It doesn’t say that. It doesn’t place a condition on the right to bear arms, that service in militia mustering is the only context in which the right to bear arms exists.

The Bill of Rights consistently defines “right” as something unalienable (“right of the people peaceably to assemble”), unless exceptions are explicitly stipulated (Amendment IV’s exception to protection against searches and seizures). Nowhere is “right” defined as something the citizen may do when and only when forced into government service, such as being mustered into militia duty. Because there is no such right. No rights are conditional on government intervention. “The right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed” has to mean something.

Besides, it says the right of the PEOPLE, not the right of the MILITIA.

Learn some sentence structure.

“A little learning is a dang’rous thing;
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring:
There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,
And drinking largely sobers us again.”

i.e. it looks clear to people who think they’ve researched 18th-c grammar, and vague to people who’ve actually done so.

Go to the Library of Congress. Order all the books by congressional scholars that are specifically about the 2nd Amendment. Weigh them. Read them all and look at the range of interpretations.

Is this due entirely to dishonest scholarship?

Or can you see a possibility that the wording is vague?

That hypothetical “sane and competent” clause could be used by government to deny gun ownership to a lot of people that its framer does not intend.

Yes. It’s an issue that has to be faced. First, it isn’t just guns, it’s weapons. Gunpowder-weapons are the particular fetish that people are upset about, but why should the right be restricted to those? People have the right to any weapon they can afford or create, provided they’ll use it responsibly.

But how do we guess who’ll use a weapon irresponsibly? For non-WMDs, whatever method we choose to sort people out, allow the weapon to half the ones who shouldn’t get it and see how much that group is actually mis-using the weapon. Publish the results. If the people who are thought not to be sane-and-competent actually are not much worse than the general population, then we have an argument to change the rules.

I’m not talking about drafting people. I’m talking about a right to bear arms whose scope is bounded by the goal of having a well regulated militia. If that is the goal of the Second Amendment—and the text says it is—then it seems eminently reasonable to me to say that you get to bear arms in connection with militia service, but not otherwise. I.e., the right is directly construed with regard to the end it serves, rather than indirectly, with this notion that a well-armed citizenry generally lays the foundation for conditions favoring a well-regulated militia. And if states want to require militia members to drill regularly, etc., that’s fine, since many did in the late 1700s. And it’s not a draft—no one is compelled to turn out.

re 156:

As I stated earlier, private gun rights are a precondition for the “well-regulated Militia.” 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. To have such quality of militia, government must not jack with the right to keep and bear arms – whatever the militia’s structure.

I’ll try saying it again—the right to do what? I’m saying that there is a right to bear arms, and that what it protects is your right to bear arms in connection with your service in an organized militia.

(“Well-regulated” isn’t explicitly defined, either, but it doesn’t need to be. The Second Amendment tells us that uninfringed gun rights are the first ingredient for a well-regulated militia. Aside from drawing the state and federal jurisdictional lines, it is neutral on the remaining ingredients.)

That hypothetical “sane and competent” clause could be used by government to deny gun ownership to a lot of people that its framer does not intend. Everybody is insane to some degree, so such an amendment would have to specify what level of insanity marks that line in the sand in order to avoid abuse.

Why not start the movement now for a new amendment, that clearly says what we want it to? This amendment could say something actually reasonable; it could have reasonable restrictions that would not turn into full gun control because they’re specified clearly. Gun ownership is a right, it can be affected this far and no farther.

The amendment itself can be written as a short statement, we say at some length what we mean by it to guide future courts.

Here is a first attempt:
———————Proposed Constitutional Amendment:

Sane, competent inhabitants of the USA have a right to own and handle weapons, and no government within the USA shall infringe that right.———————
Meaning of “sane, competent”: You can trust them not to let the weapon harm people it shouldn’t.

Meaning of “inhabitant of the USA”: A person in an area controlled by the USA.

Meaning of “Own and handle”: They can not only own them, they can have access to them.

Meaning of “government within the USA”: National, state, local, or other government within the borders or exclusive economic zones of the United States of America, or her territories, or her occupied zones.

US citizens who break the weapons laws of other nations while inside those nations’ borders or EEZs may be extradited to face trial and punishment if, after review of the proof, the US government is convinced the offense did happen.

Meaning of “infringe that right”: To reduce access to the weapon, to render it temporarily or permanently inactive, to reduce the citizen’s ability to use the weapon responsibly.

