+43

While you are taking more time on freeing people from the second amendment very past due expired obligation do not forget to keep in mind the thought of all gun victims having taken from them a right to make a choice that could have saved their lives.

+42 (second amendment interpretation 23)

The first comma was never to me but in support of my understanding of the purpose of the amendment let alone sufficient by itself to support a contrary view. But for those asking why the first comma, here is an amazingly simple and comprehensive answer others might already reached while I don't know how it escaped me until now.

Why the first comma, you ask?

The strongest answer to that is:

Because they wanted to talk about "A well- regulated militia" not about "A well- regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state". 

This answer include the answer I previously gave and shown through this example:

If the head of a company tells the supervisors of its divisions:

Employees, being needed, they should be given salary raise.

it is certainly different from saying:

Employees being needed, they should be given salary raise.

The first statement is about employees in general while removing the first comma from the second made it carry the meaning of specifying only needed employees. 

   

+41 (second amendment interpretation 22)

The effort to put the clarity to the level of saying "being necessary to the security of a free state" instead of just saying "being necessary" or even "being necessary to a free state" makes it even further away that they used "being" instead of "is" not caring enough about the difference or were more interested in the beauty of their expression. Doesn't this

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed

look more beautiful and professional than this

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 

?

+40 (second amendment interpretation 21)

How about this form for the second amendment?

The right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed, because a well regulated Militia is necessary to the security of a free State.

Or this?

A well regulated Militia is necessary to the security of a free State and therefor the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

If they intended those right to be always given and the "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State" part was intended for merely explaining why those rights should always be given then how on earth could one see those forms were not closer to mind than the way they wrote the amendment? It is hard to imagine that for one person speaking on the spot let alone a group of people preparing what they are saying and for making none other than a constitution.

+39 (second amendment interpretation 20)

Looking at all the people here treating "being" as if it was "is" makes you wonder if you just fell from another planet to here. Anyway, it seems that expressing why it is so is not that hard. The reason there is by default a guaranteed continuity with "is" but not with "being" is because "is" speaks about the thing and a thing is always itself. "being" on the other hand, describe the status out and what is out is not guaranteed to stay the same. 

+38

It is not OK for even one day to unnecessarily pass with the right of people to decide for themselves fire arms ownership is taken unjustly from them. Why this issue should be treated like it is the last thing in the universe? The top court needs to wake up and smell this situation being probably a century past due for correction. How long its warming up here should take? It may not need to be alone on this. They could use the mind of the public on specific points wanted to be answered or focused. Any judge there could publish on the web saying I got about a hundred other cases to think about resolving and about 10000 others to select from in a year so I cannot afford anywhere near the amount of time any other person can choosing to concentrate on one issue and if anybody wants to do that on this issue here are the points where I want more concentration or answers. Courts in the past had no such communication option. How much of the huge communication capability of the internet we have is being utilized here?         

+37 (second amendment interpretation 19)

The opinion of the court suggests the theory that the amendment could be about the mere existence of the militia. But they did not drive the operative part from the militia. Instead they drove the operative part from the role of the militia. If they wanted the mere existence of the militia they could have driven things directly from the militia ("necessary" instead of "necessary to the security"). 

But they did not leave it at that.They then connected that role, using "being", to the status of the existence of the militia not the militia itself and left the militia squeezed in the middle. They took away the guaranteed automaticity then they took away the guaranteed continuity. So how could one after that see the militia as being itself the purpose not the medium?   

+36 (second amendment interpretation 18)

Answering the argument that the operative clause could be more than what satisfies the necessity of the militia to the security of a free state, in empowerment, comes through two dimensions. The first is the obvious one involving going into what they meant by "necessary". The second dimension is more direct because it involves our own understanding to what necessary means. Because if there is reasoning in that part of the amendment, why should we stop short of including the definition of necessary in it?

+35 (second amendment interpretation 17)

It doesn't come easily seeing a person not taking account that part could be modifying or controlling the operative part feel inclined to go to such details. But lets assume they did that to highlight the importance of that reason in order to make sure that they did all they can do to make the operative part gets implemented as it deserves. But then, how would that fit with taking the risk of inserting the whole none executory part in a constitution, especially something like this part and in a concise and direct to the point constitution like this? Did it occur to them that people may need such enlightenment but still escaped them the risk of how much could that part be taken as modifying or controlling the operative part affecting its execution?    

+34 (second amendment interpretation 16)

The point in post 32 would still stand even if the added details explain some unclear purpose. But here what emphasizes even more the executory purpose behind that part instead of just being an explanation for an unchanging state, is that the additional detail provided ("to the security of a free state") as a purpose is hardly a hidden thing. Even if we suppose speaking about "a free state" to point out the need to protect freedom as being unclear enough to worth such an enlightenment effort, that part between the first two commas could still have been made as "being necessary to a free state". Why the need to pinpoint the purpose like this unless one wants to carefully direct an execution related to that part?

            

+33 (second amendment interpretation 15)

It is hard not to imagine somebody writing this constitution to comeback and say looking at the situation of this amendment: So this is the part that stopped you in what we wrote? The part we explained our intention and purpose almost or totally like no where else in the constitution?

