From: cecchini@acsu.buffalo.edu (Julie A Cecchini)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.guns
Subject: Re: Reflections on the 2nd Amendment
Keywords: 2nd Amendment; weapons; Paul Fussell
Date: 18 Nov 92 22:14:19 GMT
Organization: UB

Found elsewhere.  Respond to jcf@world.std.com directly.
His article is interesting.
Support your Right to Keep and Bear Arms

In article <BxFHsF.IwA@world.std.com> jcf@world.std.com (Joseph C Fineman) writes:
>REFLECTIONS ON THE SECOND AMENDMENT
>
>  The essay below is part of a review (written in June 1990) of _Thank
>God for the Atom Bomb and Other Essays_ by Paul Fussell (Summit,
>1988), which I happened on in a used-book store.  Interesting,
>obnoxiously opinionated articles by a literary critic....
>
>  [One] essay in the volume is a ferocious exegesis of the Second
>Amendment to the U.S. Constitution,
>
>        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.
>
>In attacking the National Rifle Association, which has carved the main
>clause of this sentence on its headquarters, Fussell reiterates the
>familiar claim that the introductory absolute construction (called by
>him a "dependent clause") constitutes a limitation on the right
>granted, and goes so far as to say that it gives Congress the right --
>nay, the duty -- to draft every gun owner into the militia and put him
>under military discipline.
>
>  Without prejudice as to the merits of the Amendment itself, I think
>that Fussell's interpretation of it, even in the more modest form in
>which it is usually argued, is preposterous on grammatical grounds
>alone.  An absolute construction can be the equivalent of a
>conditional clause, but only when it expresses a condition; when it
>expresses a putative fact, it is a mere comment, expressing a
>circumstance or reason for the statement in the main clause.  For
>example, "A quorum being present, a meeting may be called to order"
>does mean "If a quorum is present, then...", but "A quorum being
>present, the meeting was called to order" means "A quorum was present,
>and so..."; the main clause is just as much a flat statement as it was
>without the introduction.  Now in the case of the Amendment, the
>absolute construction, by the generality of its phrasing ("a free
>State"), is clearly meant as a statement of fact.  The meaning is not
>"If, or to the extent that, a well-regulated militia is necessary...",
>but "Since, as we know, a well-regulated militia is necessary...".
>The absolute construction is only a preamble, and does not alter the
>legal force of the main clause.  This is made doubly certain by that
>clause itself, which calls bearing arms a _right_ -- i.e. an action
>whose legitimacy is not created by the state, but existed anteriorly &
>is not to be "infringed".  More explicitly even than the rest of the
>Bill of Rights, this Amendment is aimed at limiting rather than
>empowering the government.
>
>  In taking this line, however, I have to explain how it is that the
>Framers, in writing just this Amendment, felt the need to be so mealy-
>mouthed.  There is plenty of _ambiguity_ in the other Amendments, in
>that expressions such as "freedom of speech" & "due process of law"
>are vague enough to allow for compromise & progress; that is part of
>the genius of the Constitution.  But nowhere else did the authors
>presume to give an excuse for granting the people what they
>acknowledged to be a right.  To do so is, indeed, to call the right
>itself into question, and Fussell et al. can scarcely be blamed for
>taking up the challenge.
>
>  No competent _individual_ draftsman would muck up a plain statement
>with such a distracting introduction.  But, I think, that _is_ just
>the kind of grease that is sometimes needed to get a draft out of a
>_committee_.  I know why _I_ might put my name to such a formulation,
>and I am almost as sure of why (say) Jefferson might do so.  After
>all, _his_ main reason for wanting an armed populace was already on
>record: to make our own government, as well as foreign ones, think
>twice before invading.  The _implicit_ preamble, the one that would be
>understood if nothing were said, was "A not too well-regulated
>militia[,] being necessary for freedom in a secure State,...".  _But
>let us throw the Federalists a bouquet in the form of an anagram.  Let
>us put it this way:...._ (Incidentally, if you should venture an
>absolute construction yourself, do not imitate the Bill of Rights in
>putting a comma before the participle.  It is not good modern
>punctuation, and is almost sure to mislead the reader.)
>
>  Accordingly, if I were a Supreme Court justice, I would be driven to
>the horrible conclusion that the people have an absolute right to keep
>& bear, at any rate, such arms as existed in 1790.  What the Framers
>would have said about machine guns, nerve gas, & nuclear bombs is hard
>to guess.  Ideally, the Amendment would have been revised or repealed
>about 1860; but we were busy.  As it is, we are left with a quaint
>18th-century political adaptation to 18th-century technology, and the
>courts must do their best, as they might in interpreting a contract
>whose parties failed to anticipate the actual turn of events.
>
>  What puts me in a really tiny minority is that I cannot make up my
>mind about the substantive issue raised by Jefferson, Heinlein, Van
>Vogt, et al.:  Is liberty made more, or less secure by the fact that
>firearms are generally available?  Are my libertarian friends in
>Colorado with their rifles & pistols, and the crack dealers in Roxbury
>with their Uzis, actually protecting my freedom by keeping the cops on
>their toes?  It is possible, but I am inclined to doubt it.  It is
>hard for me, & probably hard for the government, to imagine a
>situation in which those guns might actually be used against the
>government, even symbolically.  The national tradition of orneriness
>that those people represent is indeed an important -- perhaps the most
>important -- guarantor of my liberty, but their arsenals are not what
>makes the tradition powerful.  What makes it powerful is their
>willingness to risk punishment in defying even petty infringements.
>It is the craziness of the crack _users_ in risking jail for one among
>many of life's little consolations that puts them on the front line &
>keeps the police from coming after my beer again.  The fact that their
>_dealers_ can shoot each other does nothing for me.  On these grounds,
>altho I fear many will disagree with me, I suspect I could live with
>an outright repeal of the Second Amendment.