What Does the Second Amendment Really Say?

[elbe]

Actually I find it quite obvious what the intent was. In the case of guns, where is the militia drawn from? The people. In order to have a well-regulated militia it is helpful to have people who know how to fire a gun. Ditto with Congress; in order to have a well-educated Congress, it is helpful to have people who read books. None of this is to say that a militia is the only reason for the people to have guns, or that Congress is the only reason for the people to have books.

Intent is useful for things like court decisions, which I'm sure they used, but for parsing the actual text you can only look at the text itself.

The second amendment "says" what the court says it does in cases like Heller.
What the second amendment actually says is now less important than precedence, which is probably a good thing in this case.

 

[Dr. Keith]

Actually I find it quite obvious what the intent was. In the case of guns, where is the militia drawn from? The people. In order to have a well-regulated militia it is helpful to have people who know how to fire a gun. Ditto with Congress; in order to have a well-educated Congress, it is helpful to have people who read books. None of this is to say that a militia is the only reason for the people to have guns, or that Congress is the only reason for the people to have books.

But that isn't what the words say, it is what you have taken them to mean.

The fact that you can easily and clearly spell out that meaning with a few more words and the drafters did not should count for something, no?

It's not like they were tweeting the amendments . . . they had plenty of ink.

 

[theprestige]

Sorry I'm late to the party. Below is my take. I didn't answer the poll because the wording is even more horrendous than that of the Amendment itself.

That said...

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.

The way I read it, this only makes sense if the right to bear arms is assumed a priori to exist.

There's no sense in talking about infringing on rights you don't even believe exist in the first place. There's no sense in giving justifications for not infringing on rights, if you don't believe the rights exist in the first place.

If the Founders didn't think the right to bear arms existed, they would have written this amendment to specify a privilege or a duty:

"A well-regulated militia, etc... the privilege to bear arms shall be allowed to [all citizens meeting certain qualifications]."

Or;

"A well-regulated militia, etc... the duty to bear arms shall be enforced upon [all citizens meeting certain qualifications]."

If the 2nd Amendment had specified a duty, I suspect it probably would have been repealed by now, and replaced by an amendment specifying a privilege, and probably with much more extensive restrictions than we enjoy under the actual amendment.

So. The right of arms exists. It's an inalienable human right, alongside the rights of speech, association, etc. I think that's the only reasonable way to read the Amendment's reference to the right itself.

I think we have a substantial body of precedent, and numerous Supreme Court decisions, outlining the contours of the Federal government's authority to infringe upon rights in general. I think that those precedents can and should be equally applied to the right to bear arms, which is equal in value to the other rights recognized by the Constitution and by the Court.

What else? The Amendment says the right shall not be infringed. That's good; rights should generally not be infringed. It also gives a specific reason: Because "a well-regulated militia, etc." That's good, too; if rather obsolete.

So the real question is, by failing to enumerate other reasons for not infringing upon the right, or by failing to a blanket statement such as "the right to bear arms shall not be infringed for any reason", does the Amendment implicitly permit infringing on the right for any other reasons?

I say it does not permit infringing on the right for other reasons. If the reason given in the Amendment becomes obsolete--and I think if we're being honest, it has--the right still falls under the general protection against infringement, afforded to all the other rights we recognize.

Thus, the road to infringing upon this right lies not through invalidating the militia argument, but through the the same arguments that permit limited infringement of other rights, or through removing the Constitutional recognition of the right itself.

Finally, I firmly believe that the right to bear arms is an fundamental human right, whether or not it is recognized by this or that constitution or government.

 

[theprestige]

What I find interesting about this amendment is that it clearly indicates that there were, among the Founders or among their constituents, those who already wished to enact strict gun control, and who saw the formation of the Union as a good opportunity to impose gun control on everybody at once. In that sense, the amendment is a blow against big government tendencies: The individual states have their own interest in upholding gun rights; the federal government will stay out of it.

 

[WildCat]

Non sequiter.

Why is it no one can answer this question?

 

[WildCat]

Fixed that for you.

How does the first part "trump" the second part? They are not mutually exclusive, nor at odds with each other.

