2nd amendment.Shall not be infringedKind of hard to misinterpret that phrase.All thats left is petty arguments about degrees of scariness
"[T]he right of the people to keep and bear arms" is a little less straightforward.
[QUOTE='gunfacts.info]THE SECOND AMENDMENTJustification clause: "A well regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State," Rights clause: "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed."The justification clause does not modify, restrict, or deny the rights clause.506For a full discussion of how the 2nd Amendment was created and revised, see “Origin of the 2nd Amendment” in the “Miscellaneous information” section of this book.Myth: The Supreme Court ruled the Second Amendment is not an individual rightFact: In D.C. v Heller the Supreme Court (2008) firmly established the 2nd Amendment is an individual right, as they had in Cruikshank and Dred Scott.Fact: In McDonald v Chicago (2010) the Supreme Court concluded the right is incorporated against the states via the 14th Amendment.Fact: Of 300 decisions of the federal and state courts that have taken a position on the meaning of the Second Amendment or the state analogs to it, only 10 have claimed that the right to keep and bear arms is not an individual right. Many of the other decisions struck down gun control laws because they conflicted with the Second Amendment, such as State v. Nunn (Ga. 1846).507Fact: In the Dred Scott case of 1856, the Supreme Court listed the protected rights of citizens and explicitly listed the right to keep and bear arms, and gave this right equal weight to the other freedoms enumerated in the constitution.Myth: The Second Amendment is a collective right, not an individual rightFact: St. George Tucker, any early legal commentator and authority of the original meaning of the constitution wrote in Blackstone’s Commentaries "Nor will the constitution permit any prohibition of arms to the people”.508Fact: The Second Amendment was listed in a Supreme Court ruling as an individual right.509 Fact: The Supreme Court specifically reaffirmed that the right to keep and bear arms did notbelong to the government.510Fact: In 22 of the 27 instances where the Supreme Court mentions the Second Amendment, they quote the rights clause and not the justification clause.506 Eugene Volokh, Prof. Law, UCLA 507 For the Defense of Themselves and the State: The Original Intent and Judicial Interpretation of the Right to Keepand Bear Arms, Clayton Cramer, Praeger Press, 1994 508 Blackstone’s Commentaries, St. GeorgeTucker, Vol 1. Note D. Part 6. Restraints on Powers of Congress (1803). 509 Dred Scott, Casey v. Planned Parenthood, U.S. v. Cruikshank and others 510 United States v. MillerFact: Courts disagree. “We find that the history of the Second Amendment reinforces the plain meaning of its text, namely that it protects individual Americans in their right to keep and bear arms whether or not they are a member of a select militia or performing active military service or training” and “We reject the collective rights and sophisticated collective rights models for interpreting the Second Amendment.”511Fact: Citizens disagree. 62% believe the 2nd Amendment guarantees an individual right, while a mere 28% believe it protects the power of the states to form militias.512Fact: There are 23 state constitutions with RKBA clauses adopted between the Revolution and 1845, and 20 of them are explicitly individual in nature, only three have "for the common defense" or other “collective rights” clauses.513Fact: James Madison, considered to be the author of the Bill of Rights, wrote that the Bill of Rights was "calculated to secure the personal rights of the people". He never excluded the Second Amendment from this statement.Fact: Patrick Henry commented on the Swiss militia model (still in use today) noting that they maintain their independence without "a mighty and splendid President" or a standing army.514Fact: "The congress of the United States possesses no power to regulate, or interfere with the domestic concerns, or police of any state: it belongs not to them to establish any rules respecting the rights of property; nor will the constitution permit any prohibition of arms to the people; or of peaceable assemblies by them, for any purposes whatsoever, and in any number, whenever they may see occasion."515Fact: Tench Coxe, in Remarks on the First Part of the Amendments to the Federal Constitution said: "As civil rulers, not having their duty to the people duly before them, may attempt to tyrannize, and as the military forces which must be occasionally raised to defend our country, might pervert their power to the injury of their fellow-citizens, the people are confirmed by the next article in their right to keep and bear their private arms.”511 U.S. v. Emerson, 5th court of Appeals decision, November 2, 2001, No. 99-10331 512 Associated Television News Survey, August 