why is it in there?
 
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#41
#41
lawgator1 said:
The point is, for 200 years the courts believed that the so-called "prefatory" clause, the mere surplusage "throat-clearing," had meaning.

Its in there, after all. If not necessary or even flatly irrelevant, why is it in there?
Click to expand...

you do realize that most of us are saying it should be there?
 
#42
#42
Obsessed said:
But, if the state was fighting tyranny, would the POTUS commands be moot?
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The oaths we took to obey lawful orders were the same oaths taken by the full time service members. The trick would be whether or not you could determine a POTUS' orders were "unlawful".

National Guardsmen and regular component members have been trying for decades to get out of service by declaring various orders as unlawful. I don't know of any such occurrence when they were successful.
 
#44
#44
lawgator1 said:
The point is, for 200 years the courts believed that the so-called "prefatory" clause, the mere surplusage "throat-clearing," had meaning.

Its in there, after all. If not necessary or even flatly irrelevant, why is it in there?
Click to expand...

I love this "for 200 years" as if it was continually reviewed and affirmed.

Note what Stevens claims that meaning means - the right is to own guns for military use. In no way does that suggest the individual right doesn't exist but instead indicates why the individual right exists.
 
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#45
#45
lawgator1 said:
The point is, for 200 years the courts believed that the so-called "prefatory" clause, the mere surplusage "throat-clearing," had meaning.

Its in there, after all. If not necessary or even flatly irrelevant, why is it in there?
Click to expand...

For over 160 years there were no federal gun regulations.
 
#47
#47
hog88 said:
For over 160 years there were no federal gun regulations.
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How did our Republic survive? Surely, everyone shot each other and the last person standing shot themselves.
 
#49
#49
Sounds like Stevens needs a good old fashioned punch to the throat. Here's another enemy to the constitution. He's one of the tyrants our founding fathers warned us about.
 
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