Preamble to the Bill of Rights

[CalBear]

I was looking for a bill of rights poster tonight and I noticed some text I've never actually read. I looked up a text version of the original document, and found the following:

CONGRESS of the UNITED STATES,

Begun and held at the City of New-York, on Wednesday, the
Fourth of March, One Thousand Seven Hundred Eighty-nine.

The Conventions of a Number of the States having at the Time of their adopting the Constitution, expressed a Desire, in Order to prevent Misconstruction or Abuse of its Powers, that further declaratory and restrictive Clauses should be added: And as extending the Ground of public Confidence in the Government will best insure the beneficent Ends of its Institution,
RESOLVED, by the Senate, and House of Representatives, of the United States of America, in Congress assembled, Two Thirds of both Houses concurring, That the following Articles be proposed to the Legislatures of the several States as Amendments to the Constitution of the United States: All, or any of, which Articles, when ratified by Three-Fourths of the said Legislatures, to be valid to all Intents and Purposes as Part of the said Constitution, viz.

ARTICLES in Addition to, and Amendment of, the Constitution of the United States of America, proposed by Congress, and ratified by the Legislatures of the several States, pursuant to the Fifth Article of the original Constitution.

Article the fourth [2nd 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.

The preamble was interesting to me. I found when I read the second amendment after the preamble things became even more obvious. I see no way a reasonable person could possibly misconstrue the text.

Declaratory:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State,

Restrictive:

[T]he right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

The restrictive clause stands on its own. The declaratory clause was there to "[extend] the Ground of public Confidence [in federal government]." The restrictive clause was there to "prevent Misconstruction or Abuse of [federal governmental] Powers."

The second amendment doesn't give us the right to keep and bear arms. Rather, it removes the right of the government to infringe on the fundamental right. And, by the tenth amendment,

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

the state can't take away the fundamental right either.

Again, how people cannot see this is beyond me. I'm just glad the Supreme Court saw both (5 justices at least...).

I know this is major rehashing for probably everyone, but we all love the second amendment, so why not rehash it from time to time?

[dantodd]

Well. 4 supreme court justices disagree with you.

The good news is that 5 agree with you and, for now, the prefatory clause is moot.

[nick]

The preamble was interesting to me. I found when I read the second amendment after the preamble things became even more obvious. I see no way a reasonable person could possibly misconstrue the text.

Never underestimate the power of intellectual dishonesty

[russ69]

The liberal justices believe that the constitution is an old document and that it is a living and breathing document. They believe that you need to re-evaluate what is said so that it makes sense for modern times and things can change over time. For them the second amendment means that certain men can own a musket, it has no relevance today because the founding fathers couldn't envision modern firearms. This is how they can take simple statements and totally dismiss the meaning and importance of each careful word.

Thanx, Russ

[the_quark]

Never underestimate the power of intellectual dishonesty

[Wherryj]

Well. 4 supreme court justices disagree with you.

The good news is that 5 agree with you and, for now, the prefatory clause is moot.

Isn't it amazing how someone supposedly trained in Constitutional law can look at the obvious statements made by the framers of the Constitution, the actual words of the documents and how they all interlace-yet come to a completely different conclusion than what it obviously states?

It's almost as if they are saying, "Yeah, well that's what it says, but it's really the founders' CODE for saying this."

Judicial activism, alive and well.

[Wherryj]

The liberal justices believe that the constitution is an old document and that it is a living and breathing document. They believe that you need to re-evaluate what is said so that it makes sense for modern times and things can change over time. For them the second amendment means that certain men can own a musket, it has no relevance today because the founding fathers couldn't envision modern firearms. This is how they can take simple statements and totally dismiss the meaning and importance of each careful word.

Thanx, Russ

[PatriotnMore]

Isn't it amazing how someone supposedly trained in Constitutional law can look at the obvious statements made by the framers of the Constitution, the actual words of the documents and how they all interlace-yet come to a completely different conclusion than what it obviously states?

It's almost as if they are saying, "Yeah, well that's what it says, but it's really the founders' CODE for saying this."

Judicial activism, alive and well.

Exactly why who we elect to become President is so important. One only has to listen to some posters here, to see that any ruling by the SCOTUS, unless it is something heinous, is believed to be law and Constitutional.

If fear a corrupt Judicial Branch more than I fear a corrupt Legislative, or Executive Branch. The SCOTUS has to be the untainted check and balance of, and reliable final arbitrator of all laws, and their Constitutionality.

[Wherryj]

Exactly why who we elect to become President is so important. One only has to listen to some posters here, to see that any ruling by the SCOTUS, unless it is something heinous, is believed to be law and Constitutional.

