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The
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| Comment by:
PHORTO
(4/22/2021)
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As Rich Coon points out, the contemporaneous meaning of the term "well regulated" was "maintained and in proper working order."
But the real issue is the grammatical structure of the sentence. The term "well regulated" modifies the noun "militia," not the noun "right" nor the noun "people." "Well regulated," isn't even in the same clause. It is the militia that is to be "well regulated," not the "right" nor the "people." Whichever definition of "well regulated" one chooses is irrelevant; it isn't applied to the people or to the right to bear arms.
I hope that the explanations offered by Mr. Coon and myself are helpful to Mr. Selby. |
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| QUOTES
TO REMEMBER |
| After having thus successively taken each member of the community in its powerful grasp and fashioned him at will, the supreme power then extends its arm over the whole community. It covers the surface of society with a network of small, complicated rules, minute and uniform, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate, to rise above the crowd. The will of man is not shattered, but softened, bent, and guided; men seldom forced by it to act, but they are constantly restrained from acting. Such a power does not destroy, but it prevents existence; it does not tyrannize, but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd. — Alexis de Tocqueville |
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