 

[Old man]

Suppose another amendment read:

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

Would anybody interpret that as saying that only members of Congress could keep and read books? Would they claim it had a sunset clause, so that if there was no need for Congress any longer, books could be banned?

Actually I find it quite obvious what the intent was. In the case of guns, where is the militia drawn from? The people. In order to have a well-regulated militia it is helpful to have people who know how to fire a gun. Ditto with Congress; in order to have a well-educated Congress, it is helpful to have people who read books. None of this is to say that a militia is the only reason for the people to have guns, or that Congress is the only reason for the people to have books.

QFT.

 

[elbe]

Why is it no one can answer this question?

Because it's both obvious and a non sequiter. Why do you want to derail the conversation with non sequiters?

 

[Newtons Bit]

How does the first part "trump" the second part? They are not mutually exclusive, nor at odds with each other.

Yes, but if you want to deny the antecedent...

 

[DavidJames]

Finally, I firmly believe that the right to bear arms is an fundamental human right, whether or not it is recognized by this or that constitution or government.

LOL - of course, that mystical thing called "fundamental human rights". Since they only exist within our imaginations, I disagree with you. Now what?

 

[Cylinder]

Because it's both obvious and a non sequiter. Why do you want to derail the conversation with non sequiters?

It really is the heart of the question, though.

 

[elbe]

It really is the heart of the question, though.

For the OP question? Hardly. It's a pretty dishonest derail, to be honest, it's basically admitting you can't address the topic and instead want to equivocate over a divergent topic.

Which is, I'll admit, a bit strange. The OP question is largely a semantic one and not extremely important. The "meaning" of the 2nd amendment is made clear through court precedence so the purpose of this topic is about the same as pointing out that a sentence that has a double negative actually says the opposite of what the writer likely meant.

 

[theprestige]

LOL - of course, that mystical thing called "fundamental human rights". Since they only exist within our imaginations, I disagree with you. Now what?

Now we disagree. It's not the end of the world. If our disagreement becomes a serious problem, I suppose we'll have to come up with some sort of system for reaching an amicable consensus. I hear that voting is a terrible method, except compared to all the others that have been tried. Perhaps we could give that a go? If not, there's always force of arms...

 

[a_unique_person]

For a very small amount of words of seems to say an awful lot.

 

[Gawdzilla Sama]

What good are handguns in this "militia" thing?

 

[Emily's Cat]

My translation:

"One really good reason for having guns is so that the people can be organized into militias and defined our new homeland against invaders. Because of this really good reason (among others) we want to guarantee that the government will never ever be allowed to interfere with the right of citizens to own and carry firearms."

That is how I interpret the 2nd Amendment. You may disagree.

 

[DavidJames]

Now we disagree. It's not the end of the world. If our disagreement becomes a serious problem, I suppose we'll have to come up with some sort of system for reaching an amicable consensus. I hear that voting is a terrible method, except compared to all the others that have been tried. Perhaps we could give that a go? If not, there's always force of arms...

So what you're saying is a human right is determined by voting? A "fundamental human right" can swing on a single vote.

Edit - so we can put this gun thing up for a vote, it was your idea, after all.

 

[Gawdzilla Sama]

So what you're saying is a human right is determined by voting? A "fundamental human right" can swing on a single vote.

Edit - so we can put this gun thing up for a vote, it was your idea, after all.

Prediction. The ammosexuals will cheer, and then lose, at which time they will stop the cheers and go back to business as usual, that being whinging.

 

[Old man]

My translation:

"One really good reason for having guns is so that the people can be organized into militias and defined our new homeland against invaders. Because of this really good reason (among others) we want to guarantee that the government will never ever be allowed to interfere with the right of citizens to own and carry firearms."

That is how I interpret the 2nd Amendment. You may disagree.

Agree, 100%.

 

[GlennB]

They were born with them, and their government promptly stripped them away. That's why the Constitution is worded the way it is, you are born with the right to free speech, religion, assembly, etc and the government is prohibited from infringing on them.

Born with rights presumed to exist by some people's interpretation of what The FSM intended for humankind's condition?

Oh dear. I think we should move this to Religion.