clifto wrote:

Kurt Ullman wrote:

Just Wondering wrote:

Amendment II

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.


That's right, the right of THE PEOPLE (not the militia) to keep arms shall
not
be infringed.

But the need for a well-regulated militia is what is stated first and
succinctly. You conveniently ignore that.


What you're ignoring is that the entire first part of that is commentary.
The actual meat of the amendment says simply and eloquently, "the right
of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

The grammatical construction of the first part sounds stilted in today's
world, but translating it into modernese, it says "Because a well-regulated
militia is necessary to the security of a free State..."


You guys sure are beating a dead dog......at least as far as this thread
goes. If we go way back, before the "Founding Fathers", to the early
colonists.....they were required to keep arms and powder. They had to
bring their guns to church and to town meetings. They were also
required by law to keep provisions in their homes in order to feed
travellers. Also required to be members of the church in order to vote.
Some ornery characters in Connecticut, whom I am distantly related to,
didn't go for that. Seriously religious, church-goin' folks, some of
whom sentenced Quakers - male or female - to be lashed "twenty stripes"
on their bare backs whilst being pulled by a cart out of the
jurisdiction. But, they weren't as conservative as they sound...the law
generally was that a man had to leave at least one-third of his estate
to his wife, and there were always officials charged with caring for the
poor.