MormonWarrior
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- Dec 16, 2007
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NYT: No Individual Right to Keep and Bear Arms
- Thread starter MormonWarrior
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rickomatic
Member
Only the NYT would go through those punctuational gymnastics to try to convince us of THEIR interpretation of the 2nd Amendment. Far be it for them to go to the actual writings of the framers to see what their views on the subject were.
I only play an intellectual on the internet....and even I can find those.
I only play an intellectual on the internet....and even I can find those.
Winchester 73
member
Is this the most absurd interpretation of the 2nd Amendment yet?
But then, we have to consider the source,The Old Gray Lady.
But then, we have to consider the source,The Old Gray Lady.
cslinger
Member
Wow, I am glad they finally cleared that up for me. I was so wrong. 
Cosmoline
Member
I actually agree with him on that. I think we need to ask ourselves, in the broad sense of the BOR as a whole, whether it is truer to the text to erase an amendment or to give it effect. You can read the Second any number of ways, and he's absolutely right that the Founders threw commas around all over the place. But they DID NOT throw the phrase "THE PEOPLE" around so freely when it came to defining rights. And they knew how to protect a state right when they wanted to. If they had wanted to protect militias, they would have simply said "Congress shall pass no law infringing the right of the several States to keep and arm militias."
But they didn't say that.
Okay, lets say it is interpreted to be as I have bolded. Well, to me that still says it is an individual right. The individuals make up the well regulated militia. Individuals allowed to own firearms is the fertile soil from which a militia will spring.
Akodo has it. Regardless of the fact that the word militia is in there, it's still a "right of the people to keep and bear arms." No great mystery there. Who makes up the militia? The people. Not the government. NOT the National Guard for heaven's sake.
Of course it is an individual right. This seems to be the only part in the Bill where "people" doesn't really mean the people. The same phrasing is used throughout the document and no one seems to dispute that it refers to individual rights. My question is, why would the founders put an amendment in a document to protect the right of any governmental body? They, more than anyone, understood that governments do not need protection. Individuals do.
Not sure I agree with this. It looks to me like the 4th refers to "the people" in some collective sense, and "persons" when it means "individuals".
If people means individuals and persons also means individuals, then the first clause becomes highly redundant. But in the final clause "person" must mean individuals. It looks to me like the first clause had to mean "The right of the people to be secure as individuals, ... and the individuals or or things to be seized
Reading the whole Bill of Rights, you could argue that "people" refers to the collective entity, "person" refers to the individual citizens, and "persons" as a group of individual. That understanding would not produce an inconsistent reading.
Mike
The also didn't say, "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the persons to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." But they did use "persons" very clearly when specifying an individual right in the 4th.
Mike
Standing Wolf
Member in memoriam
Nope. It reeks to high heaven of acute, fearful desperation.
Leftism has no intellectual basis. It's based entiely on fear, greed, racism, hatred, envy, ignorance, and more and more hatred.
average_shooter
Member
I thought "people" referred to individuals, the entities themselves, whereas "person" referred to the body, your actual physical self. In other words, the entity of you has the right to keep and bear arms, and your person is secure from having those arms taken from it unwillingly. Probably just semantics though. And I'm not an english scholar so maybe I'm way off base.
So if "people" is a collective right, then what is a collective right to peacably assemble and to petition the government? If the 2nd Amendment WAS a collective right, then the federal government has to power to make any gun control laws, nor require FFL's since that would infringe on the state "power". What you are arguing is nonsense. It's a modern "invention" from slick dishonest lawyers to justify gun control.
lacoochee
Member
Exactly, either way they are overstepping their bounds.
However, it is an individual right all one has to do is go back to what the founding fathers said about it, in their various writing including the Federalist Papers. So all of their parsing is silly and weird, they obviously failed High School English, because they don't seem able to identify a supporting clause in a sentence.
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State [supporting clause -- insert any reason here], the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
A well educated Public, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Books, shall not be infringed.
Tommygunn
Member
I have absolutly no idea what that article was trying to say. It was full of blather, twaddle, and obfuscation.
People who try to take a sentence which clearly means one thing and try to convince others it means something else will invariably resort to some elaborate, convoluted and twisted explanation, full of interpretations and sometimes even penumbras.
All the stuff lawyers and politicians resort to.
The rest of us just read it.
People who try to take a sentence which clearly means one thing and try to convince others it means something else will invariably resort to some elaborate, convoluted and twisted explanation, full of interpretations and sometimes even penumbras.
All the stuff lawyers and politicians resort to.
The rest of us just read it.
wuchak
Member
this does a great job of dissecting the 2nd and putting in proper historical context.
http://www.virginiainstitute.org/publications/primer_on_const.php
first paragraph
"The Second Amendment is among the most misunderstood provisions of the U.S. Constitution. That is not because it is particularly difficult to understand. On the contrary, for more than a hundred years after it was adopted, hardly anyone seemed the least bit confused about what it meant. The confusion, and some serious mistakes, only became widespread in the twentieth century, when influential people began to think it was a good idea to disarm the civilian population. Because the plain meaning of the Second Amendment rather obviously creates an obstacle to these disarmament schemes, the temptation to misinterpret this provision of the Constitution became very strong"
http://www.virginiainstitute.org/publications/primer_on_const.php
first paragraph
"The Second Amendment is among the most misunderstood provisions of the U.S. Constitution. That is not because it is particularly difficult to understand. On the contrary, for more than a hundred years after it was adopted, hardly anyone seemed the least bit confused about what it meant. The confusion, and some serious mistakes, only became widespread in the twentieth century, when influential people began to think it was a good idea to disarm the civilian population. Because the plain meaning of the Second Amendment rather obviously creates an obstacle to these disarmament schemes, the temptation to misinterpret this provision of the Constitution became very strong"
So, RPCVYemen, the First Amendment only grants a collective right, and no one has an individual right to free speech or assembly, because it only uses people and not person? Why do people insist on reading the Second differently from all others?
jrfoxx
Member
That's exactly what I thought too.Even their attempt at rearranging/rephrasing the 2nd doesnt change it's obvious meaning and purpose.
MachIVshooter
Member
The anti's would still find a way to argue it, even if it were as crystal clear as Colorado's state constitution:
The right of no person to keep and bear arms in defense of his home, person and property, or in aid of the civil power when thereto legally summoned, shall be called in question.
The right of no person to keep and bear arms in defense of his home, person and property, or in aid of the civil power when thereto legally summoned, shall be called in question.
v35
Member
- Joined
- Feb 8, 2006
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- 910
An interesting and creative interpretation from the old grey lady, considering most states have RKBA language just as unequivocal as Colorado's:
State RKBA Constitution Summary
(Thanks brighamr for posting the source in this post)
State RKBA Constitution Summary
(Thanks brighamr for posting the source in this post)
My point is that reading it that way does not pose any inconsistency. The right to assemble poses no problem as a collective right - an individual right to assemble doesn't make a lot of sense. The right to assemble is clearly a right of "persons" or of "the people" - not of "a person".
The right of free speech could be construed the same way - it's the right give and hear a speech, perhaps the right of the people to hear a speech is that most important. Gathering to hear speech was a crime under colonial law.
Mike
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