This is an optional reading
for the students in my CSC 301 Computers and Society class. It is a
follow up on a comment by one of the students when the meaning of the
noun the People in the Bill of Rights was discussed.
On the True Meaning of Second Amendment
by Dr. Marek A. Suchenek
September 22, 2015
Copyright and all rights reserved.
This article is posted here for in-class educational use only. No other use or uses is/are allowed.
Some frequently used arguments made by those trying to marginalize Second Amendment invoked English grammar and punctuation rules (the latter being largely non-existent at the time of ratification of the Bill of Rights, 1791).
Since I am not an expert in English, let me quote analyses done by
experts. Here is an article with clear grammatical analysis of Second
Amendment:
A Conversation With An Expert On English Language
By J. Neil Schulman, July 17, 1991
http://www.mcsm.org/english.html
I just had a conversation with Mr. A. C. Brocki, Editorial Coordinator
for the Office of Instruction of the Los Angeles Unified School
District. Mr. Brocki taught Advanced Placement English for several
years at Van Nuys High School, as well as having been a senior editor
for Houghton Mifflin. I was referred to Mr. Brocki by Sherryl Broyles
of the office of Instruction of the L.A. Unified School District, who
described Mr. Brocki as the foremost expert in grammar in the Los Angeles Unified School District--the person she and others go to when they need a definitive answer on English grammar.
I gave Mr. Brocki my name, told him Sherryl Broyles referred me, then asked him to parse the following sentence: "A
well-schooled electorate, being necessary to the security of a free
State, the right of the people to keep and read Books, shall not be
infringed." Mr. Brocki informed me that the sentence was over punctuated, but that the meaning could be extracted anyway.
"A well-schooled electorate" is a nominative absolute.
"being necessary to the security of a free State" is a participial phrase modifying "electorate".
The subject (a compound subject) of the sentence is "the right of the people".
"shall not be infringed" is a verb phrase, with "not" as an adverb modifying the verb phrase "shall be infringed".
"to keep and read books" is an infinitive phrase modifying "right".
I then asked him if he could rephrase the sentence to make it clearer. Mr. Brocki said, "Because
a well-schooled electorate is necessary to the security of a free
state, the right of the people to keep and read books shall not be
infringed."
I asked: "Can the sentence be
interpreted to restrict the right to keep and read books to a
well-schooled electorate--say, registered voters with a high-school
diploma?" He said, "No."
I then identified my purpose in calling him, and read him the Second Amendment in full: "A
well-regulated Militia, being necesasary to the security of a free
State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be
infringed." He said he thought the [original] sentence had sounded familiar, but that he hadn't recognized it.
I asked, "Is the structure and the meaning of this sentence the same as
the sentence I first quoted you?" He said, "yes." I asked him to
rephrase this sentence to make it clearer. He transformed it the same
way as the first sentence: "Because
a well-regulated militia is necessary to the security of a free state,
the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."
I asked him whether this
sentence could be interpreted to restrict the right to keep and bear
arms to "a well-regulated militia." He said "no."
According to Mr. Brocki, the sentence means that the people are the
militia, and that the people have the right which is mentioned.
I asked him again to make sure:
Schulman: "Can the sentence be interpreted to mean that the right can be restricted to a well regulated militia?"
Brocki: "No, I can't see that."
Schulman: "Could another, professional in English grammar or linguistics interpret the sentence to mean otherwise?"
Brocki: "I can't see any grounds for another interpretation."
End of article
Now, many interpreters want to make us believe that the sentence:
should be understood as:
Would you agree? Please, try to be 100 percent rational.
There are also other and interpretations that are grammatically incorrect, or even absurd. They obfuscate rather than clarifying. Some are claimimng that Second Amendment means that the well regulated militia shall not be infinged,
ostensibly, because the English grammar dictates so! (How do those
English grammar "experts" think militia could be infringed?)
