A Well Regulated Militia Part 2

This is a continuation of the thread here. The thread reached the post limit. I have included the OP here:

 

You said this:

I argued for an alternate interpretation of the second amendment, stating that the letter of the law clearly states that the right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed, and that "arms" isn't limited to "small arms". You then suggested that my interpretation is wrong because it doesn't match existing laws.

This would be like someone saying, "I believe the government should pay for birth control", and then a second person saying, "well it doesn't, so your assertion that it should is obviously wrong." It's a non sequitur.

 

The letter of the law allows for the possession of anthrax. I suppose we need to have a constitutional convention to add that too

 

The Supreme Court has already ruled on the Militia thing.

 

I agree on the individual right to bear arms. Those individuals should be trained so we can have a well regulated militia

 

It presupposes that all actors have "clean hands" and that they are competent.

When the actors do not have clean hands or are incompetent, then Due Process applies.

Barring felons or other criminals and the mentally ill from owning or possessing fire-arms is perfectly permissible under the 2nd Amendment, provided Due Process is given.

Your interpretation is wrong, because it doesn't match the vocabulary used by the Framers of the Constitution.

"To bear" means

To carry as a burden
To convey or carry
To carry as a mark of authority
To carry as a mark of distinction
To exhibit

See A DICTIONARY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE IN WHICH The WORDS are deduced from their ORIGINALS, Explained in their Different Meanings, AND Authorised by the NAMES of the WRITERS in whose WORKS they are found.

Abstracted from the Folio Edition by the AUTHOR SAMUEL JOHNSON, AM. To WHICH are PREFIXED, a GRAMMAR of the ENGLISH LANGUAGE, and The PREFACE to the Folio Edition.

10th Edition

London, 1785.

It's painfully obvious that not only did the Framer's of the Constitution intend for people to own and possess arms, but also to carry them, either openly or concealed.

However, "arms" are limited to personal weapons that one carries -- bears -- into battle, not crew-served weapons or weapons platforms.

 

However, "arms" are limited to personal weapons that one carries -- bears -- into battle, not crew-served weapons or weapons platforms.

You're wrong on several levels. What you describe are "small arms" and even they can include rocket launchers, grenade launchers, and grenades.

<Mod Edit>

 

Already being
done. Most gun owners expend more than a little ammo at the target range every month, more than few are ex military, not mind you that any of that is constitutionally mandated.

 

i don't think second amendment advocates should allow liberals to get away with the militia clause, because they will make it really hard to join a militia by imposing expensive licenses and guidelines to join.

the individual must keep their liberty to organize the same way the founders did to defeat england.

 

Most is a guess and does not cut it.

 

Says she who believes the 2nd only applies to people in the militia.

 

well first, again, you tried citing current law to prove that an argument for a different interpretation of law is wrong, and that's just silly. It's like someone saying, "I believe the government should pay for birth control", and then a second person saying, "well it doesn't, so your assertion that it should is obviously wrong." It's a non sequitur.

But as far as to your new assertion, no, it doesn't.

Arms: "weapons and ammunition; armaments."

anthrax: Anthrax is an infection caused by the bacterium Bacillus anthracis.

 

yes, given current case law. But there is a very obvious problem there. The 2nd amendment says, "shall not be infringed". It doesn't say, "shall not be infringed - unless, you know, they sold marijuana when they were 18, then you can deny them the right completely for the rest of their life".

Arms were not limited to personal weapons. You're suggesting that an artillery crew moving it's ordnance into position isn't bringing it's arms to bear. I'd also note here that the Founders clearly thought that the term did apply to crew-served weapons, since they themselves owned and brought them to bear on the enemy (namely George Washington, who owned his own warship). And, even in their day, it was quite obvious that a militia denied the use of artillery, cavalry, etc. wouldn't be very effective.

 

We seem to just be going in circles. I could say chemical weapons (anthrax) are arms but we are getting into the weeds of semantics. My point really is we would need to be updating the amendments very frequently if we ever found an exception to them that was not added and there are many exceptions to all the amendments.

 

It seems to require feigned obtuseness to suggest that an infection itself constitutes "arms". If we made that determination, then we'd have to find - under the current system - that a felon with a urinary tract infection violated their parole. Which just sounds kind of funny to think, right? I can see the scene now.

I don't think there are that many exceptions we'd need to write in. Most of what you've brought up are non-issues, the one that you have brought up are nuclear arms. I think there'd also be a critical mass of public support to ranged explosives, and any self-fueled projectile (essentially missiles - bullets don't have their own fuel, but rockets use their own fuel). If you really wanted to be thorough, add exceptions for chemical or biological weapons.

The list isn't that exhaustive, and the burden of writing down another sentence or two really isn't that great. If someone developed some crazy new weaponry that isn't covered but which the public really doesn't want in private hands - suppose a Dr. Evil kind of "laser", then there would be a critical mass of support to pass an amendment quickly.

Amendments really don't need to take that long. They historically took a long time, because the fastest way to deliver mail was by horse, and that required a bunch of different mailings to be sent out (to call for assemblies, etc.). The 26th amendment, passed nearly 50 years ago, took less than 100 days to be ratified after it had been submitted. I think there is clearly more public support for banning private ownership of nukes, and given the vast increase in speed of communications and travel today, you'd likely find it changed much faster.

