(courtesy look human.com)

“The Second Amendment is a miserably bad piece of writing. It is so vague that it could mean anything. Gun nuts assign it a meaning that they like and proclaim themselves infallible. Our forefathers mostly just ignored it and passed laws to promote public safety.” RationalGuy commenting under NRA’s constitutional fraud: The truth behind the “right to bear arms” [via salon.com]

 

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105 COMMENTS

    • Exactly. These people are so quick to trash the Constitution when they’ve never even tried to read the Federalist Papers, for example, to gain any further insight as to its meaning. There are tomes of writings on why the founding fathers chose the literature they did, the words they used, etc. For this “rationalguy” clown to comment on Salon and blather on against the 2nd Amendment, he does a damn fine job showing everyone exactly why he doesn’t deserve to live in a republic.

      As it happened, the founding fathers were FAR more well educated in history and philosophy than we are today and they actually understood the inner workings of man and why we needed to wording that we did in our founding documents. The problem we have is that John Dewey’s dysfunctional educational progenitor, what has evolved into “Common Core”, appears to be working quite well. “Rationalguy” is the product of that successful dumbing down that Charlotte Iserbyt has been warning us about for all these years. Just because we also have a class of first rate morons in the population, who are also too lazy to educate themselves on what they might be missing, doesn’t change the impact that our Declaration and Constitution had on our and other burgeoning forms of government.

    • I agree with his first sentence. Without reading the supporting ideas from the founders (which most people never do), it’s not as clear as it could be.
      Why couldn’t they have just phrased it like the first?
      Congress shall make no law abridging the right of the people to keep and bear arms.
      That would have been much easier.

      • IMHO, the 2A is the most strongly worded amendment in the BOR. The way it was written makes it clear that the 2A is not about ordinary crime, hunting, target shooting, or collecting. None of those are directly underscored as necessary to the security of a free state. Sure, defense against ordinary crime is important; security. Target shooting for the purposes of becoming well regulated is important; precision. Hunting for the purposes of becoming well regulated is important; tactics. Collecting for the purposes of becoming well regulated is important; armory and technology. But, the singular thrust of the language comprising the 2A is that if one wishes freedom then the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed because it is necessary. The way it is worded, it is necessary that the People be un-infringed in the constructing, purchasing, keeping, carrying, and using of arms. Over many years I have yet to see someone re-write the 2A better.

        • Well John and self evidently true. My caffeine and sleep deprive brain isn’t going to do justice to that in this reply but I would like to add;

          The Founders had no to reason to enumerate rights to self defense or hunting because these so obviously existed and because these were so commonly understood not only to exist, but to be good and necessary, that no one could envision that these would be threatened (besides, the ability to carry any weapon, anywhere and way one pleases pretty well covers hunting and SD uses of weapons anyway).

          I read the second (in the context of the times and the Federalist Papers) something like ‘although we are incorporating a central government, it exists at the will of the people not in spite of it, and so said government shall not have the right to prevent or interfere with the right of the people to amass and train with arms’. To my interpretation, it simply says that government isn’t allowed to do those things which would prevent the people from being able to either defend it from without or overthrow it from within should they find it necessary to do so. It’s meant to ensure the government can remain if the people will it but also that it can be abolished if the people prefer.

          I draw these ideas from the text ; A militia is necessary to the security of a ‘free’ state only makes sense if the militia exists both to maintain freedom as well as the state. Otherwise and as was well known at the time, a militia is necessary to the state, free or otherwise, and the extra word, ‘free’ would have no place in the relevant phrase. It follows that since the ‘militia’ commonly meant anyone capable of military service {to the state} (but not only those actually engaged in such), and since no rational state would deny itself the means of defense, the amendment cannot mean that the government must not attempt to leave itself defenseless, further, if that was the intention, the language is convoluted and the placement in the BoR makes virtually no sense.
          Also, since to keep arms but never to bear them, to literally not leave home with them, isn’t not something the founders could have intended (remember that having arms for hunting and personal defense were the default state that no one could imagine anyone wanting to do away with), why include ‘bear’ in the first place? I believe in this instance ‘bear’ means to go armed as if with military intent rather than merely the physical act of carrying a gun. It seems the Founders where prohibiting the government they made from preventing the people to possess military arms and to train with them in military ways, which follows easily from the ‘well regulated’ language and makes that clause ever so much more sensible for it’s inclusion, it is literally telling the reader the intent of what follows.

