Modern interpretation of the 2A

[ozwyn]

the whole 2nd amendment debate was because they wrote the amendment a little too long:

The right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed

see? much simpler. concise. Justifcation? No justification needed, no militia wording needed, just keep what counts. Commas saved, word count reduced, intent fortified.

 

[MattB]

Quote:
Free State---a state that did not allow slavery---Not applicable to our current time. So it would apply to any state.

Oh for crying out loud. Do you think the Second Amendment wasn't intended to apply to the Southern States? The term "free State" doesn't mean a State without slavery. A "free State" is, in simple terms, a State where the majority rules.


Hugh damright, I just took the second ammendment and looked up the definitions peice by piece. Blame google as everything on a free state applies to slavery not to democratic states.

Regards,

 

[Jim March]

The 5th Circuit (Texas, Louisiana and...Arkansas I think?) came to a decision on the 2nd that is mostly correct (the US v. Emerson decision). That circuit currently stands along in sanity on the subject; some circuits haven't paid any attention, at least two or three others have come down on the "collective right" side.

Only one circuit has published a decision against the RKBA after the Emerson decision was drafted. That was the Silveira case in the 9th Circuit.

In Silveira, judge Reinhardt came up with what amounts to a whole new approach to gun-grabbing, apparantly assisted by an ACLU official who also happens to be his wife.

You can a link to that decision and my deconstruction of it here:

http://www.americanminutemen.org/reinhardt.htm

 

[The Real Hawkeye]

the whole 2nd amendment debate was because they wrote the amendment a little too long:

The right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed

see? much simpler. concise. Justifcation? No justification needed, no militia wording needed, just keep what counts. Commas saved, word count reduced, intent fortified.

You don't understand how important it was to the Founding Fathers that the central government not be allowed a standing army of any sort, nor any armed agency on the land of the United States (A Navy was fine, along with a Marine Corps attached to the Navy, and in the modern world, the Marines would have a permanent Air Corps stationed on aircraft carriers and island bases). The nation's defense against land invasion was to be handled primarily by the militias of the States (along with the permanent Navy and its Marine forces), unless the Congress first declared war on another nation. Only after a declaration of war by Congress was any sort of national army ever to be called up, and then only for the duration of the war which was declared.

The Founders hated and feared standing national armies because they felt that eventually the Federal Government would start using their might to intimidate us by smashing in our doors in the middle of the night looking for "weapons violations," and the like (as the British had done), in other words, enforcing unconstitutional laws. The Federal Government, however, essentially just ignored this prohibition, which is why today we have such things as permanent armed Federal forces busting our doors down in the middle of the night looking for violations of unconstitutional laws, such as drug and firearm laws. The fact that they call themselves ATF or FBI does not make them any less a standing army (i.e., a heavily armed land force of fighting men) So, no, you are wrong. The militia language was not extraneous and unimportant material. It was in there for a reason.

 

[Sean Dempsey]

Here's what I think the 2A means in 2006 language.

Section 1: In order to protect a free state, Citizens are allowed to form organized militias. The government shall not infringe upon the right to form an organized militia.

Section 2: In order to protect a free state, Citizens are allowed to keep and bear arms for personal and state protection. The government shall not infring upon the rights of the citizen to keep and bear arms.

That's what I means to me. All the fancy colonial-speek muddles it up quite a bit. I believe it's quite clear the 2A guarantees our right to form militias, and then also for citizens to have guns. Those are cooperative, exclusive rights.

After all, it's the individual who is the most fundamental form of militia. It is the person who puts the "I" in militia.