From: kevin@rotag.mi.org (Kevin Darcy)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.clinton,talk.politics.guns,talk.abortion
Subject: Re: democratic platform
Date: 26 Jul 92 22:04:26 GMT
Organization: Who, me???

In article <1992Jul26.002943.4459@athena.mit.edu> sybok@athena.mit.edu (The Rifleman) writes:
>In article <1992Jul25.232111.18191@rotag.mi.org> kevin@rotag.mi.org (Kevin Darcy) writes:
>>In article <Brv573.2q6@fmsrl7.srl.ford.com> wreck@fmsrl7.srl.ford.com (R. Cage) writes:
>>>
>>>So, Mr. Novak, why should someone not have to wait for an
>>>abortion (not a right enumerated in the Constitution), but
>>>have to wait to exercise the right to keep and bear arms
>>>(enumerated in the Second Amendment)?
>>
>>Because they're not a well-regulated militia.
>
>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,                    ^^^^^^

Thanks for doing my work for me. The majority of the people for whom this
vaunted universal RKBA is being cited are not "troops", in any common-sense
meaning of the term.

Q.E.D.

>...and "militia" according to the 1792
>Militia Act meant all free males from 17 to 45.  

Not women? Not males over 45? Yet again, this hardly sounds like the
_universal_ right it's hyped up to be...

Sure, you can argue that the Founding Fathers really _would_ have given
this right to women and older men, IF they had foreseen the advances in 
women's rights, longer lifespan, etc. etc. But then your adversaries on the
gun-control side of the fence can throw that argument back in your face by 
claiming that the Founding Fathers would have yanked the right altogether if 
they had been able to foresee the population densities, racial tensions, crime 
rates, drug wars, effects of automatic weapon technology, hollow-nosed 
bullets, infra-red sighting devices etc. etc.

That's the trouble with "if they had known" hypotheticals, actually. You can 
never be QUITE sure just which way the subjects would have reacted...

>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.

It is a long-standing rule of statutory construction that the meaning chosen
for a given law should acknowledge that every phrase therein has SOME sort of 
contributory meaning to the whole. In this instance, one cannot read the first
clause of the 2nd as being non-restrictive UNLESS one is prepared to interpret
it as redundant idle chit-chat, and therefore to break the established rule. 
This rule is usually waived in the case of mere preambles or "mission 
statements", of course, but the 2nd Amendment doesn't qualify as either of 
those. I therefore see no reason to refrain from applying the rule in this 
case.

Like I said, I'd be fairly sympathetic to a universal RKBA, but I just don't
think the 2nd is up to the task as written. Please propose another Amendment, 
instead of trying to twist the 2nd to your political agenda. Constitutional
revisionist tinkering tends to make me uneasy...

								- Kevin
Newsgroups: alt.politics.clinton,talk.politics.guns