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As this history teacher so eloquently stated, how is a 18 year old with violence and mental health issues part of a “well regulated militia??” Seems like the only rational answer is that he is not.
The modern interpretation of "well regulated" would be "effective" or "in good working order".
Quote:
An effective Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
See the commas? they are important.
Quote:
Comma the sign (,), a mark of punctuation used for indicating a division in a sentence, as in setting off a word, phrase, or clause, especially when such a division is accompanied by a slight pause or is to be noted in order to give order to the sequential elements of the sentence.
If you want some further interpretation here is the relevant section from Pennsylvania Constitution as written in 1776, predating the US Constitution by many years.
Quote:
That the people have a right to bear arms for the defence of themselves and the state; and as standing armies in the time of peace are dangerous to liberty, they ought not to be kept up; And that the military should be kept under strict subordination, to, and governed by, the civil power.
There are just a lot of angry Americans who like fight and push for their own ideas of how things should be and expect everyone else to accommodate them, and then get even angrier when they don't get their way, and that's probably the biggest problem of all.
You hit the nail on the head here. This is more about psychology than politics. Advocating for a hot button issue is more about the need to control and "win" than it is about the issue itself.
The Heller case decided this. The 2nd Amendment confers an INDIVIDUAL right to the people of the United States to keep and bear arms. The McDonald case that followed forces all levels of government below the feds to respect this right. So this is decided. The militia preamble is irrelevant.
And after doing this, the SCOTUS went to sleep on the issue. At some point they're going to have to wake up and make decisions that show the lower courts how to interpret the cases above.
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