CompuServe Messages

>That's it…that's the total mention of the Militia in the Constitution. >and in *MY* opinion…clearly points to an organized and regulated group >run by the state and having officers appointed by the state. Sounds like >the National Guard to me. Well, I think we've all addressed that National Guard issue elsewhere, but there is an additional problem with interpreting the 2nd as though it read: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the States to maintain armed Militias shall not be infringed." That problem is that it says something entirely different. <G> Intentionally. The debates are preserved, you know, and the problem is that the drafters were trying to identify and protect TWO separate rights, the right to maintain militias and the individual right to keep and bear arms. Those persons who keep trying to say that the right applies ONLY to militias have two pretty high hurdles to get over- the formulation "right of the people" is used in both the 1st and 4th Amendments as clearly referring to individual rights; and the fact that the Supreme Court has consistently listed the right to keep and bear arms as one of the "individual" rights protected in the Constitution. -Karl