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> The US constitution has a crystal clear right to bear arms It looks like it was drafted by an ESL speaker. It's by far the worst-drafted amendment, grammati
by KPGv2 1y ago
> The US constitution has a crystal clear right to bear arms
It looks like it was drafted by an ESL speaker. It's by far the worst-drafted amendment, grammatically speaking:
> 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.
It's not even a valid English sentence, and it certainly never bothers to define "Arms." Not to mention that, as written, it appears to make it illegal for me to tell you that you cannot come to my house with a gun, because that's me infringing your right. It doesn't constrain Congress. It constrained anyone who wants to take away your right to bear arms.
Sheer lunacy as written. Ungrammatical and implies some insane shit.
But no, you're right, it's crystal clear. Much like how the First Amendment says
> Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press
which in crystal clear terms makes it legal to mass-distribute child pornography. To prohibit it would restrict the freedom of the press.
- _9ptr 1y agoRemove the first and last comma and the sentence works splendidly
- sjsdaiuasgdia 1y agoOk, get a 2/3 majority of the House and Senate to approve a proposed edit removing those commas, and then get 3/4 of the state legislatures to approve it. Until then, the commas are officially part of the text.
- 1718627440 1y agoComma rules change over time.
- sjsdaiuasgdia 1y agoBut the text of the Constitution only changes through amendments. That said, the effective meaning of the Constitution is "whatever a majority of the Supreme Court agrees it is." And to a degree, given the power to impeach Supreme Court justices, "whatever a majority of the Supreme Court agrees it is, and with Congress sufficiently on board to not impeach sufficient justices to force a shift in the balance of the Court."
- 1718627440 1y agoI'm responding to: >>> Remove the first and last comma and the sentence works splendidly >> Until then, the commas are officially part of the text. > Comma rules change over time. Maybe the equivalence of the sentence at drafting, today is without commas?
- sjsdaiuasgdia 1y agoThat depends on the opinions of 9 very specific individuals. How the text and its commas might be interpreted by you or I today is irrelevant.
- 1718627440 1y agoBut you chose to tell us about your interpretation. :-) I had less the current legal interpretation and more the meaning at the time of writing down, as it would reveal itself in current text, in mind, which is relevant to this argument.
- sjsdaiuasgdia 1y agoI see the conversation differently. KPGv2 pointed out the phrasing of the 2nd amendment is not clear. GLdRH said "Remove the first and last comma and the sentence works splendidly". I said that modifying the literal text requires going through the amendment process. You said "Comma rules change over time." I reiterated that the literal text does not change except through the amendment process, and also noted that fundamentally the literal words don't matter much as it's up to a majority of the Supreme Court how to interpret any of it. You then brought up modern language usages of commas. I replied that how you or I today interpret the text is irrelevant because only the Supreme Court's opinion matters. At no point in this conversation have I expressed a specific interpretation of the text, so your indication that I chose to tell the discussion about my interpretation seems weird and maybe you're misreading usernames somewhere along the way.
- 1y ago
- KPGv2 1y agoNo, it doesn't. I said it's grammatically incorrect, not orthographically incorrect. (It's arguably correct orthographically based on the incorrect grammar.) > [Noun], being [clause], [grammatically correct sentence] is objectively incorrect English grammar. Eliding the "being" appositive, you're left with > [Noun], [sentence]. Unless you're talking to the noun (as in "Hey, you, the well regulated militia! Did you know that the right to keep and bear arms . . . "), it's not grammatically correct.
- 1718627440 1y agoIt also implies that the militia is regulated.