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How do you interpret the Second Amendment?
Here it is:
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.
Is there any way this can be construed to mean that the people have the right to keep and bear arms ONLY if they are members of a militia?
This is being discussed on another board, and I'm curious about how people here would interpret the amendment, the 2nd mentioned in the Bill of Rights.
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Without commenting politically (ahem) in anyway, I'll just say that I can't figure out if this is a sentence fragment or a run-on.
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As written, it ain't no sentence fragment. It appears to need a conjunction of some kind. As written, it appears that the militia is the subject of the sentence and shall not be infringed is the verb. The stuff in the middle modifies the subject and verb, but that stuff needs a bit of tweaking. I copied it off a site, so it may not be correctly copied.
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You could also say that the problem is a comma splice if the subject had been intended to be "right" and the verb "shall not be infringed" with all the stuff at the beginning making up the modifiers. If that were the case, I'd advise losing the comma between "the right of the people to bear arms" and "shall not be infringed.
If this is actually how the sentence originally appears, then I would say poor sentence construction has really led to a lot of different interpretations of the meaning.
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Maybe it's intended to be read:
A well regulated Milita (the right of the people to keep and bear Arms being necessary to the security of a free State) shall not be infringed.
Course, that doesn't clear it up too much then does it?
Maybe Madison phrased it that way as joke, knowing it would spark a big debate.
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I. Text of the Second Amendment and Related Contemporaneous Provisions
Second Amendment: 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.
English Bill of Rights: That the subjects which are protestants may have arms for their defence suitable to their conditions and as allowed by law (1689). 1
Connecticut: Every citizen has a right to bear arms in defense of himself and the state (1818). 2
Kentucky: [T]he right of the citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves and the State shall not be questioned (1792). 3
Massachusetts: The people have a right to keep and to bear arms for the common defence (1780). 4
North Carolina: [T]he people have a right to bear arms, for the defence of the State; and, as standing armies, in time of peace, are dangerous to liberty, they ought not to be kept up; and that the military should be kept under strict subordination to, and governed by, the civil power (1776). 5
Pennsylvania: That the people have a right to bear arms for the defence of themselves and the state; and as standing armies in the time of peace are dangerous to liberty, they ought not to be kept up; And that the military should be kept under strict subordination, to, and governed by, the civil power (1776). 6
The right of the citizens to bear arms in defence of themselves and the State shall not be questioned (1790). 7
Rhode Island: The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed (1842). 8
Tennessee: [T]he freemen of this State have a right to keep and bear arms for their common defence (1796). 9
Vermont: [T]he people have a right to bear arms for the defence of themselves and the State -- and as standing armies in time of peace are dangerous to liberty, they ought not to be kept up; and that the military should be kept under strict subordination to and governed by the civil power (1777). 10
Virginia: That a well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the proper, natural, and safe defense of a free state; that standing armies, in time of peace, should be avoided as dangerous to liberty; and that in all cases the military should be under strict subordination to, and governed by, the civil power. 11 From ‘Sources on the 2nd Amendment’: http://www.law.ucla.edu/faculty/volokh/2amteach\sources.htm#TOC1My personal guess is that this may be parsed as follows: [Since] A well regulated Militia [is clearly] necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed. ~ tho’ ultimately (like Humpty says) the darn words will be taken to mean what the gun totin’ redknecks want to understand by ‘em!
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May God save us from the Comet and ourselves if the straightforward wording of the second amendment confuses us, whereas even the Good Lord might have trouble with the tangled wordings of the congress of today.
A well regulated Militia,... - What is a Militia ?
It's not a standing army or even so much as a National Guard, but a pool of men - citizens, who can be
called upon during times of outside aggression to defend
the free state, assuming they have arms.
...being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Wanna quibble?
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Just for the record, I pose the question of reading this amendment because the sentence structure is awkward to my ear--not for the political discussions that have been discouraged by the board. Again, just for the record.
