The Captain’s Journal – by HERSCHEL SMITH
A recent poll suggests Americans will consider the gun debate a pivotal point in the 2014 elections. So we wanted to explore how Americans kept the right to bear arms in the first place. As it turns out, grammar is the culprit.
Take a look at the Second 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.”
That little, red comma caused the Supreme Court to strike down D.C.’s ban on handguns, the country’s strictest gun control law to date.
Before the Supreme Court heard the case, the D.C. circuit court of appeals nixed the ban, too. “According to the court, the second comma divides the amendment into two clauses: one ‘prefatory’ and the other ‘operative.’ On this reading, the bit about a well-regulated militia is just preliminary throat clearing; the framers don’t really get down to business until they start talking about ‘the right of the people … shall not be infringed,’” The New York Timesreported.
Gun control proponents argue the founders used commas more frequently than common English today, Ross Guberman wrote in his legal writing blog. Some historians even claim that many states ratified a version of the Second Amendment with only two commas, not three. The extra commas don’t mean much in that context, the argument goes.
Straining at a literary gnat to swallow a camel. This is what happens with you superimpose literary criticism over the inherent rights of mankind. The title of the commentary is telling: “How a comma gave gave Americans the right to own guns.”
The author, poor Christina, believes that rights are granted by the state, as she was no doubt taught by her college professors. Nay, Christina. God gives us rights and you cannot take them away. Neither can any state – all a state can do is formally recognize what God has granted.
As for the silly argument over commas, let’s hurry the death of this debate by a simple observation. Rather than turn to grammar to understand how the colonialists thought, recall how they saw weapons in their day.
In the colonies, availability of hunting and need for defense led to armament statues comparable to those of the early Saxon times. In 1623, Virginia forbade its colonists to travel unless they were “well armed”; in 1631 it required colonists to engage in target practice on Sunday and to “bring their peeces to church.” In 1658 it required every householder to have a functioning firearm within his house and in 1673 its laws provided that a citizen who claimed he was too poor to purchase a firearm would have one purchased for him by the government, which would then require him to pay a reasonable price when able to do so. In Massachusetts, the first session of the legislature ordered that not only freemen, but also indentured servants own firearms and in 1644 it imposed a stern 6 shilling fine upon any citizen who was not armed.
Whatever else you might find significant in one comma, two commas or three commas, and whatever else you think the second amendment means, it cannot possibly mean something contrary to the way the colonialists believed and behaved. And thus it cannot possibly mean that they intended to garrison all weapons in an armory controlled by the state.
Christina needs to do some historical reading, as do most Americans. A comma cannot take away your God-given rights any more than it can grant them to you.
http://www.captainsjournal.com/2013/08/25/does-a-comma-stand-between-you-and-loss-of-your-guns/
And we all know the framers of the Constitution were illiterate knuckle dragging Neanderthals compared to the articulate and erudite Feinstein, Schumer, Reid, McCain, Graham, Bloomberg, and other such fine defenders of our Constitution.
I hope all my commas were employed beyond reproach.
More like this…. Fein,stein, Schu,mer, Re,id, Mc,Cain, Gra,ham, Bloom,berg
Well stated, and punctuated!
I really do not enjoy even typing any of those names regardless of punctuation.
Would someone get the dam rope already for these traitors?
In, ans,wer, to, the, ques,tion, NOPE,!
Just, ano,ther, un,con,sti,tut,ion,al edict, that, we, will, soon, abo,lish,.
Sorry guy’s and gals,
That comment turned into one comment on two articles!
HaHaHa, Rhumstruck!!!
So who is this Christina….????
Nope, sorry. My willingness to use my firearms protects my right to keep firearms. No law and no man can part me from my arms while I still breathe. Laws are just words. Actions are the game changer in this world. And, I don’t mean protesting, I mean killing.
smilardog !!!!!!! that was rich~
Speaking of commas…
While the Framers got this one right, using a comma to specify that the people have a right to bear arms which shall not be infringed, the authors of the King James Bible (including Shakespeare?) got one of Jesus’s quotations wrong, and its implications have been enormous as to false doctrine ever since. The false doctrine of “upon death you go straight to heaven or straight to hell” (and the really bad thing is ‘hell’ means “Lake of Fire” in most interpretations…hell means “the grave” and is derived from the Hebrew place Gehenna where bodies were burned or Hades, the Greek for “underworld”. Hell does NOT mean burning for eternity!)
Here is the quote with badly placed comma (King James, an elitist and Rothschild crony if there ever was one, made sure of that):
Luke 23:43–(Jesus is talking to one of the prisoners crucified with him, the one who rebukes the other for rebuking Christ) And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, today shalt thou be with me in paradise.
This is how it should read, with the comma in the right place, according to the Concordant Literal New Testament, which is a more accurate version of the New Testament because it is translated literally from the ancient Greek: And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto the today, shalt thou be with me in paradise.
That is, as is Bible truth, one goes to heaven or hell (the Lake of Fire) but NOT upon death! You must be judged first, either at the Bema Seat Judgment (where Christ advocates for believers against the advesary, Satan, who does the accusing), or the White Throne Judgment (where Christ as advocate is not present because this is the judgment of non-believers).
That misplaced comma King James had put in on purpose has caused many Christian to believe such false doctrines as mentioned above, plus the rapture, and the nonsense that “hell” means the Lake of Fire, and for eternity. It does no such thing.