Well I was paraphrasing from memory but let’s parse it.
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.
Contrary to your prior posts, well-regulated means regimented. It means they’ve practiced and had training. That there are officers leading the men. This is simply based on the language used at the time the words were written. There is no dispute about this in academics or anywhere else.
The second clause tells us the purpose of the entire amendment: security of a free state. State security is another word that has changed meaning over the years. Today we understand it as “national security.” Back then, in context, these words specifically meant the freedom of a state to perpetuate itself, within nonconsentual interferrwnce by a repressive federal government. Nothing to do with freedom of individuals from any government, only the freedom.of a state government from a federal one.
Bear arms, again, prior to 1776 there are zero documented uses of the term that refer clearly to an individual right to carry guns. Rather 95% of the usage refers expressly to formal warfare, the other 5% is ambiguous, 0% refer clearly to an individual right.
Oh, and also, there is zero dispute that the bill of rights was not meant to expand any rights that the colonists did not already have as a matter of natural law and traditions of western jurisprudence, i.e. English common law. England regulated guns. So does every other western country. So have we in America for almost three hundred years, until Heller.
And then there is infringe. There is no dispute that narrowly tailored restrictions on time, place, and manner, do not infringe enumerated rights.
The framers considered a version of the amendment that would have included an express individual right, but it was soundly defeated at the convention. You would note also that zero original state constitutions went on to an express individual right.
So you see it is your opinions that are abhorrent to reality. You are revising history to suit your lies. I’m sorry you got tricked but you did. Maybe you didn’t go far enough in school. Maybe you were just a gullible person. Maybe you’re just scared and you cling to anything you think might make you safer without actually thinking about it.
I do know also that people are getting fucking tired of burying their kids and if you don’t get on board with some reasonable restrictions, the tide will turn against you overwhelmingly.
To infringe is to encroach upon. Any restrictions that come close to preventing the people (everywhere in the Bill of Rights referring to the general population of the United States) from keeping and bearing arms encroach upon that right, and therefore infringe upon it.
What right does the Second Amendment prevent from being infringed upon? Not the right of the militia to keep and bear arms. Not the right of the military to keep and bear arms. It is the right of the people. I am a people. You are a people. Let’s look at everywhere else a right is protected from government interference:
1st Amendment: “the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” Are you saying that this is not an individual right?
4th Amendment: “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures”. Is due process not an individual right?
9th Amendment: “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.” This one is conveniently forgotten by authoritarians and statists who don’t realize that the Bill of Rights protects the rights of the people, rather than granting them.
10th Amendment: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” Again, one of the most important amendments that is conveniently forgotten or ignored by those wishing to deprive the people of their rights.
It is nonsensical to think that “the people” in the Second Amendment would be a generalized right (whatever that means) and that it would refer to individuals everywhere else. What a ridiculous and indefensible position to take.
Yeah except for the express language of the actual amendment.
Bear arms.
Well regulated militia.
State security.
General language from unrelated text can hardly overcome what is actually written on the paper. And textualists and originalists know that, that’s why they have to lie about what those three terms meant to the people who wrote them.
They e been lying about it for a long time.