Very much magnifying that is how they stopped and froze at a part that is dependent on changes in technology and science, the one part where change was light years away from being comparable to changes in any other part in human life. 

Notice that even the risk or the consequences of the court being on the wrong position are not equal on both sides. If the current position of the court is wrong then with that it closes any opportunity for legislators of any "free state" to make the correct decision for itself. On the other hand, clearly, legislators of any "free state" can give rights equivalent to those in the amendment even if the court take the position that it is no longer applicable.  

+32 (second amendment interpretation 14)

In addition to the use of "being" to point out the externality of a fact and how that fits with the simple understanding for the purpose of the operative clause as being for better empowerment, we find another thing showing the intention of leaving the applicability of the operative clause to be dependent on the facts outside. That other sign presents itself in the level of details in saying "being necessary to the security of a free state" instead of just "being necessary". Wouldn't saying just that later version be sufficient if there were no intention to leave that for measuring and applying on the changing facts?

By the way, my calling for part of the amendment as the operative clause has to do with it being the end result when applicable. But if we want to call the part that is always executed of the amendment with that name then things would be reversed.       

+31 (second amendment interpretation 13)

continuing from the preceding post

And even if someone wants to ignore that technicality in the meaning of being arguing that it can be used as an artistic expression to state always as a fact, how wise is it to use that in a constitution? How much there is a probability that the framers were willing to take such a risk? What other part of the constitution suggests them being that careless in the expression of their intentions? Even for just that amendment how does it fit the claim that the first part was just for clarification stating always as a fact in such a confusing way?   

+30 (second amendment interpretation 12)

The word "being" is always directly about the current status only. But based on the type of thing to which it refers, the listener may infer that it means always. Even assuming that being the purpose here, making the listener infer that, in itself, conflict with, or even contradict being used to impose a fact.      

+29 (second amendment interpretation 11)

The way the second amendment was interpreted here, especially the ignoring of how "being" opens the door that a status can change, provides a scary example of how one may interpret things based on psychological motivation or purpose far away from reality and facts. It is almost like a psychotic level of denial and/or delusion.

What psychological motivation or purpose you ask? I think it is the desire to establish identity (or what I used to call the identity complex) which worked it way this time through acting to this outrageous level as if you remain the same and do not change.

This thing I have been calling the identity complex seems as if it is an elephant in every room in this country. However, be careful that this could be a shallow diagnosis. In other words, I could be like the person who sees a man enters a place then leaves carrying a box.I could say that man wanted the box even though what he really wanted could have been what was inside that box.    

+28 (second amendment interpretation 10)

Despite what I have been writing here, don't make the mistake of thinking that the second amendment needs anything more than the simple normal understanding. How could a court see things like the segregation and prohibiting homosexuality as unconstitutional but fail at this? I don't know any non psychological reason for that.     

It is as simple as this: Assume your boss tells you (and I am borrowing this from a similar example in the Linguistic Brief):

James, being away from here, no work on the project should be done.
Or
James being away from here, no work on the project should be done (without the first comma).

A little later you see James. Would you then continue to think that no work on the project should be done? Would you think that your boss intended what he said to be taken over reality? I don't think so.

In fact your boss could have said: 

Because James is away from here... 

and you still wouldn't take that as being intended to be taken as a fact over reality.

However, the poor people who wrote the constitution even avoided this later form and you still managed to falsely accuse their intention for what could be close to a century now.      

+27

Despite how little sense the way the second amendment was followed in this country makes to me, still, those who argue that there should be no death penalty, and not because of the issue of the certainty of the guilt, to me, speak tongue. However it is the much bigger effect of the first matter that makes me prioritize it.

Not only the "cruel and unusual punishment" in the constitution has nothing to do with the death penalty for killers, it has nothing to do with an eye for an eye system in general. Aside from other things, if it is, why does the fifth amendment speaks about jeopardy of "limb"?

The good news is that the world is now relatively much better in accounting for victims regardless of their color, religion, gender and the like. The bad news is that much of what was abandoned there got replaced by even stupider argument to waste the rights of victims. Actually, it could be even closer to contradictory than stupid. It is an argument that is much more from its face logically intolerable because it prefers aggressors over victims merely because of being in those positions.        

+26 (second amendment interpretation 9)

Also notice that they did not point directly to the fact that a militia is necessary to the security of a free state. Instead, they pointed to the externality of that fact by their use of "being". In case that is not sufficient by itself to show a call for dependency on external factors based reasoning, we have its fit with how directly obvious the operative clause's fact that arms empower militia suggesting with the level of externality it shows that being the purpose. In other words, they talked about the externality of the situation and they also brought something very directly obvious as the connection of arms to empowerment. 

  

+25 (second amendment interpretation 8)

Notice that, unlike the case had they used "is" to speak about the militia itself, the side alleging continuity in the meaning of "being" is the one with the burden of proof.  

+24 (second amendment interpretation 7)

The first comma seems to show that they were talking about that time and through that imply different world could lead to different results. Another view seems to have went exactly contrary to that purpose by suggesting that the purpose is to separate the part between the first two commas as always true. But if it is the later, why did they use "being" to speak about the status of the existence of the militia in the world instead of directly about the militia itself? 