This amendment fascinates me as written, and apparently the site I pasted it from had it right.
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Hmmmmm? Are questions of semantics on this board considered political?
If so by whom?
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Nope, I didn't mean that considerations of semantics would be considered political. I just wanted to say that I've brought up the Second Amendment strictly as a study in sentence structure.
"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. "
Let's pull out:
"the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed"
...and take a good look at it. The comma doesn't belong there. Period. That is if right is the subject and infringed is functioning as the verb in agreement with right.
You can argue that the comma separates the subject and verb here so the reader can take a breath, but it's still a comma splice by modern standards. I don't know 18th century standards for placement of commas--maybe they were more generous with commas back then. But today, you'd get a mark off for placing the comma there.
Take the comma out of there, the meaning is crystal clear and beyond debate.
On the other board, the members on the music board are arguing whether the militia is the point or not. I don't think so. I think the point in the sentence, comma splice or not, is the right to keep and bear arms with one of the reasons--and not necessarily the exclusive reason--being the ability to form a militia.
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Power to the people...but who (or what) are (is) the people?
The problem is more basic than the ambiguous sentence strcture. I think most of the disagreement around the issue of whether the amendment is referring to people=individuals or People=collectively.
Members of one faction proclaim that they are guaranteed the right to keep and bear arms themselves, individually. The other extreme reserves that to The People, with no rights at all granted to the individual.
Whether the Militia is a spontaneously-coalescing group of individuals, or a preplanned (governmentally-sanctioned) organization, is equally ambiguous.
With two undefined terms open to diametrically opposed readings, it's no wonder that disputes arise - even if the sentence had been perfectly constructed.
(And don't even _think_ of addressing the question of whom we are to be protected from: external enemies or the government itself? )
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Stupid. Stupid. Stupid me. Why didn't I understand that you were talking about style, not meaning. Well, I, for one, for sure, know that commas can clarify or obscure, the transfer of meaning from one entity to another.
But convention be damned, are we to discuss social applications of language for our own pretense or amusement, or are we here to advance the art of communication?
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Amusement...check!
Pretension...hope not!
Advance the art of communication...most definitely!
But we are powerless to remove that historical comma, and there's the rub.
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The 2nd Amendment decreed "the right of the people to bear Arms"...and, thus, the sleeveless t-shirt was born! 
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Oh, not the right of the people to arm bears?
Since the dependent clause, "A well-regulated militia, being essential....." stipulates something other than a willy-nilly, ragtag bunch of gun toters, the wording seems to suggest that the arming of military or paramilitary functions of the state was the intent. However, the revolution was fought by a ragtag bunch of citizen soldiers, not a true army in the normal sense. Because our world is so different from the world of 1789, ought we to view our needs in the same way? As a personal aside, I'm a gun owner myself, but not an NRA type gun owner. I do believe that since the intent of the Second Ammendment was the maintenance of freedom, certain people must be enjoined from gun ownership. Those not well-trained in their proper use have no business with them, as they constitute a danger to themselves and others. Of course, criminals must be barred from gun possession, but how does one stop such possession? Shall we execute every person who commits a crime with a gun? Will we be invaded by gun-toting troops, or will more sophisticated weaponry be brought to bear, as was the case on 9/11? Oh - this is getting into the political arena, so I'd better shut up!
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Geoff, I think you've hit upon a pretty important point, politics aside.
Go back to "well regulated Militia"; consider "well regulated"; consider "well."
The people, by stated right, according to the sentence, may "keep" and "bear" arms. But this collective "militia"--the guns in the hands of the people who choose to keep and bear them, is to be "well regulated."
That's where we are now--defining what "well regulated" means in realistic application. Wow, is that something to consider: The meaning of regulation, and not just regulation, but regulation that has been "well" regulated. What is the meaning of "well" here? I feel a Clintonian moment breaking forth in my brain...