(last part put in bold - main point) - the primary issue here is whether or not we can ignore provisions simply because they're inconvenient. You seem to suggest we can avoid even the ratification process, if it's inconvenient. If we can ignore parts you don't like, then you've opened the door for others to ignore parts they don't like which you do. The same protections for the amendments you like cover the ones you don't like.

 

If people understood what the meaning of "well-regulated' meant back when the 2nd Amendment was ratified, there wouldn't even be a discussion about it.

"Well-regulated" does not mean "government-regulated" or "government-controlled."

It means "well-functioning" or working in proper order.

This is evidenced by how the phrase "well-regulated" was used back then...

If you replaced all the above "well-regulated" phrases with "government-controlled" phrases, then none of those statements would make any sense.

 

Weaponized anthrax was part of the US weapons arsenal until 1972. I can't recall when urinary tract infections had that classification but who knows I could be guilty of being very obtuse.

 

All arguments to this efffect are meaningless; the court has laid out the meaning of "arms" as used in the 2nd.
Don't go down the rabbit hole.

 

If changing the amendments are that easy perhaps why is it not done now?

 

Has anybody answered the question I put up in the last thread? If the Founding Fathers had meant to say "the right to bear arms shall not be infringed" then why DIDN"T they? Instead they put in a limiting clause first, "A Well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free country"

As I said before, these were lawyers, they didn't just throw words in for decoration.

If somebody answered that I missed it, please refer me, thanks

 

I agree it is a limiting clause but in Heller they did not. I think Heller got that clearly wrong

 

Yes. Your question proceeds from a false premise, that the prefatory clause creates, or was intended to create a limit.

Held:
The Amendment&#8217;s prefatory clause announces a purpose, but does not limit or expand the scope of the second part, the operative clause. The operative clause&#8217;s text and history demonstrate that it connotes an individual right to keep and bear arms
https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/07-290.ZS.html

[I]3. Relationship between Prefatory Clause and Operative Clause

We reach the question, then: Does the preface fit with an operative clause that creates an individual right to keep and bear arms? It fits perfectly, once one knows the history that the founding generation knew and that we have described above. That history showed that the way tyrants had eliminated a militia consisting of all the able-bodied men was not by banning the militia but simply by taking away the people&#8217;s arms, enabling a select militia or standing army to suppress political opponents. This is what had occurred in England that prompted codification of the right to have arms in the English Bill of Rights.

The debate with respect to the right to keep and bear arms, as with other guarantees in the Bill of Rights, was not over whether it was desirable (all agreed that it was) but over whether it needed to be codified in the Constitution. During the 1788 ratification debates, the fear that the federal government would disarm the people in order to impose rule through a standing army or select militia was pervasive in Antifederalist rhetoric. See, e.g., Letters from The Federal Farmer III (Oct. 10, 1787), in 2 The Complete Anti-Federalist 234, 242 (H. Storing ed. 1981). John Smilie, for example, worried not only that Congress&#8217;s &#8220;command of the militia&#8221; could be used to create a &#8220;select militia,&#8221; or to have &#8220;no militia at all,&#8221; but also, as a separate concern, that &#8220;[w]hen a select militia is formed; the people in general may be disarmed.&#8221; 2 Documentary History of the Ratification of the Constitution 508&#8211;509 (M. Jensen ed. 1976) (hereinafter Documentary Hist.). Federalists responded that because Congress was given no power to abridge the ancient right of individuals to keep and bear arms, such a force could never oppress the people. See, e.g., A Pennsylvanian III (Feb. 20, 178, in The Origin of the Second Amendment 275, 276 (D. Young ed., 2d ed. 2001) (hereinafter Young); White, To the Citizens of Virginia, Feb. 22, 1788, in id., at 280, 281; A Citizen of America, (Oct. 10, 1787) in id., at 38, 40; Remarks on the Amendments to the federal Constitution, Nov. 7, 1788, in id., at 556. It was understood across the political spectrum that the right helped to secure the ideal of a citizen militia, which might be necessary to oppose an oppressive military force if the constitutional order broke down.

It is therefore entirely sensible that the Second Amendment &#8217;s prefatory clause announces the purpose for which the right was codified: to prevent elimination of the militia. The prefatory clause does not suggest that preserving the militia was the only reason Americans valued the ancient right; most undoubtedly thought it even more important for self-defense and hunting. But the threat that the new Federal Government would destroy the citizens&#8217; militia by taking away their arms was the reason that right&#8212;unlike some other English rights&#8212;was codified in a written Constitution. Justice Breyer&#8217;s assertion that individual self-defense is merely a &#8220;subsidiary interest&#8221; of the right to keep and bear arms, see post, at 36, is profoundly mistaken. He bases that assertion solely upon the prologue&#8212;but that can only show that self-defense had little to do with the right&#8217;s codification; it was the central component of the right itself.[/I]
https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/07-290.ZO.html

 

It is so obviously a limiting clause that I don't know how anyone can miss it.

 

Because there isn't a limiting clause.

"Well-regulated" does not mean what you think it means.

"Well-regulated" does not mean "government-regulated" or "government-controlled."

It means "well-functioning" or working in proper order.

This is evidenced by how the phrase "well-regulated" was used back then...

If you replaced all the above "well-regulated" phrases with "government-controlled" phrases, then none of those statements would make any sense.

End of story!

 

I'm not arguing what case law says - any such argument on that matter is meaningless, since that's established and debate over it is just silly. What I'm arguing is what the 2nd actually says, means, and was meant to mean (as opposed to how it has been interpreted).