          It’s clear from this (to me at least) that the Founders must have intended that the people be armed, without government intrusion, so that they could be able to either defend or dissolve the government, and by force if necessary. It’s equally clear that this isn’t limited to some organized government militia (which convolutes the meaning of the word militia at the least and strains the imagination as well) but rather is a right of the whole people.

          Such designs as these cannot be met or replaced with either a standing professional army nor a bloated federal pseudo army in the guise of ‘law enforcement’. In fact, both of these would have to be considered injurious to liberty, or at the very least potentially so in the context of the second amendment. Thus these cannot serve as good arguments that the 2A is not longer needed. Further, to argue that that there is never a conceivable reason for a free people to dissolve their government or that said government might not try to resist being dissolved is to demonstrate either an appalling ignorance of history or else an aversion to the condition of liberty.

          Forgive the rambling please, and I hope this makes sense to someone besides me. I must have coffee.

          • “‘free’ state only makes sense if the militia exists both to maintain freedom as well as the state.”

            In this context, “state” means “condition,” as in “state of freedom” == “condition of Liberty.”

            In order to maintain a condition of liberty, it’s necessary that individual citizens be armed.

        • It makes sense to me, Ardent. Government, any government, will naturally try to weaken a militia of the People as it is the only natural domestic check on government power. Our government had many generations over which to weaken the militia by diluting the individual’s free exercise of their right to keep and bear arms. The progressive agenda ultimately cannot succeed without a strong, tyrannical central government. Our government and progressives have been very successful at influencing our children that the militia is unnecessary, armed individuals are unnecessary, and that individuals serve the will of the collective. Those of us who know better see the disaster that awaits our nation should such false and dangerous ideas continue to be held by large portions of our people.

      • Gonna have to disgree with you here.

        If you read it without any assumptions or prejudice due to ‘modern understanding’ or other propaganda, understand the definitions of the terms as used for the time, and logical phrase flow, it is plain as day.

        – Militias are necessary to ensure freedom and security.
        – Militas are made up of the people (assumed at the time, codified in Federal code under Title 10).
        – In order to be effective militias, people must be allowed to keep arms, and allowed to practice with arms (aka, well regulated, like bowels).
        – In order to ensure the above conditions are met, the right to arms must not be infringed upon.

        There is a specific reason it does not start “Congress shall make no law…”. Shall not be infringed… is not merely a restriction on Congress. It is a restriction on Congress, the Executive branch, the Supreme Court, all state legislatures, governors, and courts, counties, city and municipal laws, county sheriffs, police departments, businesses, and other people.

        • Skeptical_Realist, do you mind if I re-post that on a blog in a couple of days? It’s very clear and concise. I believe that others might need to read it. I’ll give credit to your screen name and a link back here to the quote.

        • “In order to be effective militias, people must be allowed to keep arms, and allowed to practice with arms (aka, well regulated, like bowels).”

          Fixed that for you. If somebody needs to “allow” you to do something, then you are a slave.

          If you’re waiting for someone’s permission to be free, then you don’t really understand the concept.

        • To John in Ohio,

          Go ahead and use it, but I actually like Rich’s editorial comments. Get rid of the “allowed” parts, and it’s both more accurate to intent, and more active in voice.

          Thanks Rich!

          Link back if you want, John, but if I cared about being sourced, I’d be using my real name 🙂

        • Thanks both of you and I’ll make the edit. The edits will be attributed to you, Rich, and I will link your webpage as well. I’ll post it in a couple of days.

  2. And anti-gunners assign it a meaning and also believe themselves to be infallible. Our forefather’s forefathers accepted the role of guns as a tool of daily life and didn’t give much thought to them at all. So what’s your point?

