On Wed, 2008-07-23 at 08:34 -0500, Richard M. Smith wrote: > The goal of the 2nd amendment is to have armed people with guns that > can be called up and used in military activities by the government. > There is nothing about self-defense nor protecting oneself against > government oppression in the amendment.
Actually you have to look at the historical definitions of the words militia and regulated to get the whole picture. Militia was basically any male that can hear thunder and see lightning. Regulated meant you had the equipment and knew how to use it. Language tends to change over time. It is also spelled out quite clearly in the federalist papers and other writings by the authors of the constitution what that amendment means. Just given the context of the revolution itself and the wording of the Declaration of Independence, that amendment was all about having the tools to remove the government if necessary. > Regardless the amendment is clear that Americans get to have guns. Sort of. The amendments are a set of things that are specifically forbidden from tinkering with. In my opinion it is one of several flaws in the document because it detracts from the fact that it was intended to be a set of specific delegated powers. (One of which was to show up one day a year!) A default deny with a whitelist of specific tasks, rather than a default allow with a blacklist of rights. 300 yet? :) _______________________________________________ Fun and Misc security discussion for OT posts. https://linuxbox.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/funsec Note: funsec is a public and open mailing list.