If fear a corrupt Judicial Branch more than I fear a corrupt Legislative, or Executive Branch. The SCOTUS has to be the untainted check and balance of, and reliable final arbitrator of all laws, and their Constitutionality.

I have never seen the quote in your sig, but it is entirely pertinent to the discussion at hand. It is also, obviously, something recorded in the archives, easy for the "living Constituition" types to read and understand the original INTENT of the framers.

If you don't respect the Constitution, do away with it. Don't just claim that it means what you want it to me.

[stillnotbob]

I think the problem is that the liberal "living Constitution" types forget what the term "living Constitution" means. I was taught that it is "living" in that we as a nation can change the constitution if ever needed by adding in a new amendment. NOT that you can interpret it in your own way what has already been written.

If this WAS the case then EVERY law would be a "living law". We as voters would vote something into law and then ten years later the powers that be could saw that now the law means something else. Since this is not the case, then the Constitution cannot be a "living" document in the liberal sense.

[vantec08]

Correctamundo, stillnotbob. If the Constitution was changeable by political whim or fancy, it would no longer be a Constitution.

[Wherryj]

I think the problem is that the liberal "living Constitution" types forget what the term "living Constitution" means. I was taught that it is "living" in that we as a nation can change the constitution if ever needed by adding in a new amendment. NOT that you can interpret it in your own way what has already been written.

If this WAS the case then EVERY law would be a "living law". We as voters would vote something into law and then ten years later the powers that be could saw that now the law means something else. Since this is not the case, then the Constitution cannot be a "living" document in the liberal sense.

Unfortunately it seems that a lot of law schools are teaching this sort of viewpoint with respect to laws in general.

I say this because I and a group of physicians have come together to form a patient-physician alliance to try to bring power back to physicians. The lawyer that is helping us is a very decent sort-the jousting at windmills if the cause is right type.

I was asking him about the Supreme Court justices because he has actually met a few and knows them pretty well. (One of the comments was that Scalia wouldn't be the best guy to take to a kegger...)

I mentioned that I thought that laws needed to be interpreted in the context in which they were written and even he defended the SCOTUS, etc. "because they are trying to look at things in context of the modern society".

Perhaps it has something to do with his office being located in Berkeley-maybe the ultra-liberal viewpoint wears off on you?

I would have thought that all lawyers would feel that laws COULD only be interpreted in context, even if it was in their best interest to argue otherwise for THEIR case?

[Tarn_Helm]

St. George Tucker

The liberal justices believe that the constitution is an old document and that it is a living and breathing document. They believe that you need to re-evaluate what is said so that it makes sense for modern times and things can change over time. For them the second amendment means that certain men can own a musket, it has no relevance today because the founding fathers couldn't envision modern firearms. This is how they can take simple statements and totally dismiss the meaning and importance of each careful word.

Thanx, Russ

I think you and many others here need to entertain the idea that it is intellectual dishonesty, as Nick pointed out, not innocently erroneous judicial hermeneutics that creates their anti-2nd Amendment position.

They are lying.

And they are hiding behind an ersatz "quandary" over the "hidden" meaning.

The meaning is in plain sight everywhere you look--unless you are pretending to not see it so that you can gull the simple and uncritical folk into believing that it is not there.

We have all known what it meant--all of us except for the ones who have lazily allowed the Leftist elitist prevaricators to think and talk for them.

"A bill of rights may be considered, not only as intended to give law, and assign limits to a government about to be established, but as giving information to the people. By reducing speculative truths to fundamental laws, every man of the meanest capacity and understanding may learn his own rights, and know when they are violated . . . ."St. George Tucker (See U.S. Constitutional scholar Stephen Halbrook's article on this topic.)

Read St. George Tucker--specifically, Stephen Halbrook's article on this topic: http://law.bepress.com/cgi/viewconte...ntext=expresso

We have always known its meaning.

Evil academicians just lie to non-academics and try to intimidate them with their degrees and the letters that come after their names.

[2Bear]

Thomas Paine

St. George Tucker

Which reminds me of one of my favorite peeps...

"Society in every state is a blessing, but government, even in its best stage, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one."

- Thomas Paine

[Eleutheros]

In the U.S. Constitution, We the People authorize the federal government to have very specific, limited powers. Consistent with that concern -- the Founders' concern -- the Second Amendment explicitly denies to the government any power to infringe the citizens' right to keep and bear arms.

In the Heller and McDonald cases, four black-robed violators of the Constitution whose activist usurpation of Supreme Court authority threatens the rights and liberty of Americans knowingly disagreed.