The big loophole here is the “sane, competent” phrase. Governments could set up elaborate expensive testing procedures to screen out most citizens, or various other scams. But the phrase is necessary. You don’t want crazy or careless people to hurt innocents with weapons that make it too easy.

Here is my proposal to deal with that. (Obviously I have a science background.) Whatever rules get established to rule somebody ineligible for a particular weapon, if there are more than a few hundred citizens affected then let a random half of them have the weapon anyway. Track the results. Compare the number of incidents where the weapon was used badly by that sample, versus the sane, competent population. If the difference is statistically insignificant, discard the rule. If the difference is significant, weigh the expected damage that the group would cause if allowed the weapon versus the loss in not allowing it to them. If the benefit/cost is too low, discard the rule.

It’s bad to deny guns to felons and then imprison them again just for having guns. We want a way to identify the felons who’re likely to misuse guns, and just punish those for having them. It’s bad to deny guns to people who’re taking psychotherapy, unless they’re the sort of people who’re actually likely to misuse guns. Etc.

If we follow this rule we get half the benefit of denying weapons to the people we think shouldn’t have them, and we get a continuing test of just what those benefits are.

If you’re still reading this:

And I do not always ignore the lessons of other societies. But that does not mean that I always have to accept them either.

Okay, then I’ll confess I’m a bit curious as to what your standards are for when you’re willing to acknowledge those lessons and when you aren’t. I don’t mean to tar you with the sins of others, but it just seems that in this context it’s too common a practice for this standard to consist of something like “if the experience of other countries might cast doubt on some aspect of my argument about gun control, then America’s cultural uniqueness means that that experience must be ruled irrelevant while we ‘solve this problem in an American context’.”

First, I’m not sure why you bring up the tyranny argument in response to me.

You’re not into wild-eyed “Red Dawn” theories, but given that you’ve argued that firearms restrictions would lead to the destruction of basic freedoms, the tyranny argument remains generally relevant. I particularly see you as invoking it when you attempt to compare gun control to restricting press freedoms, interning Japanese-Americans and so on.

As for the second, all that you, or I, can offer is our own subjective view of causality with regard to personal gun ownership and aggregate violence.

Perhaps another time we can get more into this aspect of things. I’m not an economist or statistician by profession, merely an interested amateur, so some meaty content on the aggregate violence issue is always of interest to me.

Well, yes, actually, that is the larger issue for me and many others.

If you’re going to contend that it’s the larger issue in the debate, that means you need to contend that some significant portion of the people you’re debating with are actually arguing for—or arguing a position that pragmatically results in—a “government monopoly” on your personal self defense. I know of almost nobody in even the most radically pacifist circles who would argue for any such “monopoly,” nor of any real-world data that conclusively demonstrates that stricter firearms laws than you’re accustomed to must lead to any such “monopoly.” So, the larger issue (or at least a larger issue) is that you can’t always expect other people to simply accept the way you choose to frame the debate. This is not to “tell you what you’re thinking,” it’s to point out that it’s possible that what you’re thinking is mistaken.

Yes, Canada is a different country which has settled this question differently. And that is their right. So what is your point?

The point, Peter, is that if there are societies in existence—one of them very closely related to America both historically and culturally—who have managed different firearms standards than you without establishing any “government monopolies on force,” that rather weakens your contention that such a “monopoly” should be viewed as the larger issue framing the whole “gun rights” debate.

So lets talk about some other misgivings about rights other chunks of our society have

See, for me stuff like this is a little like listening to some libertarians* talk about how speed limits are an “initiation of force” by the government and properly belong in a communist state. I find it not just overwrought, but plainly inaccurate to compare strict firearms laws to wanting to eliminate the free press, intern minorities or oppress women. And one of the main reasons it seems absurd to me is precisely that democratic societies have clearly, in a wide variety of cultural contexts, managed the trick of controlling firearms to various extents without inevitably indulging in the orgies of dictatorial evil that you envisage.

It’s unpleasantly ironic that you should bring up a woman’s right to choose in this context. The sarcastic part of me is tempted to ask if you have some ideas for how women in South Dakota can use small arms to get around the new abortion ban there, short of simply shooting themselves in the belly of course. And yes, that’s catty. I’m tired. Sorry.

(* Nothing against libertarians, mind you. But God love ‘em, some of them can be truly crazy…)

I’m approaching it as if this really was the military: what would be an appropriate order of battle in the weapon sense to deal with this? That’s the best answer I can offer.

