Rephrase the 2nd amendment

Z

ZeSpectre

New member
We all know that it reads...
"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."
And some have tried to turn this into confusion.

Okay, so if you could re-write the 2'nd amendment to clarify how would YOU phrase it.

My attempt.

Liberty and individual security being the proper and natural state of man, none shall infringe upon the right of a full citizen to keep and bear arms.

(and yes I'm leaving an opening as to what constitutes a "full citizen" so that situations such as incarcerated felons and illegal aliens can be addressed)

Go ahead, blast it apart or post your own phrasing. :D
 
  • by arms, do you mean the things that come out of my shoulders?
  • should "full citizens" be allowed to own cannons, or nukes?
  • women don't have the right to liberty and individual security?
  • What about public security? Can we infringe on the right to bear arms for the sake of public security?

No matter how you word it or phrase it or fill it with legalese, someone somewhere will find a way to twist the 2nd as they see fit.

Although Virginia's equivalent does it pretty well I think:
Sec. 13. That a well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the proper, natural, and safe defense of a free state, therefore, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed; that standing armies, in time of peace, should be avoided as dangerous to liberty; and that in all cases the military should be under strict subordination to, and governed by, the civil power.
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It might prevent what I consider to be misconstructions to say:

"Well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of free government of the States respectively, the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed by Congress."
 
The American citizen's right to keep and bear firearms equivalent to those in use by the infantry shall not be infringed without due process.
 
I think they got it right the first time. I love it just the way it sounds. Unfortunately some people like to play shady grammar. :rolleyes: Perhaps simply "the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." without the eloquent yet troublesome beginning.
 
I think they got it right the first time.
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I agree with you mostly, but I wish the individual element was included to a more decisive degree:

A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of individual people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

or

A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of each citizen to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

I also wonder about the citizen part -- because I don't know if we should prohibit non-citizens from the right to defend their property. And if they want to help defend the country in a militia role -- that's good, isn't it? Could say "resident" too. For those worried about criminals and insane people (campus shooters, maybe), we could say, "resident in good standing".

-Jephthai-
 
There's no other right listed in the Bill of Rights that's a "collective" right. In fact, there's no such thing as a collective right. Rights can only be individual.

The people who try to read the Second Amendment out of the BoR by making it a "collective" right (despite the fact that the BoR says "people" when it means people, and "States" when it means states) don't realize that they're inviting the same treatment for other amendments once the precedent is set.
 
I agree with you mostly, but I wish the individual element was included to a more decisive degree:

A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of individual people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.
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I don't know. Several other amendments talk about the "right" of "the People," versus the "powers" of "the State." "The People" apparently refer to a collective in the 2nd, (according "them"), but "The People" refer to individuals in the 4th, 9th, and 10th amendments. It's cherry picking.
 
"Well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of free government of the States respectively, the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed by Congress."
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LOL. This one gave me a good laugh.

This might have been appropriate prior to the 14th amendment, and if you assume that "a free state" actually means "the free states" (the people who wrote and voted on the constitution, dontcha know) :rolleyes:

But fortunately or unfortunately the 14th amendment did take place, and this IS an individual right of all Americans that local governments cannot go against (depending on SCOTUS ruling, of course).
 
Just add "Attempt to restrict the firearms rights of citizens faces immediate removal from office and penalty of imprisonment or death." The problem of late isn't the wording of the amendment, it's that there's absolutely no enforcing of it. Shall not be infringed...or what, we'll complain about it? We'll beg and claw for shards of our rights back over the course of several decades? We'll have to spend possibly hundreds of thousands of dollars to defend ourselves against a cop or lawyer or politician who disagrees and throws us in jail? It's pretty darn clear what the enforcement and penalties are on my end: if I have two springs and a bent piece of metal that the ATFE says I can't have or haven't gone through the paperwork and paid for, I go to jail, get labeled a felon, my rights are zero, my life is screwed, and they don't even have to be right. What the heck happens to any anti gun toad in Congress, state legislatures, or anywhere for infringing and thus not complying on the side of the law that restricts THEM? I'm yet to see the first darn thing.

Seriously! When was the Constitution last enforced against encroachments by legislation? When was the last time that infringement of the rights of the people was actually actively punished? Have any politicians actually gone to jail as enemies of the state?
 
A well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, being necessary to preserve, protect and defend the liberty of the people, the right of the people to keep and bear their own arms shall not be infringed.
 
You can't change, it is law.

We just have to ignore the "free press" and gun haters when it hits the fan.They get left in the streets unarmed to fend for themselves.
The press also from this point on must supply their own security when on a battlefield. Our boys are soldiers, not babysitters.

GUESS who would then be carrying guns :rolleyes:
 
Careful. A free press is as crucial to a free society as any firearm.

As citizens we have every right to know what's going on in the wars we pay for. If a soldier's job is to babysit a reporter then that's his job whether he likes it or not.
 
There's no other right listed in the Bill of Rights that's a "collective" right. In fact, there's no such thing as a collective right. Rights can only be individual.
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Some people construe a collective right to be a select right, but it seems to me that in a free State the people are equal and so there are no select rights. But there are certainly collective rights which are general rights such as the right to alter or to abolish government. I cannot seem to conceive of a free State where the people have no collective rights, nor of a limited federal government where the States have no reserved rights.

But fortunately or unfortunately the 14th amendment did take place
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Oh ... I thought the idea was to reword the Second Amendment to clarify its intended meaning. If the intent is to reword it so as to reconstruct it into some 14th "Amendment" vision, then I was way off ... maybe a 14th "Amendment" version should say something like:

"Personal arms, being necessary to a libertarian society, no State shall infringe the right of the people to keep and bear arms in defense of themselves, but this provision shall not be construed to regard a collective right of the people of the several States to form well regulated militia or to bear arms in defense of their State. Congress shall have power to enforce this provision by any means necessary".
 
I cannot seem to conceive of a free State where the people have no collective rights, nor of a limited federal government where the States have no reserved rights.
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States don't have rights, they have powers. Only people have rights.
 
never the same

no matter how you would rewrite the 2nd it would not be the same. It would always be after the fact and it will always be challenged one way or another.

The 1st is pretty clear until you get a few unhappy camper who want to prevent you from publishing some treatise on one subject or another.

The 2nd has had more than a few challenges over the years with many more to come.

Actualy I believe there have been challenges to most things in the Constitution since the beginning. Its the ability to make the challanges that serves our nation well.
 
A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state -

Here is where I agree with the anti-side, well regulated militia is not the everyman militia. In the federalist papers we see discussion as to the militia comprised of the whole body of the people and find agreement that the cost of having the entire milita well regulated is prohibitive. So the well regulated militia is our modern national guard.

- the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed -

Since we need the well regulated militia, the people should have arms and a right to bear them so the government does not become more powerful than the people.

Absent an armed populace, the means of securing the free state, being the well regulated militia, would also be a terrible temptation for those in power to usurp it. Hence the guarantee of rights with an explanation for that guarantee.

That's what the words have always meant to me, YMMV (but you would be wrong of course :D)
 
heston.jpg
 
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