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The
Below Comments Relate to this Newslink:
The United States of the NRA: Armed and afraid
Submitted by:
Mark A. Taff
Website: www.marktaff.com
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None of the countries that have endured mass shootings and taken immediate, meaningful action to collect guns from the populace and/or restrict the purchase of firearms has anything like the hurdle the Second Amendment forces us to jump. The Second Amendment has only 27 words: “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.” Gun rights advocates can quote the last 14 words from memory but seem unable to choke down the first 13. It seems counterintuitive that AR-style rifles should be available for the asking when the Constitution seems to give Congress the authority to restrict the sale and possession of those military arms. |
| Comment by:
PP9
(5/19/2023)
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No, we don't forget the first clause of the Second Amendment. It's just that the first clause has no actual governing power. It's the explanatory clause that was common in eighteenth century legislation... it gives the reason for the operative clause, the part that does the governing.
But since you mentioned it... the modern translation for the first clause would be "Since it is necessary for the security of a free state that the populace be well-practiced and disciplined with military arms."...
"Militia" is all of us. We're all in the militia. It's not the national guard. It's us. "Regulated" means practiced and disciplined in 1700s English.
But like I mentioned, that's just an explanation for the bit that matters, the second clause.
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| QUOTES
TO REMEMBER |
| Besides the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation, the existence of subordinate governments, to which the people are attached, and by which the militia officers are appointed, forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition, more insurmountable than any which a simple government of any form can admit of. Notwithstanding the military establishments in the several kingdoms of Europe, which are carried as far as the public resources will bear, the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms. — James Madison, The Federalist Papers, No. 46 |
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