Here are excerpts from a more thorough article by the same author on on the same subject:
Literary Analysis: THE UNABRIDGED SECOND AMENDMENT
http://www.largo.org/literary.html
Professor "Roy Copperud was a newspaper writer on major dailies for over three decades before embarking on a distinguished 17-year career teaching journalism at USC.
Since 1952, Copperud has been writing a column dealing with the
professional aspects of journalism for "Editor and Publisher", a weekly
magazine focusing on the journalism field.
"He's on the usage panel of the American Heritage Dictionary, and Merriam Webster's Usage Dictionary frequently cites him as an expert.
Copperud's fifth book on usage, "American Usage and Style: The
Consensus," has been in continuous print from Van Nostrand Reinhold
since 1981, and is the winner of the Association of American Publisher's Humanities Award.
"Could this sentence ['A
well-schooled electorate, being necessary to the security of a free
State, the right of the people to keep and read Books, shall not be
infringed.'] be interpreted to restrict 'the right of the people to keep and read Books' only to 'a well-educated electorate' -- for example, registered voters with a high-school diploma?"
Says Copperud: "There is nothing in your sentence that either indicates or implies the possibility of a restricted interpretation."
End of excerpts
Now, let's take a look at punctuation. Here are excerpts from a well-documented Wikipedia article
Second Amendment to the United States Constitution
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Amendment_
to_the_United_States_Constitution
As passed by the Congress and preserved in the National Archives, with the rest of the original hand-written copy of the Bill of Rights prepared by scribe William Lambert:
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.
[...]
The Senate returned to this amendment for a final time on September 9.
A proposal to insert the words "for the common defence" next to the
words "bear arms" was defeated. An extraneous comma added on August 25
was also removed. The Senate then slightly modified the language and
voted to return the Bill of Rights to the House. The final version passed by the Senate was:
A well regulated militia being the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.
The House voted on
September 21, 1789 to accept the changes made by the Senate, but the
amendment as finally entered into the House journal contained the
additional words "necessary to":
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.
On December 15, 1791, the Bill of Rights (the first ten amendments to
the Constitution) was adopted, having been ratified by three-fourths of
the states.
[...]
As ratified by the States and authenticated by Thomas Jefferson, then-Secretary of State:
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.
End of excerpts
Do you still have any doubts? (Please, try to be 100 percent rational.)
Here is an early version approved by the House August 24, 1789, that indicates the meaning of "militia":
A well regulated militia, composed of the body of the People,
being the best security of a free State, the right of the People to
keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed, but no one religiously
scrupulous of bearing arms, shall be compelled to render military
service in person.
(Source: Wikipedia, United States Bill of Rights,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_
Bill_of_Rights#Crafting_amendments )
So, according to the above (and some other writings by contemporaries), in the context of Second Amendment "militia" meant "citizenry" or "armed citizenry". The latter meaning would make Second Amendment equivalent to:
Now, that makes sense.
Links to articles that expose other aspects of Second Amendment:
THE EMBARRASSING SECOND AMENDMENT
Prof. Sanford Levinson
University of Texas at Austin School of Law
Reprinted from the Yale Law Journal, Volume 99, pp. 637-659
http://www.constitution.org/mil/embar2nd.htm
The Commonplace Second Amendment
Prof. Eugene Volokh
UCLA Law School
http://www2.law.ucla.edu/volokh/common.htm
2nd Amendment: Original Meaning and Purpose
Tenth Amendment Center
http://tenthamendmentcenter.com/2014/09/22/
2nd-amendment-original-meaning-and-purpose/
THE SECOND AMENDMENT: A GUARD FOR OUR FUTURE SECURITY[1]
Andrew M. Wayment
Idaho Law Review
http://www.constitution.org/lrev/rkba_wayment.htm
An Armed Citizenry and Liberty
Walter E. Williams
John M. Olin Distinguished Professor of Economics
George Mason University
http://econfaculty.gmu.edu/wew/articles/99/liberty.html
Is the Second Amendment Outdated?