Best regards,
WW
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I feel a Clintonian moment breaking forth in my brain...Well, WW, if you DO inhale, make sure it's smokeless powder; that old-fashioned Revolutionary War black powder can give you quite buzz!  And don't you dare ask me how I know! (Fifth Ammendment time)
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the guns in the hands of the people who choose to keep and bear them, is to be "well regulated."
Yes, that's the crux of the matter. Does a group of paranoiacs, afraid of the very government they claim to espouse, constitute a "well regulated" organization? Ought they to be included in the fundamental system of governmental checks and balances, or are they a threat to "well regulated" government? On the other side, as has been noted by others, are the anti-gun fanatics not just as much a threat to the Constitution? "Well," and by whom?
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Really? How odd. How odd of people to smoke the strange things they smoke.
I was just remembering yesterday that my mother had admitted to smoking rabbit grass as a child. I don't imagine it's illegal, but, really... Where do we get these ideas? "Hey! Here's a substance! Let's see what happens when we inhale it! And Let's go ahead and fire it up to get an extra charge!" Do human beings regularly go around looking for things to light up? Such as black powder? Or talcum powder? Or whatever else?
'Tis a mystery to me. ("Hey! Don't throw out that old carpet! Let's light it up and smoke it and see what happens!"--Geez!)
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Really? How odd. How odd of people to smoke the strange things they smoke.
Awww, WW, I was pulling your leg. I thought you were referring to Willie's saying that he'd tried marijuana, but he didn't inhale. One couldn't really smoke black powder, since it's quite explosive. It does, however, produce a LOT of smoke. Modern firearms powders are called "smokeless" for good reason! They also burn at a much slower, and more controlled rate, than the old charcoal/saltpeter/sulfur mixtures of yore. However, quite a few people today like to shoot black powder guns, and one can even buy a new one. Slow loading, smelly as hell, but fun!
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... a study in sentence structure.Surely all we have to do is take out all the commas except the one after "state". Seems clear enough to me then. lusy 
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take out all the commas except the one after "state"
They were rather freer with their commas back in the 18th century. They had rather more spare commas floating around than they did govenment money to buy guns with. And no standing armies to care for the guns anyway. Regarding the comma use, the main point of this thread given its existence in this forum, one could look at other, less controversial, sentences in the Constitution to get a feel for the style of the time.
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As a gun-toting redneck, this is what I think it means.
I think it means that we have an individual right to bear weapons. I do not believe that "the people" really means "the state." I do not, therefore, believe that the National Guard is sufficient to eliminate this as a personal right. OTOH, I think that this includes anything from a BB gun to a nuclear missile.
However, my further opinions have put me at odds with the rest of my family. I don't believe that the 2nd gives us a right to hunt, for example, or the right to defend our homes against intrusion with guns. Those may or may not be good uses for guns, but if they are protected by the Constitution (and I hope they are), then they are covered by the 9th amendment and not the 2nd. Nor is the purpose of the 2nd amendment to give people defense against their own government. That's called treason.
Clearly there's a problem here. The law was written long before anyone could have imagined weapons of mass destruction. I think it needs to be revised.
k
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commas in the writing style of the timeIf you take a look at this excerpt from Thomas Paine's Common Sense, written in the same period, you'll note, even for all its eloquence, the liberal use of commas and other punctuation. http://wordsmith.org/board/showthreaded.pl?Cat=&Board=words&Number=67948
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There are two schools of thought regarding comma use; the grammatical and the rhetorical. The advocates of the former school err when they rail against such statements as I was talking with my wife Martha if they claim it requires that the author of such a statement have more than one wife. The author need only be an advocate of the rhetorical style of comma use who would not say aloud, "I was talking to my wife (pause) Martha."
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Interesting discussion, folks. I've often wondered precisely what the Second Amendment was suggesting and I've long since come to the conclusion that it means that the guvvermint wants y'all to have guns - finest kind if possible - an' y'all kin go right ahead an' keep 'em well-oiled so that when the prez crooks his little finga y'all can come a'runnin' to your country's defence ... at your expense, mind you. If it's interpreted that way, it could mean anything from a slingshot to a neutron bomb. Personally, I'd plump for an Abrams tank parked in the driveway.
