Commas in the Second Ammendment?

B

BTR

New member
I have seen the Second Ammendment written two ways. With a comma after arms, as in the rec guns and the ACLU copy:

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

Most of the times I have seen it, such as in my enclopedia, there is no comma after "Arms." The comma doesn't seem to make grammatical sense, and could be taken by some to qualify the right. Is the comma on the original document?
 
BTR,
I've been using the National Archives for some time to do research on "things".

http://www.nara.gov/exhall/charters/charters.html

The link is to their(our) page that has the Historic Documents, such as Declaration of Independence, Constitution, and Bill of Rights. FWIW, this copy has the comma in place.

Another source for study is here: http://patriot.net/~tlj/

Best Regards,
Don

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The most foolish mistake we could make would be to allow the subjected people to carry arms;
History shows that all conquerers who have allowed their subjected people to carry arms have prepared their own fall.
Adolf Hitler
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"Corrupt the young, get them away from religion. Get them interested in sex. Make them superficial, and destroy their rugged- ness.
Get control of all means of publicity, and thereby get the peoples' mind off their government by focusing their attention on athletics, sexy books and plays, and other trivialities.
Divide the people into hostile groups by constantly harping on controversial matters of no importance."

Vladimir Ilich Lenin, former leader of USSR
 
The enlargable copy of the "Bill of Rights" at the National Archives is not the final one; it has the right to bear arms as the fourth ammendment. Upon enlarging, it is still difficult to see if there is a comma in place or not.

I see that you have already had a good discussion of this subject. Apparently, early copies to the right included both versions. Thanks! I'm still curious as to which version is on the actual document itself; I haven't found a graphics file of that.

[This message has been edited by BTR (edited June 30, 2000).]
 
Do a search for my thread a while back, "Why does it matter how many commas are in the Second?"

Or something like that.

I'm still not convinced it matters. The right belongs to THE PEOPLE. How you spin that to mean "the states" or "the gubmint" based on the number of commas is beyond me.
 
Right -on Jack..... There have been several English/language professors analyze the Second Amd. , and all have sated the same thing... the right described is the "right of the people" , "to keep and bear arms" is the subject and "shall not be infringed" is the verb or action...all of the other things are statements of discription as to why the right is enumerated...remember it is only enumerated in the Constitution , and it is precedant or precedes the Constutution.

Also note:The Sixth Article, Second Clause which states:"This Constitution... shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby." No State Legislature, judge, federal agency, law enforcement officer, President, or anyone has the right or the power to alter, change or interfere with the Supreme Law of the Land.

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What part of "INFRINGED" don't they understand?
 
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