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MI: Gunslinging Grammarian: How a retired Grand Rapids professor was compelled to clarify the Second Amendment
Submitted by: Mark A. Taff
Website: http://www.marktaff.com

There are 3 comments on this story
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Jim Vanden Bosch didnt expect the Second Amendment to dominate his life and research time.

Vanden Bosch, a retired professor of English at Calvin University in Grand Rapids, calls his many hours of labor on the grammar of the much-debated Constitutional right, a social and civic obligation.

Im just a blue-collar kid from Zeeland, Vanden Bosch said, but I have become well-versed on the grammar of the absolute phrase in the late 18th century.

An absolute phrase modifies the entire clause that it belongs to. The phrase typically provides additional detail to that clause.

Comment by: PHORTO (4/16/2020)

Baloney. Reduced to its essence, the sentence can be accurately represented thus:

"Because of that, we are guaranteeing this." "That" does not equal "this." They are two different things.

Comment by: MarkHamTownsend (4/16/2020)

"Absolute phrase???"
Huh?

The "well regulated militia" part is an "exemplar."
That it might be interpreted to protect the right of a state to maintain a militia, does nothing to change the fact that the second part, "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed," was absolutly intended to do EXACTLY AS THE PHRASE DIRECTLY STATES.
The guy is a "grammarian?" Really?
I'm sorry, the guy hasn't much of a clue.

Comment by: PHORTO (4/16/2020)

MarkHamTownsend -

He's a "grammarian" with an anti-gun agenda.

His methodology is a dead giveaway.

Thomas Jefferson explained to Supreme Court Justice William Johnson, June 12, 1823: On every question of construction, carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or invented against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed.