THE (entire) SECOND AMENDMENT

THE RIGHT TO BEAR ARMS SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED.

Man, doesn't that sound bad*ss?

I'm honestly ready to run through the wall right now just reading that.

But fortunately for my landlord, that's not what the Second Amendment says.

See:

"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."

Look at all those commas!! Founding Daddies, could you please take it easy on the clause-sauce baby PUHLEAZE, for all of us!!

The really sad truth is: their at-the-time-fashionable-in-writing-and-oratory choice of a run-on sentence has cost a lot of people their lives since 1791.

Because the Second Amendment does not say that you can have any gun you want, any time, anywhere, any place, for any reason.

It says (paraphrased): the British used to disarm our citizenry so they could then enforce martial law and keep us orderly for the (later) Mad King George III. That sucked. It was no bueno. Really annoying. So in this CONFEDERATION OF UNITED STATES that we are inventing literally out of thin air right now, let's make sure the States are fully able to defend against the foreseeable possibility that the quasi-monarch we just invented (again, o.o.t.a) is sometimes not that good.

TRANSLATION: States get to have and keep and raise and deploy a national guard.

That's it.

That's what the words on the page say.

I'm really really really sorry if you don't like it.

Ask Congress to change it.

But see this is what seemed clear until around the time erstwhile-Associate Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia (also - former law explainer to Dick Cheney) wrote the Court's opinion in D.C. v. Heller in 2008.

See Mr. Scalia, the ORIGINAL ORIGINALIST, who was always going on...and on...and on...and on...and on...about how we can't change what the Founders wrote, it's concrete, it's the law, don't twist it or tweak it or push it or pull it, no emotions, just read it and apply it...

...he did some language gymnastics in Heller. (a propos of nothing at all, the man was a Republican. who died hunting. with a gun. crazy how the world works.)

He said something along the lines of "see the comma here does this, and the comma here does that, and so what they meant was you generally get to have a gun with you when you go out in public for personal protection, not just at home, and this is a FUNDAMENTAL CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT NOW." He said that's what Strunk and White would tell you.

Did he ask them?

Because, first I READ THE SECOND AMENDMENT, then I read the above, and that's not what I would tell you it means.

How about you?

Judge for yourself.

His colleague, John Paul Stevens, called Scalia's opinion "a dramatic upheaval in the law" that overturned longstanding precedent. He also said, quite astutely, that if the Founders had wanted to include self-protection and other non-well-regulated-Militia reasons for firearms as fundamental rights, they would have just written that in the Amendment. Which they didn't.

All I know is:

if the Second Amendment said any American could have a gun whenever they wanted, we would have amended it a long time ago. Because that just doesn't make any sense.

It's not too late, either.

Slavery was a big problem. We changed the Constitution and banned it.

Guns are a big problem. Let's change the Constitution,

WITHIN REASON,

AFTER DEBATE

AND CONSIDERATION OF ALL STAKEHOLDERS,

democratically, and in pursuit of good and

Truth.

Jimmy "Junior" Madison and his buddies could not have imagined an AR-15. If they'd had them, he'd be like....um...yeah...no...you can't have those, guys. Only the military - ESPECIALLY THE NATIONAL GUARDS.

But they thought about the future.

And they read what they wrote and thought:

"...ahhhhh... they'll understand this. right?"

Nope. Should have made it clearer guys.

homer simpson: DOH!

And to conclude - here’s another Founding Father run-on sentence, the first one from the body of THE Declaration of Independence:

“When in the course of human events,”

(made that comma bold there. can’t really tell.)

Is the rest of the Declaration talking about stuff outside of the course of human events? snickers

Or do you think that those words were carefully chosen to kick off the war of the Enlightenment on this continent?

Antonin… did you read the D of I?

we all need to sing and dance together. even if we don't know all the words: