"Dave Hall" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 12 Sep 2007 09:01:24 -0400, "Ed Huntress"
wrote:


"willshak" wrote in message
...


Why is it that some believe that the US Constitution guarantees weapons
ownership?
Most of these people have never read the law, and those that have read
it,
completely ignore the first clause of the sentence.
"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".
How many gun owners belong to a "well regulated militia"?

It's not a clause (except to a lawyer), because it contains no predicate.
It's a phrase, and the sentence is a type called "nominative absolute."
Nominative absolute sentences tell you nothing about the dependency of the
clause ("the right of the people..." etc.) upon the phrase. It may be a
dependency, or it may be incidental. Often it's a sufficient but not
necessary condition.

Nobody ever gets this right, so don't feel badly about it. And it wouldn't
be the first time the FFs wrote something that was intentionally
ambiguous.
The whole purpose of the Bill of Rights was to get the anti-federalists to
calm down and ratify the Constitution. Nothing more, nothing less.

Not at all in agreement with much of any of this post. However, most
of it is opinion or subject to argument.

None of it is opinion. Opinions are what people have when they don't have
the facts. The facts in this case are not at all difficult to find.

The first part you can clear up by finding a good English grammar text,
British or American. Or look up "nominative absolute" on the Web. It ought
to be there someplace.

FWIW, a "clause" in the law means several things. In English, it means just
one thing. A phrase can be a clause in legal terms but not in grammatical
terms. And it is the grammar of it, not the law, that determines such things
as grammatical dependency.

I've been an editor for 34 years. Don' gimme no stuff. g

However, that last piece is
not. The Bill of Rights was proposed by Congress and submited to the
States AFTER the Constitution had been ratified. The Constitution was
ratified by the 9th state on June 21, 1788 and became effective on
March 4, 1789. The first Congress under the Constitution submitted the
Bill Of Rights to the States for consideration as Amendments to the
Constitution on September 25, 1789. The Bill of Rights (or the first
10 Amendments to the Constitution) became effective on December 15,
1791. Clearly this timeline shows that the purpose was NOT "to get the
anti-federalists to calm down and ratify the Constitution" though
admittedly there was much talk about a Bill of Rights at the various
legislatures when the states were debating the Constitution.

Your understanding of it is incorrect. Those states that demanded an
explicit bill of rights ratified on the condition that Congress would
produce one. This fact is all over the history books. It's not a
controversial issue.

The
Federalist Papers and "anti-Federalist Papers" represent a number of
articles discussing this in the context of the times (along with a lot
of other issues of concern with the proposed Constitution).

"In Massachusetts, the Constitution ran into serious, organized
opposition. Only after two leading Antifederalists, Adams and Hancock,
negotiated a far-reaching compromise did the convention vote for
ratification on February 6, 1788 (187-168).

....which is what I said above, and which you appear to be contesting.

Antifederalists had
demanded that the Constitution be amended before they would consider
it or that amendments be a condition of ratification; Federalists had
retorted that it had to be accepted or rejected as it was. Under the
Massachusetts compromise, the delegates recommended amendments to be
considered by the new Congress, should the Constitution go into
effect. The Massachusetts compromise determined the fate of the
Constitution, as it permitted delegates with doubts to vote for it in
the hope that it would be amended."[7]

....as I said above.


Four of the next five states to ratify, including New Hampshire,
Virginia, and New York, included similar language in their
ratification instruments. They all sent recommendations for amendments
with their ratification documents to the new Congress. Since many of
these recommendations pertained to safeguarding personal rights, this
pressured Congress to add a Bill of Rights after Constitutional
ratification. Additionally, North Carolina refused to ratify the
Constitution until progress was made on the issue of the Bill of
Rights. Thus, while the Anti-Federalists were unsuccessful in their
quest to prevent the adoption of the Constitution, their efforts were
not totally in vain." [from Wikipedia - yeah I know that is not
autoritative]

....as I said above.

Just what is it you're contesting?

--
Ed Huntress