I'm on a bit of a Constitutional tear this evening.
"A well educated Electorate, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people of keep and read books, shall not be infringed."
Of course not.
Why does the Second Amendment then cause so much confusion for otherwise smart people?
"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."
Seems simple.
(For those of you who would say the right only extends to weapons of the time, like muskets, I'd ask does the First Amendment apply only to media of the time, like newspapers, or does it cover TV too? Thanks to the Wikipedia for that analogy.)
Posted by Tony at May 16, 2005 10:31 PM | TrackBackChanging "regulated" to "educated" changes the meaning of the first clause quite a lot.
Posted by: jeffdav at May 17, 2005 03:23 PMPlease note that the wife doesn't share this view of the world and would love to see some restrictions placed on firearm ownership.
Posted by: Michelle at May 17, 2005 04:44 PMBooks aren't often used to kill people.
Posted by: Tammy at May 19, 2005 02:11 PMPersonally, I am with Tony on this one. I am for responsible adults (i.e. not convicted of violent crimes, etc) being able to own just about any type of gun. I am okay with concealed weapons permits. I think most major urban centers (downtown, anycity, usa) should probably be gun-free zones, but we can leave that to local legislation. I am against questionable analogies.
Interestingly enough, Robert Anton Wilson once propsed that the 2nd amendment had originally dealt with the right of people to keep pr0n and was changed at the last minute as part of some vast conspiracy, but I am sure he just made that up.
Arguably books have been responsible for more deaths throughout history than guns. How many wars have been fought over religious texts? Guns kill people, yes, but we all agree on that. The question is should ordinary citizens be allowed that option in self defense or is that something only criminals get to do? Banning guns does not make them go away.
Posted by: jeffdav at May 19, 2005 05:21 PMIt never fails that I get comments when I post on this topic.
While I think my views on the right to keep and bear arms is clear, the point of this post was to try to address the question of what the Second Amendment refers to.
I'm glad that Jeff agrees with me on the issue, but I disagree that changing "regulated" to "educated" changes the construction. In particular, the word "regulated" in this sense means "trained", not "controlled", so the parallel is even stronger.
Anyway, food for thought.
Posted by: Tony at May 20, 2005 09:53 PMI just found this topic too enticing not post.
A quick intro: Hi! I’m John. I have had the pleasure of working in the, highly refrigerated, automation test lab for the IE Team since April of 2000.
I would add the word “regulated” also implies “disciplined” and “organized”.
Love the analogy as well.
Tony, dearest, if books = guns in your world I'm never going to the library with you.
Posted by: Leslie Evans at June 1, 2005 05:28 PMWhat took you so long to respond, Leslie? :)
My left-wing, knee-jerk liberal pills Rx ran out. Took me a few days to get things straightened out.
Posted by: Leslie Evans at June 8, 2005 08:25 PMMy left-wing, knee-jerk liberal pills Rx ran out. Took me a few days to get things straightened out.
Posted by: Leslie Evans at June 8, 2005 08:25 PMDouble posts are an unfortunate side-effect.
Posted by: Leslie Evans at June 8, 2005 08:27 PM:)
Posted by: Tony at June 9, 2005 12:55 AM