Guns and grammar

Read the Declaration of Independence. Rights are God-given. If there is a right to bear arms, and the Second Amendment states that there is, then it belongs to everyone and is inalienable. While it can be lost by due process after commiting a crime, it cannot be transfered to anyone or any thing, such as a militia.

Dave in NH wrote:

Where do I begin? A piece that is titled "Guns and grammar" that has such statements in it as "Did it created a collective right..." and "Did it created an individual right..."
Ignoring the grammatical problems here, the answer is "no, the Bill of Rights did not create any rights." The People had those rights already and the Bill of Rights merely enumerates some of them, and places certain limitations on government.
In 1A, it says "Congress shall make no law..." but does not limit, for example, your employers ability to limit your freeness of speech. But in 2A, it says "shall not be infringed." And the choice of a legal term, that is, the word "shall" was specifically selected, in preference to "will", "should", or something less precise.

If you examine the body of the Constitution, you [shall] discover many instances of the usage of the word "shall". In fact, you'll find the word in well over half the clauses of the docuument. All are used in establishing the grants of powers that Congress "shall" be allowed to exercise. Which shines some very helpful light on Madison's usage of "shall NOT" in Amendment II. "This" you CAN do, and "THAT" you CANNOT. The legal compact was indeed brilliantly designed.

Eric wrote:

While it can be lost by due process after commiting a crime...

NEGATIVE. That is why the term "infringed" was employed. It is a legal term which means that no law can be enacted which contravenes that right. The ONLY way an American citizen can legally be Constitutionally disarmed is if they have committed a crime or waged war. When they have served their lawfully imposed sentence, or upon promise of future good behavior. Then their property is returned to them. Self-Defense/Preservation is an INALIENABLE Natural right that CANNOT be divested by ANY 'man-made' law. For, it is the First Law of Nature and is an IMMUTABLE law that CANNOT be abrogated. There is ample evidence that I can provide of this FACT if necessary.

The first clause of the 2A is a dependent adverbial clause. This adverbal clause can only modify the verb phrase "shall not be infringed" found in the independent clause, not the subject phrase "the right to keep and bear arms." Adverbs and adverbal clauses give reasons for something; in this instance, it has no effect on meaning of "the right to keep and bear arms." Nor under statutorial interpretation rules is the reason given by the dependent clause exclusive of other reasons why the "right" might be good.

In UNITED STATES v. CRUIKSHANK the Supreme Court explicitly stated that the right spoken of in the Second Amendment was not created by the Constitution. It is a right that already existed when the Constitution was written. The Second Amendment simply recognizes an existing right, just as its language suggests. As this article states, the Founders were learned men, and they certainly knew how to construct an English sentence stating the creation of a right.

Instead of trying to parse the words of the Second Amendment, why not read the other things the authors of the amendment wrote.

Why not look at what they did in their personal lives. Did they turn in their weapons when the fighting was over?

John V Bersot Sr JD wrote:

The first clause of the 2A is a dependent adverbial clause. This adverbal clause can only modify the verb phrase "shall not be infringed" found in the independent clause, not the subject phrase "the right to keep and bear arms." Adverbs and adverbal clauses give reasons for something; in this instance, it has no effect on meaning of "the right to keep and bear arms." Nor under statutorial interpretation rules is the reason given by the dependent clause exclusive of other reasons why the "right" might be good.

The preamble to the Bill of Rights itself:
http://gunshowonthenet.com/BillOfRights.htm

"The Conventions of a number of the States having, at the time of adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further DECLARATORY and RESTRICTIVE clauses should be added, and as extending the ground of public confidence in the Government will best insure the beneficent ends of its institution;

"Resolved, by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled, two-thirds of both Houses concurring, that the following articles be proposed to the Legislatures of the several States, as amendments to the Constitution of the United States; all or any of which articles, when ratified by three-fourths of the said Legislatures, to be valid to all intents and purposes as part of the said Constitution, namely:

...Amendment II

DECLARATORY; (Common Defense)
http://gunshowonthenet.com/2ALEGAL/Precedent/...

"A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state,"

RESTRICTIVE; (Self-Defense/Preservation, The First Law of Nature).
http://gunshowonthenet.com/AfterTheFact/Right...
http://gunshowonthenet.com/2ALEGAL/SelfPreser...
http://gunshowonthenet.com/2ALaw/LawsofNature...