  3. Said by a person who has obviously never taken the time to read the federalist papers where the founding fathers discussed their opinions on the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

    You should make sure that you actually know something about what your saying before you open your diarrhea hole about a topic. I would be embarrassed if I made a statement like this about a topic that I so obviously know NOTHING about….

      • There are several that apply, but I think #46 makes the best point. It flat out says that we should have a standing army, but don’t worry it can never go tyrannical because the people have the right to bear arms.
        Written by the same guy in the same time period as the 2nd amendment.

        • And it says it so well, too:

          “Let a regular army, fully equal to the resources of the country, be formed; and let it be entirely at the devotion of the federal government; still it would not be going too far to say, that the State governments, with the people on their side, would be able to repel the danger. The highest number to which, according to the best computation, a standing army can be carried in any country, does not exceed one hundredth part of the whole number of souls; or one twenty-fifth part of the number able to bear arms. This proportion would not yield, in the United States, an army of more than twenty-five or thirty thousand men. To these would be opposed a militia amounting to near half a million of citizens with arms in their hands, officered by men chosen from among themselves, fighting for their common liberties, and united and conducted by governments possessing their affections and confidence. It may well be doubted, whether a militia thus circumstanced could ever be conquered by such a proportion of regular troops. Those who are best acquainted with the last successful resistance of this country against the British arms, will be most inclined to deny the possibility of it. Besides the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation, the existence of subordinate governments, to which the people are attached, and by which the militia officers are appointed, forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition, more insurmountable than any which a simple government of any form can admit of. Notwithstanding the military establishments in the several kingdoms of Europe, which are carried as far as the public resources will bear, the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms. And it is not certain, that with this aid alone they would not be able to shake off their yokes. But were the people to possess the additional advantages of local governments chosen by themselves, who could collect the national will and direct the national force, and of officers appointed out of the militia, by these governments, and attached both to them and to the militia, it may be affirmed with the greatest assurance, that the throne of every tyranny in Europe would be speedily overturned in spite of the legions which surround it. Let us not insult the free and gallant citizens of America with the suspicion, that they would be less able to defend the rights of which they would be in actual possession, than the debased subjects of arbitrary power would be to rescue theirs from the hands of their oppressors. Let us rather no longer insult them with the supposition that they can ever reduce themselves to the necessity of making the experiment, by a blind and tame submission to the long train of insidious measures which must precede and produce it.”

          And the antis say the 2A is all about hunting and collecting.

    • Publicly expounding one’s expert opinion on something they know nothing about is almost as American as the Second Amendment.

  4. To paraphrase Penn from Penn and Teller, it never ceases to amaze me that the Second Amendment is the only one that the anti gunners seem to have any issue deciphering. Every other amendment is clear, concise, and to the point, but as far as most everyone on the left (and a chunk of people from the right) are concerned, you need at the very least be a tenured Con Law professor to even get past the first few words. Funny that.

    • It is fascinating isn’t it? They can somehow see the 2nd as unique when it is of the same context as the rest. The Bill of Rights consists of individual rights that limit the power of our federal government. Let’s start there, consider them all equal and sacred to our freedom.

    • To be fair, they just completely ignore the 10th, or jumble the definition so that it appears that any right not given to the government is… well… given to the government, because our bad for not spelling it out sooner.

    • Isn’t it funny that for most people when something contradicts them they cannot grasp it?

  5. The whole theory here seems to be that because the state can impose some restrictions on use and ownership, then naturally that should extend to the right of liberals to collectively deny “gun nuts” (read; “conservative men”) their constit-err, I mean their “right to proliferate weapons to our perfect snowflake children who were just starting to turn their lives around” altogether.

  6. WTF is a website with the name SALON doing talking about gun rights? In fact, why do you quote these people, Farago? They clearly don’t know anything beyond what their kids history teacher tell them.

