[CLUE-Talk] Bowling for Columbine

[Jed S. Baer]

On Mon, 2 Dec 2002 20:34:01 -0700
"Timothy C. Klein" <teece at silverklein.net> wrote:

> Sure, I agree, but when it comes to making laws, one can not simply say
> 'look at what people owned ...'  A law needs to be very specific.
> Trying to fit that specificity in to the vagueness of the 2nd Amendment
> is the issue at hand.
> 
> > The constitution does not require you to belong to a militia. 
> > Otherwise the federal govt would have "tried" to confiscate firearms
> > after the constitution was ratified.  And look at the definition of
> > militia at that time.  It probably included all able-bodied men in
> > time of war and did not apply to a permanent organization.
> 
> It actually is not at all clear what the Constitution included the word
> militia for.  It says:

Again, I say, go read Eugene Volokh. He explains the lexical construction
issue.

> "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"
> 
> I don't think it means that you have to be in a militia, but there is
> room for debate.  And they obviously had militias in mind, as they used
> the word.  A big blunder, I think, on their part.  Regardless of whether
> we like, there is at least partially valid argument for the 2nd as
> assurance of a national Gard type entity.  The argument is weak, but
> that doesn't make it go away. 

The National Guard was created in 1903. I just read an article mentioning
that, but I can't find it now. [aaarrrrggghhh]. I might have the date a
bit wrong, but the Natl. Guard is not the militia. At best, it might
described as an instance of an "organized militia".

> I realize that a militia may not be permanent, may not be the army,
> etc., but they did have had some kind of organization in mind.

Organization? I suppose, in the sense that when called to duty, the
assemblance and utilization wouldn't be governed by chaos. In reference to
my usage above of the term "organized", the militia is referred to in two
ways, and the second is "unorganized". It's a little difficult, therefore,
to talk about _the_ militia. One can, however, speak of _a_ militia, I
think, as a generic term. I'd have to research early militia laws, but I
think some of them did call for regular inspections and drilling.

> > What do the Federalist Papers say about this?  They were written to
> > help argue in favor of the constitution.
> 
> I don't know, but it doesn't really matter either.  They wouldn't have
> the force of law, and were applicable to a time long since past.  What
> matters now is what we should have our laws say *now.*

Except that the writing of the framers give us at least some of the
mind-reading you were referring to earlier. There are many highly
affirmative statements WRT individual possesion of arms.

One thing I'd like to see would be any early U.S. prosecution of anyone
for owning large stockpiles of blackpowder, and cannonballs. (I say that
because I doubt such exists, and yes, it also presupposes that such
possesions were in private hands.) What would be a reasonable cutoff date
for such a search. The end of the War of 1812?

jed
-- 
We're frogs who are getting boiled in a pot full of single-character
morphemes, and we don't notice. - Larry Wall; Perl6, Apocalypse 5