"the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."

GunShowOnTheNet wrote:

"the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."

And how's that working out? Not too well is it? Last time I checked it has been repeatedly infringed, and most of those infringements are still in place. It seems to be like it didn't hold up too well over the years.

Mock26 wrote:

<quoted text>
And how's that working out? Not too well is it? Last time I checked it has been repeatedly infringed, and most of those infringements are still in place. It seems to be like it didn't hold up too well over the years.

Yeah, because of the cowardly and effeminate cries from traitors such as yourself, it most assuredly has been infringed upon....

A well-educated electorate, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and read books, shall not be infringed.

Who gets to keep and read books?

Tell me, Frank, what is the difference between "Congress shall make no law" and "Shall not be infringed."

Clearly, the statements are synonymous in their commands.

Cunning linguistics to promote gun control aside, it's clear from history and intent that the two parts of the 2A have somewhat separate connotations.

The first clause reaffirms the importance of the citizen's militia; the second part guarantees the pre-existing right to keep, and to bear, arms.

This is likely what the court shall regognize, and they do not have to stand on their heads to do so.

i love GunShowOnTheNEt's seeming inability to quote from more than one source.

Mock26 wrote:

<quoted text>
And how's that working out? Not too well is it? Last time I checked it has been repeatedly infringed, and most of those infringements are still in place. It seems to be like it didn't hold up too well over the years.

LOL you are the one who has had your rights infringed most moron. In my state I can walk into a store and walk out with a handgun in 15 minutes. A nice big semi-auto .45, along with a shotgun and semi-auto rifle if I want. At the same time I can buy a hundred pounds of gunpowder and enough bullets, primers and casings to load enough ammo to last a very long time.

You on the other hand cannot without begging and waiting, and waiting, and waiting buy a weapon in Chicago to defend your wife and daughter from a rapist who calls and tells you he is going to rape and kill them and you.

So tell us loser how well it is working for you in Chicago. Oh that's right, you have never moved off of the top 5 cities in the nation for violent crime since you instituted those gun laws.
Nevermind.

lides wrote:

i love GunShowOnTheNEt's seeming inability to quote from more than one source.

I love to watch ignorant leftists who whine and bitch, but provide no quotes from any source whatsoever...
ROFLMAO

el politico wrote:

<quoted text>
I love to watch ignorant leftists who whine and bitch, but provide no quotes from any source whatsoever...
ROFLMAO

Unless you are a complete moron, you can read my earlier posts. I have no need to quote websites, I am much more comfortable using the US Constitution and occasionally the Declaration of Independence.

In re the Second Amendment:
Who could disagree with the redoutable Professor Park in her interpretation of the Ablative Absolute,so beloved by those who struggled through Caesar's Gallic Wars and their Cicero?
But the fact remains that the "well-regulated militia" depended upon citizens supplying their own, personal weapons ... or at least it did in that era.
Indeed, a major problem the supply officers of those early militias faced was supplying differing types of ammunition.
Unfortunately for those who believe in stricter gun controls, the founders may well have intended that the right to keep and bear arms was not about potting the odd duck. It was about potting the odd government official who might attempt to pot you for shooting your mouth off, or otherwise oppress you, or deny you any other privilege in the Bill of Rights.
If you and your neighbors wanted to get together to do this in some organized fashion, well that was a militia. Villages had them, towns, counties, and even neighborhoods in big cities supported militia units. Haphazard though they might be, and differently armed, many at their own expense, was how we fought wars into the 1890s.

We used a wide variety of militias, some well-regulated, some not, to augment our always minuscule Army.

Their is a way out of this dilemma which is so vexing to many in modern times. It's called a Constitutional Amendment. If public sentiment were against the right to "Keep and Bear Arms," the public's representatives would then campaign for an amendment to that effect.
The public is not. So, it remains a right.
FF

OK lets say that IS true, that means ONLY the "STATE MILITIA" can have guns!

Are private security the militia NO.
Are cops the militia? NNNOOOO!
Are any of the other fed agencies like FBI, CIA, NSA, BATFE, SECRET SERVICE or even the full time MILITARY the "state" militia NNNNNoooOOOOooo!!!