Notice that the purpose of stating that the necessity of a militia is not dependent on the type or kind of militia can fit as part of the purpose mentioned at the beginning above.

+23 (second amendment interpretation 6)

The being of a militia is part of the being of the world. So, when I look at the word "being" there, the least I think the second amendment itself gives us the right to do is to judge if the being of the world had sufficiently changed in matters related to the security of a free state. Then if the answer is yes, we can proceed to judge the question about the necessity of the militia for our time. If the answer to that question is that the militia is no longer necessary, in the sense meant in the amendment, then no longer a constitutional right to keep or bear arms exist. 

+22 (second amendment interpretation 5)

Some may already took this into account. It could be that I did not need to use "for" in the alternatives I stated in post  20 and could have written them as:

A well-regulated militia, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
or
Being necessary to the security of a free state, a well-regulated militia, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

+21 (second amendment interpretation 4)

Even assuming it is sufficiently probable that a constitutional amendment could include teaching, how often one could see two big matters (the militia and the right to bear and keep arms) crammed in one sentence like this unless there is a dependency between the two?

+20 (second amendment interpretation 3)

One may need not to miss focusing on how it is the whole "being necessary to the security of a free state" that connect to the operative part of the amendment. It is that status of being for the militia that connects directly to the operative part not the militia itself. For the later, even if we include an intention to merely teach a purpose, it could have sufficed to say: 

For a well-regulated militia, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed. 

One also could have included all the alleged teaching in the amendment in its current form and said:

Being necessary to the security of a free state, for a well-regulated militia, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.  

19

I simply find it hard to continue tolerating how this issue is being treated like it is the last thing on the whole earth in importance in this country.  

+18 (second amendment interpretation 2)

In addition to how a constitution is a document of directives not teaching, an amendment take things even further away from the purpose of teaching because it is about some required change. The writing style of the rest of the amendments also does not encourage one to see the part before the operative part as just simply there to explain the benefit of a militia. If that was the intention then writing the two parts as separate sentences would have provided much better clarity for the purpose. Where else in the constitution the intention was expressed in such a confusing way? Also, if that is the intention why use "being"? Wouldn't an arrangement like A well-regulated militia, a necessary (entity/ body/ structure..etc) to the security of a free state, the rights.... If it is part of the mere existence of a militia that it is necessary to the security of a free state why express it that way? In other words, if it is an unchanging fact that a militia is necessary to the security of a free state why speak about the status of the existence of the militia instead of speaking about it directly?

+17

Frankly speaking, if I were the one who made the second amendment and I come back to see that a court interpreted it by an opinion like that of the majority of the Supreme Court in district of Columbia vs. Heller, I would look for another court to sue the first one for fraud.

+16 (second amendment interpretation 1)

I once read a joke about somebody who responded to saying that bridges get built for people to walk over them by saying: No, they are built for water to pass under them. Based on the second amendment opinion of the Supreme Court in 2008, that person could be any one of the justices who had made or agreed with that opinion. First it seems to suggest an outrageously strange interpretation making the purpose of the second amendment like tagging instead of empowering by bearing arms. Actually, even tagging does not fit because tagging aims at making the world know the tagged person and is not needed to make that person know his role like how the 2008 opinion suggests arms serve the purpose of preventing dismantling the militia. The 2008 opinion seems to make it by itself a sufficient purpose behind the operative part of the second amendment what could have been replaced with giving everybody a shirt with the word "militia" written on it except that the framers chose the arms for that purpose.   

Second, if that was not enough, in order to make it fit the opinion apparently took the role of the "being necessary" part as merely a clarification for the importance of a militia in general which is the constitution, especially a concise one like this, being a document of do and don't has no business of getting into. 

On the other hand, understanding the purpose of the amendment as being empowerment by bearing arms and understanding the "being necessary" part as a role for the militia, instead of just a description, and how much that makes that part explains the purpose of the operative part all fit nicely with each other and with the constitution as a document of directives and much less about teaching.  

+15

I know it is hard to resist, but how much this looks like the ultimate king of all too little too late situations should be more of a reason for working hard on the issue instead of relaxing.

+14

This second amendment interpretation is really standing on nothing and I feel pain for losing all that time instead of continuing the argument against it. A precious time that could have been used to start changing the situation in this country. So why did I leave things that long? Because my intention when I started writing about this issue was just to relieve the moral responsibility that could come from not pointing out this bad unjust way of living. But then I found some attention so I continued. I stopped mainly to look into myself regarding how much of my intention was for God or Goodness which I failed or was too lazy to do (Although it is better to stop a bad thing for whatever intention than letting it go). It is a disgrace to me to be thought of as anywhere near seeing the situation in this country which looks like a modern way of giving human sacrifices as normal or acceptable (Although I have been trying hard to separate discussing gun ownership as a legislative law issue from that as a constitutional law which has a strong argument that the second amendment had stopped a long time ago from giving a right to gun ownership even if you believe that gun ownership is the best thing in universe).