From: andy@SAIL.Stanford.EDU (Andy Freeman)
Subject: Re: 2nd Amendment Myths
Followup-To: talk.politics.guns
Organization: Computer Science Department,  Stanford University.
Date: Fri, 4 Sep 1992 20:23:07 GMT

In article <81757@bcsaic.boeing.com> rwojcik@atc.boeing.com writes:
>Anyway, I'm not going to belabor these issues much longer, unless 
>people want to (and I have the time).  So far, nobody has been able
>to supply me with a shred of evidence in favor of the "well-regulated"
>interpretation as "well-trained".

The problem isn't with the supply, but with the acceptance procedure.
Wojcik simply ignores evidence that doesn't support his
interpretation.  We'll come back to that in a bit.  Wojcik also uses
multiple postings, one in tpg and others elsewhere, to "prove" that
his "facts" go undisputed.  The interested parties typically discuss
the issue in tpg; they don't to looking for whereever Wojcik has
decided to play this week.

>Someone mentioned that Andy Freeman cited a quote from the OED, but
>Andy did not care to respond to my linguistic challenge.

Andy Freeman doesn't cite OED.  He does cite, among other sources,
Fletcher's Political Works, pub'd in 1749, which defines "well
regulated militia" as an armed people NOT under the control of govt.
Other people have pointed out that Wojcik's assumption that
"regulated" implies govt controlled is wrong.  It isn't necessarily
true now and wasn't true then.  (My car has a regulator, but it has
nothing to do with govt, and "regulation" is the process of adjusting
a gun for accuracy; the latter is a rare meaning now, but very common
in the 1700s.)  Freeman also correctly summarizes Gerry's objection,
WHICH resulted in a change in the 2nd amendment.  (So much for
Wojcik's characterization of Gerry's position, although he's finally
acknowledging that it dooms his interpretation.)

Freeman has pointed out that Wojcik's "they didn't keep notes" argument
is bogus.  There weren't deliberation notes for the constitutional
convention, but the 2nd amendment didn't come out of the
constitutional convention.  It's a silly argument even for the
constitution body as the relevant materials, the ratification
arguments, are available.  However, it's a necessary argument for
Wojcik because the relevant materials doom his "there's no evidence
for that interpretation" claim.

Freeman doesn't read every article looking for "challenges".  If Wojcik
wants me to see something, he can MAIL it to me.

BTW - Even if we hadn't gone all over this many times before, I
wouldn't be obligated to respond to Wojcik, and my failure to do so
wouldn't mean anything.

Speaking of challenges, I note that Wojcik still hasn't bothered to
provide any evidence supporting his interpretation from the relevant
period of time.  Even Hamilton, who LOST the argument over the
distribution of power, disagrees with Wojcik.  Wojcik's "the supremes
don't take 2nd amendment cases therefore ...." is wrong because the
Supremes have themselves said that not taking a case isn't a comment
on the validity of either side's position.  Since Wojcik consistently
misstates what the supremes have ruled about the 2nd amendment, it
isn't surprising that he doesn't understand other rulings either.

BTW - "Original Intent" is the NAME of a school of interpretation with
a number of stances, some of which actually aren't supported by the
evidence.  That name was chosen for its rhetorical value, but not all
uses of that phrase refer to positions held by that school.  In other
words, people who say "the original intent of <x> is" are not
necessarily people in the "original intent" school.  Therefore,
Wojcik's "the original intent people have positions that have not
basis in the historical evidence" evidence is often irrelevant as a
rebuttal to arguments offered by people citing "original intent" as
his evidence refers to positions of that school, not the arguments
being offered.

Malcom, Scarry and others have documented the historical framework for
the distribution of power interpretation of the militia clause.  The
mandated distribution of power can't exist without individual RKBA,
but there can be individual RKBA without that distribution.  Wojcik
argues against a strawman interpretation of the militia clause, and
after claiming to knock it down, claims that therefore his
interpretation is correct and therefore the second clause is
meaningless.  Yawn.

-andy
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