From: veal@utkvm1.utk.edu (David L. Veal)
Subject: Re: democratic platform
Organization: University of Tennessee Division of Continuing Education
Date: Tue, 28 Jul 1992 21:55:50 GMT

In article <1992Jul27.185034.13106@sdc.com> kenk@sdc.com (Ken Konecki) writes:

>In article <1992Jul26.002943.4459@athena.mit.edu> sybok@athena.mit.edu (The Rifleman) writes:
>>Do you know what the words "well-regulated militia" mean?  Well regulated,
>>according the Oxford English Dictionary, when said of troops, means
>>well disciplined/able in shooting, and "militia" according to the 1792
>>Militia Act meant all free males from 17 to 45.  Furthermore, the
>>first clause of the Second Amendment is *not* a restrictive clause,
>>it merely states the reason for the second clause--which acknowledges
>>an unlimited right to keep and bear arms.

>Poppycock.  The 2nd amendment was never intended to allow private citizens
>to "keep and bear arms".  

     I'll let somebody else inundate you with the relevant quotes.  I'm
not on the machine I have them saved on.

>If it had, there would have been wording such as
>"the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed".
>The first clause of the amendment is indeed a restrictive clause because
>it spells out the reasoning behind the 2nd amendment.  

     Reasoning is not restriction.  The point is that the Second Amendment
was intended to protect the militia, which *is* the people.  Any restriction
on firearms of the people infringes on the *militia*, because to the 
founders, those two were one in the same.
     If I say, "I want to buy a watch so I'll know when to go to work," does
that reasonable translate into that the *only* think I will use that watch
for is to know when to go to work?

>The second
>amendment was written to prevent the newly formed national government from
>disarming the state militias.  In the past, Congress has, using their
>powers to regulate commerce, enacted legislation restricting firearms
>sales.  None of this legislation was vetoed by the Supreme Court.

     Congress has the power to regulate *interstate commerce*, meaning trade
between the states, not trade *within* the states.  Congress has made laws
regarding trade of guns across state lines (which you can make a case for
being unconstitutional, since the Second Amendment would repeal any power
to regulate guns under this power) and under their power to tax.

     The Supreme Court does not veto *anything*.  They have the *implied*
power of Judicial Review.  

>In addition, the Bill of Rights was also never intended to apply to the
>states; only to the national government.  It wasn't until 1940 that the
>first amendment was "interpreted" to apply beyond the federal border and
>only then by virtue of the 14th amendment.

     Read the debates in Congress for the passage of the 14th amendment.  
One of the *specific* reasons for the fourteenth amendment was to extend
RKBA to the states, which were legislating that right away from the newly
freed slaves.

>BTW, using a 1792 defintion to explain something written in 1788 has no
>crediblity.

     Are you seriously suggesting that four years between the use of a word
and writing the definition down is a problem?  Considering the slow task of
writing a dictionary at the time, it would be easier to claim that definition
was used far prior to it being written down.  They didn't churn out 
dictionaries at the time like they do today.

>Cheers,
>    -Ken K

===========================================================================
|David Veal  PA146008@utkvm1.utk.edu  University of Tennessee             |  
|                                     Division of Continuing Education    |
| Statistics are any data which can be twisted to support your posititon  | 
===========================================================================

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