Repeal the 2nd amendment (Chicago Tribune editorial)

[Analitico]

June 27, 2008

The 2nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is evidence that, while the founding fathers were brilliant men, they could have used an editor.

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.

If the founders had limited themselves to the final 14 words, the amendment would have been an unambiguous declaration of the right to possess firearms. But they didn't, and it isn't. The amendment was intended to protect the authority of the states to organize militias. The inartful wording has left the amendment open to public debate for more than 200 years. But in its last major decision on gun rights, in 1939, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously found that that was the correct interpretation.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/editorials/chi-0627edit1jun27,0,478588.story

[slackmaster]

1. The 1939 Miller decision in no way suggested that the 2A was a "collective" right

That's just nonsense.

[Uncle Joe]

2. I believe an attack against the Second Amendment is an attack

against the Ninth Amendment as well.

"The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."

I believe the splitting hair issue of the Second Amendment is just that, the reasoning they used for the people to have a right to keep and bear arms without being infringed by the government was the necessity of a well regulated militia, but they didn't need to list other reasons because of the Ninth Amendment.

[awoke_in_2003]

3. I believe it is purposely ambiguous

From James Madison: "Americans have the right and advantage of being armed - unlike the citizens of other countries whose governments are afraid to trust the people with arms"

Jefferson: "The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government."

Washington: "Firearms are second only to the Constitution in importance; they are the peoples' liberty's teeth"

One more thing: if we had not been an armed society before the revolution, the Constitution would not exist.