From: hambidge@bms.com
Subject: Re: Some more about gun control...
Reply-To: hambidge@bms.com
Organization: Bristol-Myers Squibb
Lines: 51

In article <C5L0n2.5LL@ulowell.ulowell.edu>, jrutledg@cs.ulowell.edu (John Lawrence Rutledge) writes:
>
>So the phrase "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall 
>not be infringed" must either qualify or explain the phrase "a well 
>regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state."  

[stuff deleted]

>Since "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be
>infringed" does not describe, modify or make less harsh anything and
>it has nothing to do with grammar or some sort of position or task.
>By process of elimination it must fall into definition #3.  And since
>#3 deals with legal power, the same thing the Constitution does, it
>must be the correct definition in this case.  Therefore, "the right 
>of the people to keep and bear Arms" gives legal power to the "well 
>regualated militia" and this legal power "shall not be infringed".  

Ah, clarification by obfuscation.

Actually, the words "A well regulated Milita, being necessary to the
security of a free state" is a present participle, used as an
adjective to modify 'militia', which is followed by the main clause of
the sentence, the subject being 'the right', the verb 'shall'.  It
asserts that the right to keep and bear arms is essential for
maintaining a milita.  The sentence doesn't restrict the right, or
state or imply possession of the right by anyone or anything other
than the people.  All it does is make a positive statement regarding a
right of the people. The PEOPLE, as in you and me, as in the First,
Fourth, Ninth, Tenth, as well as the Second amendment.
The existence of this right is assumed - it is not granted by the
amendment. There is no stated or implied condition relating the right
to bear arms to the necessity of a well-regulated militia to the security of
a free state.
In other words, the entire sentence says that the right to keep and
bear arms is UNCONDITIONAL.


>So in effort not to force my views and not "to destory our Liberties and
>Rights,"  I state that nothing I have written, or will write, in
>the matter of "Liberties and Rights" is the final word.  For I am only
>one person among many and the final word on "Liberties and Rights" cleary
>and irrevocably belongs to the many.

The final word on liberties and rights should not belong "to the
many".  That is why we have a Constitution.  Otherwise, a tyrrany of
the majority can ensue from "popular" opinion, a concept which you
should be familiar with from the Federalist papers.

Al
[standard disclaimer]

