Meaning of Second amendment in clear language, All three parts

Ok first I would like to say I found this in the comment section on yahoo under a gun story.

I found it clear, concise and well written.

I would love to give credit to who posted this but there was no exact name to credit.

So if you are out there and see this PLEASE take credit you so richly deserve

Here you go


The 2nd amendment is actually 3 part.
The 1st in giving the States the right to a "well regulated Militia" (note: by definition, well regulated in the 1700's meant "well supplied") and the 2nd in giving the right to keep and bear arms to individuals (no qualifiers). The 3rd part, the last 4 words that say it all, SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED.

"The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms, is as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government." T Jefferson

That being said, there are many people today, who have a deep, (and a legitimate), distrust of the government.

They believe that it is in the nature of governments to accumulate and to concentrate more and more power over people's lives. More power leads to more control. It has always been so. As Lord Acton so famously stated, "Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." Meaning that those who are given power over others will use that power.

Even if the government is not specifically intending to do so, it is the nature of large governments that this occurs.

Now the government may espouse their desire to help the citizenry, but when individuals disagree with what the government determines is in their best interest, then those in power use coersion. Sometimes subtle sometimes not so subtle.

This concentration of power and increasing coersion can be gradual (like slowly turning up the heat on a lobster in a pot), or sudden (like dropping him into boiling water).

One need only be a casual student of history to see the process at work again and again and again.

The Second Ammendment is *our* garuantee that this loss of individual freedom and increasing control of our lives cannot be done with impunity.

One need only look at what is occurring in Syria today or in Mexico, or any of a dozen other locations around the globe .to see examples of what happens when the government controls the people and when the people are defenseless to resist.

Now you may feel that this distrust is not warrented, or that it verges on paranoia. Many might agree with you. However many more, would not.

The Founding Fathers believed fervently that ordinary citizens needed to be protected from an oppressive government. If they had not, then there would not have been a Second Amendment in the first instance. They were very distrustful of the concentration of power into the hands of the few. They set up safeguards through the concepts of Separation of Powers and Federalism to prevent it from happening. They added further protections in the Bill of Rights.

The Founding Fathers, I am certain, would be aghast at the degree to which the government controls the lives of Americans today. Indeed, they went into rebellion over transgressions less onerous than what we today have allowed to be imposed upon us.

Read the Declaration of Independence. Look at the reasons that are ennumerated there. They speak of an oppressive government seeking to impose it's will, (unlawfully in their opinion), upon the citizenry.

The Second Ammendment was NEVER about what type of arms citizens might own or about what the technological developments of the future might bring. It was not about hunting. It was not about home defense. It was not about target shooting. It was about the ability of citizens to oppose and resist the oppression of a tyrannical government.

There are those Americans that honestly feel that this point of view is not applicable to the 21st century; that such concerns are the things of history. They label those like myself, as 'gun nuts' or as paranoid, even dangerous.
If you are one that believes that this distrust is stuff out of a dusty history book, and has no relevance in the 21st century, then I urge you again to to look around more carefully.

Those of us that support the Second Ammendment feel that it's relevence is as valid now as it was when it was first penned.

First of all, unless I am much mistaken , the 2nd amendment is written in English. If one lives in a largely English speaking nation, then one ought to be able to bloody well read it and understand it, and therefore a rewrite/explanation, should be superflous. If someone is having trouble reading it, then dont appease ignorance by providing a translation. Send them instead to a place where they can actually learn to read the language they speak.

Also, the example of Syria is SO poor its ridiculous. For a start, private citizens were allowed to possess and open carry a weapon, as long as they had a liscense to own the firearm. Sounds reasonable to me! Such permissions were refused only to those with domestic violence in thier history, and those with a criminal record. Now, it may well be the case that thier laws are draconian and biased, but a sensible citizen activist knows how to avoid those pitfalls as well as they understand how to breathe in and out. In short, Syrians were better armed than those of us in the UK, France and Germany ever are, and we are not in the process of being shot at by our own armed forces just at the moment.

It is of course true that military equipment ownership was prohibited there, AS IT SHOULD BE ANYWHERE! No one has a legitimate use for an automatic weapon, nor an anti aircraft cannon, nor a hand grenade, nor an RPG or any other bloody thing REMOTELY like it, unless they are in combat, as part of a military organisation.

The Second Ammendment was NEVER about what type of arms citizens might own or about what the technological developments of the future might bring. It was not about hunting. It was not about home defense. It was not about target shooting. It was about the ability of citizens to oppose and resist the oppression of a tyrannical government.

It does not state
muskets only, hand guns only, cannon under such and such diameter, ships forbidden...

It was about the ability of citizens to oppose and resist the oppression of a tyrannical government.