Now as soon as you give me the exact legal definition of "Collective RIGHT" and show me anywhere during the first 150 years of this country where anyone has ever been prosecuted or even charged with owning a gun while not being in a "state militia" I will stop thinking you are a domestic enemy of the "PEOPLE"!

el politico wrote:

<quoted text>
LOL you are the one who has had your rights infringed most moron. In my state I can walk into a store and walk out with a handgun in 15 minutes. A nice big semi-auto .45, along with a shotgun and semi-auto rifle if I want. At the same time I can buy a hundred pounds of gunpowder and enough bullets, primers and casings to load enough ammo to last a very long time.
You on the other hand cannot without begging and waiting, and waiting, and waiting buy a weapon in Chicago to defend your wife and daughter from a rapist who calls and tells you he is going to rape and kill them and you.
So tell us loser how well it is working for you in Chicago. Oh that's right, you have never moved off of the top 5 cities in the nation for violent crime since you instituted those gun laws.
Nevermind.

Not true. I already have by FOID form. I can go to Bass Pro Shops, show them my FOID, buy a shotgun, and take it home the same day. I have a certain time period (I think it is 30 days) to take a copy of the relevant documentation to the local police station. That's pretty quick.

Mock26 wrote:

<quoted text> Not true. I already have by FOID form. I can go to Bass Pro Shops, show them my FOID, buy a shotgun, and take it home the same day. I have a certain time period (I think it is 30 days) to take a copy of the relevant documentation to the local police station. That's pretty quick.

In reality, there should be NO 'permit' required in the first place.

"The Right is General.— It may be supposed from the phraseology of this provision that the right to keep and bear arms was only guaranteed to the militia; but this would be an interpretation not warranted by the intent. The militia, as has been elsewhere explained, consists of those persons who, under the law, are liable to the performance of military duty, and are officered and enrolled for service when called upon. But the law may make provision for the enrolment of all who are fit to perform military duty, or of a small number only, or it may wholly omit to make any provision at all; and if the right were limited to those enrolled, the purpose of this guaranty might be defeated altogether by the action or neglect to act of the government it was meant to hold in check. The meaning of the provision undoubtedly is, that the people, from whom the militia must be taken, shall have the right to keep and bear arms, and THEY NEED NO PERMISSION OR REGULATION OF LAW FOR THE PURPOSE. But this enables the government to have a well regulated militia; for to bear arms implies something more than the mere keeping; it implies the learning to handle and use them in a way that makes those who keep them ready for their efficient use; in other words, it implies the right to meet for voluntary discipline in arms, observing in doing so the laws of public order."

- Thomas M. Cooley, LL.D., THE GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF CONSTITUTIONAL LAW IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA [1880], FOURTH EDITION EDITED BY JON ROLAND,(Constitution Society), 2002.
(Mr. Cooley was Dean of the University of Michigan's Law School, Michigan Supreme Court justice, and a nationally recognized scholar. And, was one of the authorities quoted in the recent D.C. Court decision).
http://gunshowonthenet.com/AfterTheFact/DCApp...

"For, in principle, there is no difference between a law prohibiting the wearing of concealed arms, and a law forbidding the wearing such as are exposed; and if the former be unconstitutional, the latter must be so likewise. But it should not be forgotten, that it is not only a part of the right that is secured by the constitution; it is the right entire and complete, as it existed at the adoption of the constitution; and if any portion of that right be impaired, immaterial how small the part may be, and immaterial the order of time at which it be done, it is equally forbidden by the constitution."

- Bliss vs. Commonwealth, 12 Ky.(2 Litt.) 90, at 92, and 93, 13 Am. Dec. 251 (1822).
http://gunshowonthenet.com/2ALaw/blissVcommon...

"A system of licensing and registration, is the perfect device to deny gun ownership to the bourgeoisie."

- Vladimir Lenin, "The Beginning of the Revolution in Russia", Selected Works, Vol. I, International Publishers, New York, 1967.

lides wrote:

i love GunShowOnTheNEt's seeming inability to quote from more than one source.

Which one specifically? The Library of Congress?(THE largest document data source depository in the WORLD). The University of Chicago? The University of Virginia? Yale? Harvard? Because THOSE are the sources from which MOST, if not ALL of the info. I post have been gathered. Oh yeah, and JUSTIA; The U.S. Supreme Courts case history web-site.

Care to make anymore smart@ss remarks?