----- Original Message -----
From: Dean Forster <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Friday, June 15, 2001 2:53 PM
Subject: Re: 2nd Amendment
>
> --- Dan Minette <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: Dean Forster <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> >
> > > >
> > > > With rights come responsibilities. I suggest
> > that
> > > > the first half of the 2nd
> > > > amendment and the comma
> > >
> > > the foundation of your argument is a comma. I
> > know
> > > you can do better than this, i've seen it. you're
> > not
> > > a lawyer, are ya? ;) darn lawyers.
> > >
> > First of all, I'm not a lawyer.
>
> The wink meant i was kidding, I certainly didn't mean
> offense.
>
No offense taken. Some of my best friends are lawyers. :-) But, I do give
technical involved arguements, so I took it as a reasonable question.
> wow, you can make sense of the Bible? I'm not being
> sarcastic, that's quite a feat. My father put quite a
> bit of study into it and got to the point where he
> could look at a passage randomly, then find another
> that was 180 degrees away from it.
>
Well, I don't take scripture literally. And, I'd be curious to see which
technique of interpretation your father was taught in his study. Mine
involves the standard higher criticism used by the non neo-evangelical
Protestant and Catholic scripture scholars. (As well as some Orthadox, my
grad. school teacher was a Russian Orthadox priest who knew the family of
the Czar's chaplin rather well.)
>
> To play devil's advocate, perhaps they anticipated
> people such as you and I, and intentionally worded it
> so that it could be taken as either so that the issue
> would be deadlocked.
>
Or, it was a subtle point and they were trying to express the subtleties.
Or, our present culture has added the perspective of personal freedoms in a
non-social context.
> >
> > A well regulated militia shall not be infringed.
> >
> > with subordinant clauses:
> >
> > being necessary to the security of a free state
> > &
> > the right of the people to keep and bear arms
> >
>
> If we're taking this as divided up, I don't think that
> the last part is ambiguous at all.
>
Right it is not. The people do have a right to bear arms. But what is it.
Well, with the grammar that I suggests it modifies the noun phrase "well
regulated militia" In other words: well regulated militia are the physical
expression of the people's right to bear arms.
> > They are
> > Amendment I
> >
> > Congress shall make no law respecting an
> > establishment of religion, or
> > prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging
> > the freedom of speech,
> > or of the press; or the right of the people
> > peaceably to assemble, and to
> > petition the government for a redress of grievances.
> >
> >
> > Amendment III
> >
> > No soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in
> > any house, without the
> > consent of the owner, nor in time of war, but in a
> > manner to be prescribed
> > by law.
> >
> >
> > Can you see the significant contrast between I and
> > III and II?
> >
> > II is the only one with a preamble.
> >
> > Others have suggested that the grammar of the time
> > be considered. That's
> > very valid, and I'd welcome any analysis based on
> > the changes in the rules
> > of grammar from then till now.
> >
>
> I'm afraid I didn't follow you on the last one there.
The difference in the formulation of the 2nd and all the other ammendments
is not accidental. The 2nd ammendment specifically gives a context for the
right to bear arms: in well regulated militia. Nowhere else is a right in
the bill of rights specifically restricted to cases where the right is
exercised only in a well regulated fashion.
> I know that the framers were lawyers and they were
> doing their work knowing that other lawyers later
> would interpret it, but these were some quite
> visionary men who had the utmost respect of their
> peers and the people at large. They wanted to create
> a just and lasting country so that they could leave
> their mark on history. Would they write something so
> important that the common man could not read it
> plainly and know what it pledges?
Well, I assume you know that, at the start, the common man could not vote.
Universal white male sufferage was a latter development. First it occured
in new states, then it took hold in the first 13 states in the union.
Second, even those who could vote, couldn't vote for senators or the
president. The idea was for them to choose wise men who would make the
distincition. The founders of the US were well educated men of the
enlightenment. It is reasonable to assume that they were more worried about
the understanding of someone with a suitable education than the
understanding of the workers who could not vote anyways.
>Would they want that man to read it and think "great, another clerk
> wrote this, he was just like the oppressors they just got done casting off
of themselves"
Well, I think that they felt that satisfying the state legislators and
having a working system was their main goal. I don't think that worrying
about the man in the street was common.
Dan M.
