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Friday, January 11, 2008

Absence and the Second Amendment

Okay, it's been a while since I posted anything here. Long story short, my computer crashed, and after being unable to do a restore, even with a setup disk, I had to take it to the shop.

The young man who restored my system for me was fast in getting the repair from disk started, and I was out of there in less than an hour.

I still don't know what caused the crash, I was looking at gun magazines, trying to find a very hard to find clip for my new pistol, which is not manufactured anymore.

Thanks to zealous gun control advocates, a whole company in Spain went bankrupt when high capacity magazines were banned, along with various weapons that are no more powerful than a good hunting rifle, but "look scary".

People, the Second Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America makes it clear that the people, that is each private citizen, has the right to keep and bear arms.

As originally written, there is only one comma in the amendment: 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.

As you will currently find it in contemporary print, it has had two extra commas added, thus reading: 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.

The current version is grammatically awkward, and is used by Gun Control Nuts to argue that the Militia means the State and National Guard units.

At the time the Constitution was written, the Militia consisted of every able bodied man of a particular range in age. Most men owned their own arms, they used them for hunting for food, and protection against those who would rob them and their families or kill them. When the Militia was called up, every man showed up with his rifle in hand. The fledgling nation did not have a budget for arms, and commanders often paid for supplies such as black powder and ball ammunition and later submitted a claim to the government for repayment. During the Revolutionary War, George Washington paid for supplies and wrote notes of promise to suppliers that they would be paid by the new government.

For a good idea or what the original intent of the writers of the Constitution was, we need only read the Federalist Papers: http://www.foundingfathers.info/federalistpapers/