    • You’re just not uppity enough:

      A salon is a gathering of people under the roof of an inspiring host, held partly to amuse one another and partly to refine the taste and increase the knowledge of the participants through conversation. These gatherings often consciously followed Horace’s definition of the aims of poetry, “either to please or to educate” (“aut delectare aut prodesse est”). Salons, commonly associated with French literary and philosophical movements of the 17th and 18th centuries, were carried on until quite recently in urban settings.

  7. [sarcasm] Our president is a Harvard trained Constitutional Scholar. I think we should all subscribe to his interpretation![/sarcasm]

  8. ” It is so vague that it could mean anything.”

    Or it’s so specific it couldn’t only mean one thing. Hence the difficultly subverting it.

    Nice job trying to use double speak. It was double, more gooder.

  9. At the time of it’s writing the second amendment was neither poorly written or vague. The only reason it may seem so today is that progressives/liberals have been pushing their agitprop for the last century to make it seem so. Everyone understood exactly what it meant 225 years ago and everyone who cares to make even a brief investigation into the founders of the constitution understand it perfectly. Only those who don’t like the amendment skew their perception of it to conform to their bias.

    • Exactly, we don’t need to “interpret it”. In addition to being written with a bunch of other rights that are quite clear, the people who wrote it explained it ad nauseam in other publications around the same time.

      • At the time there was no need to read anything but the second amendment. Saying it was poorly written is like saying that the King James Bible was poorly written. No. People just talked different in 1611 England than we do in 2014 America. Everyone in 1789 knew and understood the militia system, it didn’t need to be explained to them. But since Woodrow Wilson replaced it with the National Guard a hundred years ago because the militias refused to invade Mexico, we now don’t know what ‘militia’ means anymore.

        • Good comment but didn’t he split it into the Organized Militia (National Guard) and Unorganized Militia (Reserve Militia) instead of outright replacing the traditional Militia?

          It seems like an old government trick… split a right/duty into a right and a privilege. That’s what we have in Ohio now. The State couldn’t get rid of the RKBA but it decided that it could license part of it as long as an unregulated part endured.

        • I looked it up and it appears that I was incorrect. It looks to me like he did try to replace it in 1916. I was confusing that with the later Dick Act.

    • You don’t have to do any supplementary reading at all to understand that shall not be infringed means shall not be infringed.

      Maybe “infringed” is the part they’re having trouble with?

  11. “Forty years ago, when the resolution of enslaving America was formed in Great Britain, the British parliament was advised by an artful man, [Sir William Keith] who was governor of Pennsylvania, to disarm the people. That it was the best and most effectual way to enslave them. But that they should not do it openly; but to weaken them and let them sink gradually, by totally diffusing and neglecting the militia…. I ask who are the militia? They consist now of the whole people, except a few public officers. But I cannot say who will be the militia of the future day. If that paper on the table gets no alteration, the militia of the future day may not consist of all classes, high and low, and rich and poor; but may be confined to the lower and middle classes of the people, granting exclusion to the higher classes of the people. If we should ever see that day, the most ignominious (deserving or causing public disgrace or shame) punishments and heavy fines may be expected. Under the present government all ranks of people are subject to militia duty.” – George Mason

    In other words, the militia is everyone. Everyone should be armed. If only a certain class of people are the militia, then the results will be a disgrace to our nation. (The militia is most definitely NOT the standing army. It was the standing army of the day that was trying to disarm the militia or the people.)

    • 2054 A.D.

      “Forty years ago, when the resolution of enslaving America was formed by the Civilian Disarmament Complex, the Government was lobbied by a wealthy man, [M.Bloomberg] who was Mayor of NYC, to disarm the people. That it was the best and most effectual way to enslave them. But that they should not do it openly; but to weaken them and let them sink gradually.”

    • I kind of keyed on “except a few public officers.” What I want that to mean is that everyone should be armed except those whose paycheck comes from tax dollars.

      • IMHO, what it means is that they operate under privilege and government can infringe upon their RKBA while executing their functions as agents of government. If the individual doesn’t want that then they can resign their position as agent of government.

