Tuesday, July 25, 2017

+141 (second amendment interpretation 101)

Had the Amendment contained words to directly point out reasoning as the purpose, like, for example "because", as in: 
A well regulated militia, because of  its being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people...
instead of this mere association of the part after the second comma with the situation described in the part before it then that would have added support to a different meaning. Taking the word "because" itself as part of the association between those two parts could suggest that the part after the second comma of the Amendment is associated not directly with the situation itself described in "being necessary to the security of a free State" but with its being the reason. That in turn could be understood to refer to just the snapshot taken with "being", without necessarily the continuity of the described situation, as the reason for the part after the second comma. 
As mentioned previously, a similar thing seems to have been done from the receiving end by speaking about a right to keep and bear Arms instead of directly about those actions themselves in the part after the second comma in order to make the association with continuity of the necessity in the part before that comma and not just with reaching the situation described with the "being" snapshotAlso as mentioned previously, the first comma adds support to that by taking the focus away from the militia itself suggesting its not being the purpose. The militia itself being the purpose is one of the most reasonable reasons that could make the part before the first comma understood as being about just reaching that necessity situation.   
I also sometimes find myself in need of bringing my focus back to that the part before the second comma points out the situation and does not create it and therefore it fits the view that "of the people" suggests an old right.
It took me this long of wondering about why the Amendment does not speak directly about reasoning until I realized the first part above. As if I need to add to my shock of seeing things like ignoring "being" or the direct jump in the opinion of the court to take "free State" as "free state" ignoring the capitalization there, with people of such caliber writing a constitution (I used to write the Amendment without that capitalization because I did not notice it).

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