It seems perfectly reasonable to me, but if I were theoretical Devil’s Advocate heavy weapons guy, the obvious response is “who are you to try to restrict my order of battle? If I think I need a tank for personal defense, then dammit, I need a tank, and you’re not going to tell me different.”

And the second amendment clearly speaks to this idea of reasonable limitations.

As well it should. And I would argue that it does so, and is able to do so, precisely because it does not delineate gun ownership as an absolute “right;” it invokes it as a “right” specifically in relationship to the functioning of a militia, however one chooses to define that. Sorry, but I don’t think it’s “creeping erosion” to acknowledge that.

But you and I both know that a repeal of the 2nd Amendment has zero chance of succeeding.

Nor would it be necessary. And I’m not sure why you feel the need to imply that I’m arguing for a blanket ban on firearms, since I’ve done no such thing at any point on this thread, nor is any such ban necessarily the point at issue in “gun control” more generally.

And that should give you some yardstick to measure whether you represent the overwhelming, inevitable and reasonable public will.

Hopefully, “public will” is something that can still be influenced by reasonable debate with reference to the facts and the real world. As such, my only hope is to represent the most reasonable argument with reference to the practical issues; the “public will” can take care of itself.

I am not being suckered into anything.

I put the point intemperately. I apologize. Suffice to say that I think, for reasons already stated, that your view of the 2nd Amendment as it relates to “rights” is simply mistaken. I don’t mean to imply that you’re being thoughtless, however.

…

And I’m out of steam, so I’m going to have to end there for now.

But so does this. As I stated earlier, private gun rights are a precondition for the “well-regulated Militia.” 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. To have such quality of militia, government must not jack with the right to keep and bear arms – whatever the militia’s structure.

Keep in mind that the Bill of Rights was added specifically because of fears over the protection of citizen rights – NOT because of Fed vs. states jurisdictional issues. Why add a “states can have militias” amendment if Art. 1 Sec. 8 already empowers the States to train and organize them and pick the officers?

*One has to make a distinction between principal and practice here. In practice many state militias, and the local units thereof, were in terrible order and completely unprepared to do any real fighting as a unit.

OK, but that’s not what I asked. At colonial times, the militia came out regularly to drill. Is it not consistent with the framers’ view of the world and the Constitution to say that anyone who wants to bear arms has to participate in the militia, and show up for regular drills? Surely this wouldn’t be a bad thing for, e.g., disaster relief, or community service, or just making sure that the common man is adequately armed and trained to act as a check on potential totalitarian aspirations of the federal government, right? If the states could require this at colonial times, why not now?

This would polarize and poison our politics (if you think its bad now, just wait and see), undermine civil institutions, etc. Everytime this has been tried all we have succeeded in creating is a seriously disgruntled segment of society and a mafia.

I don’t see that individual gun ownership is actually guaranteed by the Bill of Rights. But so what?

The Bill of Rights didn’t give us any guarantee that individuals could own drinking alcohol. We tried taking away that right and we got a lot more problems than it was worth.

The Bill of Rights didn’t give us any guarantee that individuals could own recreational drugs. Same thing.

I strongly doubt that we could get effective gun control without getting at least as much trouble as we got from Prohibition. Would it be worth it? I don’t think so. The benefit we’d get would be a possible reduction in deaths from accidental shootings and intentional shootings. The disadvantages would include a new black market like the drug market, more people in prison like the Drug War, a lot of people angry and upset, the partial destruction of more american industries (We couldn’t very well produce ammunition for the whole black market and just sell it, we’d have to at minimum ship it out of the country and smuggle it back, and we might lose market share to foreigners), etc. It just plain is not worth it.

I don’t see that gun owners have any sacred rights, and if it was 5000 of them who’d be affected and there’d be some significant good I’d say go ahead. But given the numbers, it’s just plain stupid. Gun control—if it was enacted—could not possibly be worth the cost. And while it isn’t enacted it provides an issue to mobilise stupid wingnuts to support corrupt Republicans. It’s a stupid idea. Forget it. Bring it up in 20 years and see how many people object then.

Peter is correct that pushing for gun control will lead to other lost freedoms. It already has. It has already helped create a Republican-controlled government. A lot of the people who’re so upset about gun control would be paying more attention to actual lost freedoms if there were no gun control attempts being made.

What we might do instead is start a national debate about a new amendment to the Constitution to establish gun rights. The 2nd amendment is hopelessly muddled by now and it was probably intended to be muddled from the beginning. We can rewrite it clearly, and eventually get it passed, and then we can stop arguing about it.