        This brings up an interesting question in my mind. If a cop is a cop 24/7 (as we are told), doesn’t that mean they don’t actually exercise the RKBA when “off duty” but instead bear arms under privilege?

  12. Well Salon is in the same category as HuffPo and Slate as bastions of journalistic excellence. They pass off blogs as news and opinion as fact.

  13. We SHOULD be true to the letter and spirit of the original 2A. Dissolve the National Guard — and re-create the State Citizen Militias — as intended. Of course that might mean fewer folks to deploy (and re-deploy — and re-re-deploy) to Naturalgasastan and Pipelineastan — in the so-called “GWOT”.

    • Well, all those big, gas guzzling trucks and SUVs don’t run on hope and change…

      And those big oil companies aren’t going to be able to turn 90 billion a quarter in profit without some conflict and dead brown people, am I right?

      George Carlin said it best, we only kicked the German’s ass because they were trying to rule the world, that’s our f^cking job.

  14. The comments on this one are interesting. There is a definite decline in the quality of anti-gun trolls, lately.

  15. Anyone who has an interest in the Second Amendment owes it to himself to read Stephen Halbrook’s books about its origen and meaning. Simply fantastic scholarship.

  16. He’s absolutely right. It’s way too vague and is often mis-interpreted. Which is why we would like to change it to say this instead: “The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed”.

    • 🙂

      But, don’t be so quick to abandon the first part as it clarifies why the armed individual is so important. The first part makes clear why the individual right to keep and bear arms like AR15s and standard capacity magazines is necessary. 😉

    • 2014 updated text: The right to bear arms shall not be infringed. This is because a well trained and equipped citizen militia is necessary to the security of a free state.

      Nope, too vague.

  17. I don’t get what is so difficult here. Can people not understand who the “people” are, what the term “arms” means, and the definition of “shall not be infringed”?

    If you have a fully functioning brain, yet have trouble deciphering this highfalutin and verbose discourse, perhaps you may want to look for context clues in the writings of the founding fathers on the subject of guns?

    You’d find such gems as this:”The Constitution of most of our states (and of the United States) assert that all power is inherent in the people; that they may exercise it by themselves; that it is their right and duty to be at all times armed.”
    – Thomas Jefferson

      • Ah yes, I’ve seen that interpreted loosely. In 18th C parlance, that term meant well trained.

        Additionally, if one were to claim that meant heavily gov’t restrictions, this would be negated by the whole “shall not be infringed” as they are mutually exclusive.

        I also love the “that applies to muskets”, well that was the arm of the time but nowhere does it say “said amendment applies only to the arms in circulation at the time of writing, and shall not be applicable to further developments in small arms technology which shall be exclusive property of the nation’s standing army”.

        • “I also love the “that applies to muskets’…”

          Whenever I see/hear that, I realize that any further attempts at well reasoned and logical debate are futile, so I respond with “Yes, and the first amendment was written at a time where we didn’t have instantanious global communication, news stations whose budgets relied on advertising, new and exotic bastardizations of world religions, and groups like Anonymous organizing protests, so we should just go ahead and hack back those pesky rights.”

      • Part of that due to how we tend to use “regulated” these days.

        Government regulations bog everything down. However, a well regulated militia would be one that is well ordered and prepared. The assumption being that they could self organize but would have to supply their own equipment for the most part.

        There was also an assumption back in the day that local communities would largely be responsible for their own defense. In some limited capacity the local police fill this niche, but not completely.

        Many call films like Red Dawn poppycock and fantasy, but a real fear of foreign powers is trying to take over a country where every citizen is potentially armed.

  18. Name *one*. Fact is that beyond the Second Amendment itself, there wasn’t a piece of federal legislation regarding firearms for the first hundred years of the nation.

    This guy makes as much sense with this view as if he were announcing his desire to become a proxy for Slender Man and run off to his demonic forest mansion. Whatever the hell that means. Lunatics.

  19. If there’s going to be any change to the Constitution, how about they release a modern English version so there’s no doubt as to it’s meaning. I’m getting sick of illiterate buffoons with zero historical perspective making the claim that well-regulated means to restrict.