1999, 1,007 likely voters513 For the Defense of Themselves and the State: The Original Intent and Judicial Interpretation of the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, Clayton Cramer, , Praeger Press, 1994, cited as an authority in USA v. Emerson (N.D. Texas 1999)514 Where Kids and Guns Do Mix, Stephen P. Halbrook, Wall Street Journal, June 2000515 Blackstone’s Commentaries, St. George Tucker, Volume 1 Appendix Note D., 1803 – Tucker's comments provide a number of insights into the consensus for interpretation of the Constitution that prevailed shortly after its ratification, after the debates had settled down and the Constitution was put into practice.Myth: The "militia" clause is to arm the National GuardFact: “Militia” is a Latin abstract noun, meaning "military service", not an "armed group", and that is the way the Latin-literate Founders used it. To the Romans, "military service" included law enforcement and disaster response. Today “militia” might be more meaningfully translated as "defense service", associated with a "defense duty", which attaches to individuals as much asto groups of them, organized or otherwise. When we are alone, we are all militias of one. In the broadest sense, militia is the exercise of civic virtue. 516Fact: the #### Act of 1903 designated the National Guard as the "organized militia" and that all other citizens were the "unorganized militia" – thus the National Guard is only part of the militia, and the whole militia is composed of the population at large. Before 1903, the National Guard had no federal definition as part of the militia at all.Fact: The first half of the Second Amendment is called the "justification clause". Justification clauses appear in many state constitutions, and cover liberties including right to trial, freedom of the press, free speech, and more. Denying gun rights based on the justification clause means we would have to deny free speech rights on the same basis.517Fact: The origin of the phrase "a well regulated militia" comes from a 1698 treatise "A Discourse of Government with Relation to Militias" by Andrew Fletcher, in which the term "well regulated" was equated with "well-behaved" or "disciplined".518Fact: “We have found no historical evidence that the Second Amendment was intended to convey militia power to the states, limit the federal government's power to maintain a standing army, or applies only to members of a select militia while on active duty. All of the evidence indicates that the Second Amendment, like other parts of the Bill of Rights, applies to and protects individual Americans.”519Fact: “The plain meaning of the right of the people to keep arms is that it is an individual, rather than a collective, right and is not limited to keeping arms while engaged in active military service or as a member of a select militia such as the National Guard ...”520Fact: Most of the 13 original states (and many colonies/territories that became states after ratification of the Constitution and before or shortly after ratification of the Bill of Rights) had their own constitutions, and it is from these that the original Bill of Rights was distilled. The state constitutions of that time had many “right to keep and bear arms” clauses that clearly guaranteed an individual right. Some examples include:Connecticut: “Every citizen has a right to bear arms in defense of himself and the state.” Kentucky: “The right of the citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves and the State shall not be questioned.”Pennsylvania: “That the people have a right to bear arms for the defense of themselves and the state ... The right of the citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves and the State shall not be questioned.”Rhode Island: “The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”Vermont: “The people have a right to bear arms for the defense of themselves and the State.”516 Militia, The Constitution Society, www.constiution.org 517 Eugene Volokh, Prof. Law, UCLA,
http://www.law.ucla.edu/faculty/volokh/beararms/testimon.htm518 This document was widely published during the colonial and revolutionary periods, and was the basis for state and federal 'bills of rights'.519 U.S. v. Emerson, 5th court of Appeals decision, November 2, 2001, No. 99-10331 520 Ibid
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yet again
The UK consistently has lower murder rates than the US even in UN data which attempts to standardize reporting.
"U.S. vs Miller" ruled that the 2nd Amendment protects only arms of the type in common use by the military when it ruled against Miller who had been convicted of possession of an illegal sawed-off shotgun. Since sawed-off shotguns were not in use by the military, the court upheld the conviction.
I fully expect many more accidental killings aver the next few months because of your wanting to do exactly the wrong thing to America safer.
