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Politics : Al Gore vs George Bush: the moderate's perspective -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TimF who wrote (1840)	10/9/2000 5:46:20 PM
From: cosmicforce	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 10042

Well, people is plural and your conveniently forgetting that the introductory clause expresses a context. If you bother to read all the Amendments this use of plural vs. singular is important. Why do you suppose that they started talking about well regulated militia BEFORE they start talking about the right of the people? That is called context. If you look at the very next, 3rd amendment, No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law. They are clearly not talking about "people", even in the abstract, but "owner", the singular specific. Now, go to amendment #4, 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. Here, we have the plural "people" but several times, "persons" the singular special case, is clearly articulated to mean individuals of the class "people", the abstract. If you want to rewrite the Constitution, then that is fine. But there is a process to do that. You can go an start a Constitutional Convention that says "the rights of the individual to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." Good luck.

To: TimF who wrote (1840)	10/9/2000 5:58:49 PM
From: Rambi	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 10042

The interpretation of this phrase, of course, is exactly where the pros and the cons part company. It seems to me that the inclusion of the phrase "A wellreg. militia being necessary", explains the reasoning why the amendment was written at all- why every man's right to bear arms had to be protected. You say this yourself- that the militia was made up of men who provided their own arms-- thus to remove arms from any man was to weaken the militia. It is a confusingly worded amendment- perhaps it wasn't then- but it certainly is now, and I bet if they could have seen into the future- the FF would have made it more clear! Much more legally astute minds than ours have argued this without resolution. Regulation- not total control- seems to me a viable solution. We regulate many things that are potentially dangerous. Someone said swimming pools kill more children than guns. Well-- There ARE regulations for swimming pools-- they need to be fenced and they need to have gates that latch. Public pools are inspected regularly for disease. Cars kill more children- well ok- we sure do what we can to prevent that, too- from demanding licenses, making carseats and seatbelts required, we have speed limits, and insurance requirements. We demand a certain accountability, a standard to be met. Is this wrong? I don't want the government saying no one can have a gun any more than I want it telling me what I can do with my body, but I am willing to submit to certain reasonable restrictions.