    “A smoothly functioning militia of the public is necessary to the security of a free state, and the right of the public to bear arms will not be infringed.”

    The men that wrote the constitution and its amendments were true patriots, they understood what was necessary to keep and maintain the America they were building. Placing restrictions on the very tools used to secure those freedoms was not the intent of the 2nd.

    • Careful with that “public,” they will take that to mean you can only have a gun if the “public” approves.

    • Too many words. With every added word there will be room to twist it. IMHO, we don’t need to replace the 2A since it’s brilliant as is. Those feigning ignorance will continue to do so regardless.

  20. I got bad news for ya, people all over the world use guns, for good and bad, and they do so without the benefit of the second amendment.
    But, then again, I still don’t understand the magic powers of background checks or gun laws in general, so maybe there is some powerful curse the second amendment has over them.

  21. I was never very good in school but I got a 700 verbal score on the SAT back in highschool, but maybe Im missing the vagueness on “the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed…”

    What are we allow to bear? Arms – that seems pretty clear
    Who is allowed to bear them? The people – again, pretty clear
    How shall it be regulated? Shall not be infringed – um, that seems REALLY extra clear

    And the antis have the audacity to call us “uneducated”, you’d have to be pretty dense to think anything as explicitly spelled out as the 2A is vague or unclear.

  22. Maybe if your reading comprehension is that of a third grader, then maybe it’s vague. To intelligent adults, it’s clear as day.

    • Meh, that is often not the case. These folks can clearly interpret the finer points of Karl Marx and hippie poetry, they just choose to read with malaise when it can be used to their advantage.

      • Or maybe not even then. I do wonder.

        I think it may be more to the point that they are not doing their own original thinking on Marx (or any other topic, including the Second Amendment and the Founding the United States in general), but only parroting what someone else told them these things mean.

        I’ve read Marx and Engels and it scared the hell out of me … that thinking people could possibly read those words and not see it as a mechanism for wholesale enslavement is mind boggling. Too, 1984 puts it into some perspective as well.

        So, I think a lot of progressive claims are made in a vacuum…the mindless vacuum of the programmed.

  23. Vague only to those who want it to be.

    “To give truth to him who loves it not is to only give him more multiplied reasons for misinterpretation.”
    George McDonald

  24. It’s rather simple. They cannot understand because they cannot conceive of a world where the government has told the people they can be reliant on themselves instead of the government.

    The 2nd Amendment basically says “Hey guys, if things should go really badly, we might call on you to defend your lives, your community, and quite possibly your country. So be ready, ok?”

    Really, this is not a bad policy, even in modern times. Unfortunately, when you live under a government that has become obsessed with control, the idea of asking the common citizenry to come to their own defense in unthinkable and practically undercutting the authority you are trying so desperately to convey.

  25. They DO understand it and its not vague at all. This is all more smoke and mirrors.

    The problem isn’t that they don’t know what it says or think we misinterpret it. Their problem is what it says.

    The Second Amendment is a barrier to their statist Utopia. R Selected mice want to be led, to be part of a herd. They need to be provided for, to have safety nets. Kipling’s description of the “Law of Jungle” does not apply to them, because they are domesticated cage dwellers.

    The problem is that there are enough people that DON’T subscribe to being mice – by choice or genetics really does not matter. That disrupts the pipeline of being coddled, taken care of, mothered from birth to natural death in old age.

    The Second Amendment embodies a mindset opposite from their world view. They know exactly what it means and it’s not confusing at all. They just don’t like what it says, and hope they can fool enough people into buying their tripe.

    • Absolutely. Thinking they are stupid or fatuous actually plays right into their hands.

  26. Tough, this whole literacy thing. It’s hard to understand because words require things like “context” and “definition” to be clear. If only the most important part of the 2nd Amendment could have been made more clear by the courts… Oh, wait! That happened! The Heller Decision!