The amendment probably made a lot of sense in the context of eighteenth century America, especially with the post-Revolutionary War dollar being worth slightly less than the paper it was printed on.
Over to you guys to decide if it's still relevant! Know where I can buy a good second-hand tank?
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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Kiwi with his own personal tank ... the mind boggles at the thought!
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I've often wondered precisely what the Second Amendment was suggesting and I've long since come to the conclusion that it means that the guvvermint wants y'all to have guns - finest kind if possible - an' y'all kin go right ahead an' keep 'em well-oiled so that when the prez crooks his little finga y'all can come a'runnin' to your country's defence ... at your expense, mind you. - Cap Kiwi
Kinda cute political comment Kiwi, considering that you all, dance around the American construction of events when it comes to your own survival. Bless you for your input into the reconstruction of the meaning of our second amendment. But please stick to the logical sequence of accepted semantics.
You all, I understand, have your own problems down under.
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Kinda cute political comment Kiwi, considering that you all, dance around the American construction of events when it comes to your own survival.
This is snide political comment. I was "interpreting" the meaning of this as intended by its author:
"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. "
with a bit of humour.
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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This is snide political comment. I was "interpreting" the meaning of this as intended by its author: - CK OK, Capital Kiwi, I reread your post, I see the humour, I apologize for my snideness. It's just a crying shame that a grown man has to use his 400th post, the one that confirms his Addicthood, groveling and apologizing. -  - Milum - - - - - 
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Somehow, milum always leaves me smilin'.
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WW:
I've always felt the Second Amendment could not be interpreted. Here's the text of a letter I wrote to several newspapers a couple of years ago, none of hwich chose to publish it.
>
> The first seven words of our Constituion are "We the People of the United
> States." We the people should decide this issue once and for all through the
> political process. Since we do not have the capacity to present this or any
> other issue directly to the people for a national referendum, I propose the
> following amendment to the Constitution.
>
> It preserves the right to bear arms in defense of our country and the
> individual states, reserves to the individual states the power to regulate
> the ownership of arms, and specifically grants to Congress the right to
> regulate or prohibit interstate shipments or importation of arms and
> ammunition. It also requires that the amendment be ratified by state
> Conventions rather than by the legislatures of the individual states. This
> is the closest we can come under our system of government to a national
> referendum on gun control.
>
> We have a national election coming up in less than eight months. We the
> people need to ask of the candidates running this fall whether they support
> this proposed amendment and we the people need to vote accordingly. We the
> people need to make our voices heard.
>
> Proposed amendment:
>
> Section 1. The second article of amendment to the Constitution of the United
> States is hereby repealed.
>
> Section 2. A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of the
> United States, the right to bear arms in defense of the United States or of
> the several States shall not be infringed.
>
> Section 3. The power to regulate keeping of arms by individual residents is
> reserved exclusively to the States respectively, except that Congress may
> prohibit or regulate the interstate transportation of arms and ammunition and
> may prohibit or regulate the importation of arms and ammunition into the
> United States.
>
> Section 4. This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been
> ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by Conventions of three-fourths
> of the several States within fifteen years from the date of its submission to
> the States by the Congress.
If the conventions of the states vote this up, it becomes aprt of the Constitution, otherwise it ends up where the ERA amendment is, in the trash barrel. But at least we will have as close as we can get to the will of the people.
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Is it possible that he could be telling someone named Martha that he was talking to his wife? Or am I missing the obvious?
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missing the obvious
If he were telling someone named Martha that he had been talking to his wife, there *would be a pause in his speech and there would be a comma in either the grammatical or rhetorical styles of comma use.
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MaxQ repeats his usual response to a post by Milum, to wit: Huh?
To wit, me too. But Milum at least saw that I wasn't trying to tell the Americans how to live their lives.
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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