  27. 2A: As passed by the Congress and preserved in the National Archives:

    A well regulated Militia COMMA being necessary to the security of a free State COMMA the right of THE *PEOPLE* to keep and bear Arms COMMA shall not be infringed.

    4A: The right of THE *PEOPLE* to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

    Aside from the axiomatic point that BOTH 2A & 4A REFER TO INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS — 4A applies to modern electronic “papers” just as 2A applies to modern firearms. It’s not like they had only swords. Besides ONE SHOT from a not-modern musket = FATALITY.

  29. There are some who are merely ignorant, which can be remedied, but many are “willfully ignorant” which cannot be helped. Even if you accept their argument that the language is vague (which I do not), the Supreme Court has settled the issue for us through the Heller and McDonald decisions. They have ruled it’s an individual right, and “guns in common use” are explicitly covered under the Second Amendment. “Willfully ignorant” antis just keep sowing F.U.D. in an attempt to cloud the issue.

    What further irritates me are those who argue that the Heller decision was “only 5-4”. It doesn’t matter…it is still the law of the land!! Many of the key rulings in our country’s history have cine down to 5-4 decisions.

  30. You can argue the fine points and all, but in the end it says the right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. Not that vague if you ask me.

  31. Why are people so bad at reading? Two main comments:
    First:
    “Justice Antonin Scalia went out of his way in that decision to say that beyond the holding of handguns in the home for self-defense, regulations of firearms remained the purview of the state and so too was conduct. He wrote that regulating the use of concealed weapons or barring the use of weapons in certain places or restricting commercial use are permitted.”

    He most certainly did not. The opinion he wrote stated that those are restrictions are “presumptively lawful”. Presumptively lawful, does not mean that SCOTUS is giving their blessing, it just means that they aren’t looking at that particular part of the law as it wasn’t challenged. I have seen this misinformation all over the place. It is getting really annoying

    Second:
    “But what none of them seem to acknowledge (or, more likely, know) is that this particular legal interpretation of the Second Amendment was validated by the Supreme Court all the way back in … 2008. That’s right. It was only six years ago that the Supreme Court ruled (in a 5-4 decision with the conservatives in the majority, naturally) that there was a “right to bear arms” as these people insist has been true for over two centuries.”

    Umm, thats not how it works. SCOTUS ruled on Heller in 2008 affirming that we did in fact have a right to keep and bear arms that was protected under the 2A. It did NOT create that right. It took until 2008 to make such a ruling because no one ever had any reason to question what the 2A meant. We have in fact had the right to keep and bear arms protected under the constitution ever since the bill of rights went into effect.

  32. Can someone quickly rewrite that article, simply replacing the 2nd amendment with the 1st, 4th, 5th or 6th, send it into Salon and ask them how reasonable they think their view is when applied to something other than guns?

  33. There have not been any amendments to the 2nd Amendment, and there should not be. None of the SCOTUS Justices (past or present) equal any of our founding fathers, they do not rate, neither does anyone holding the office of President (past or present), or either the Congress or Senate (again, past or present). Their job is to protect the Constitution, not mold it. If they wish to amend it they need to do so in the manner prescribed by the Constitution for all of us and that is by the means of Amendment as provided, or by abolition. The idea is as simple as amending the Bylaws of a corporation, or the Operating Agreement of a limited liability company, you may be entitled to try, but you have to follow the rules. You can’t just say “well, I want to chuck this little bit over here” because I may respond by chucking the rest [TERMS, J.M. Thomas R., 2012].
    It’s kind of like Bruce Springsteen wanting to write a new national anthem for his country.
    No one (with the proper authority) has asked him to do this, besides I think the Canucks are kind of partial to “O Canada”.

    All rights recited in the Bill of Rights are freedoms from government, thereby being wholly and solely defended by an armed society. – TERMS

  34. The problem is people reading only the 2A and trying to decipher the intention. To comprehend 2A you must read the entire Bill of Rights in the context of the advice of Thomas Jefferson. The Bill of Rights was written after winning the war to gain freedom from the tyranny of King George. After penning The Constitution, the colonies’ representatives’ felt the need to make it clear that all power stems from the citizens, not the government, in order to avoid another Tyrant from taking control. Rights = Powers in their minds, and in this context, the 10 amendments take more clear meaning. The Bill of Rights as a whole is meant to prevent tyrannical government. Wordy, sorry, best I could do.

  35. Stupidity of this magnitude could *only* come from salon.com

    the irony is this clowns handle is “rationalguy” when he takes a position based on fears, lies, superstition, fallacy, and emotions rather than facts, truth, realities, honesty and cold numbers.

  36. Ah yes, the predictable stale and discredited “evolutionary theory” about the law.

    Notice how this is being spread, with same talking points, via various progtard non-profits, gun-grabber groups, and the reliable enablers in the StateRunMedia?

    No coincidence, given the obvious conclusions in the Rodgers shooting-
    its about the person, not the tool (knife, gun, car) used …

    And ANYTHING, no matter how ridiculous, is going to be run up the progtard flagpole to obscure that…. is exactly the point.

    Dont give in, to respond to the ridiculous strawman- its like answering- why did you stop beating your kids….

    The desperation is proving the Progtards are losing. Dont get side-tracked.

    Stick to the facts, calmly, but with passion infused by a moral narrative, and punch back twice as hard, going on the offensive to point out their discredited and despicable tactics when they try to make it personal.
    ~ Ben Shapiro.

    Expect more of the same.

  38. They know it’s there, and they know what it means. What it means is that our arms are there specifically to fight their tyranny; they know this, and they are in full-on panic mode because they know they’re doomed, and they want to do the maximum possible amount of damage while they still cling to what power they have.

  40. Let me translate for him: “because we may need to form armed militias to defend free states, the government is denied the authority to restrict the right to own weaponry.”

      • I’m starting to think that should be left in the comments at every article that questions the meaning of the 2nd amendment. seeing the two side by side makes it extremely clear that’s what it means.

      • IMHO, the original gives one reason as example whereas the new wording makes it even easier to exclude all keeping and bearing of arms outside of a militia. It seems like many alternatives just try to avoid “well regulated.” I like the 2A as is but if we were going to re-write it, how about:

        A well armed people proficient in the use of arms is necessary to liberty therefore the individual right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

        Again, I think that the original is flawless.

        (I need coffee… my brain is not functioning well this afternoon. 😉 )

    • Like the original wording, this alternate wording does not base our right to keep and bear arms on the existence of a militia. It just provides some context where the right to keep and bear arms would be crucial. I like it.

  41. Why does this deserve front page posting? It’s a random comment by a dimwitted nobody that’s so utterly fully of fail that the first several posters here soundly thrashed it. Let’s not give every idiot screen time, TTAG, this site’s better than that. It’s bad enough in modern society that morons have a worldwide soapbox on the internet.

  42. “It citizenship would give to persons of the negro race, who were recognized as citizens in any one State of the Union, the right to enter every other state whenever they pleased, singly or in companies, without pass or passport, andwithout obstruction, to sojourn there as long as they pleased, to go where they pleased at every hour of the day or night without molestation, unless they committed some violation of the law for which a white man would be punished it citizenship would give them the full liberty of speech in public and in private upon all subjects upon which its own citizens might speak to hold public meetings upon political affairs, and to keep and carry arms wherever they went. And all this would be done in the face of the subject race of the same color, both free and slaves, inevitably producing discontent and insubordination among them, and endangering the peace and safety of the State.”

    -Roger B. Taney USSC Chief Justice, writing in the Dred Scot decision in 1857 that free and enslaved blacks couldn’t be citizens because among the rights of citizens is “to keep and carry arms wherever they went.” The early laws that the gun ban fetishists now embrace were Jim Crow laws meant “to keep the Negroes in line.” The South passed these laws with the belief that they were unconstitutional if applied to whites but fine if applied to subject blacks who had no Constitutional rights. Is this really the history that the desperate anti-gunners want to hang their hopes on that the Constitution permits gun bans? The scoundrels are in the last redoubt.

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