WI the right the bear muskets
- Thread starter Tyr
- Start date
hard to see how that would make it to the final draft, since some common citizens back then owned rifles, pistols, and even cannons... the intent of the 2nd Amendment was to allow for a small army and citizen militias to be formed in times of war. If it did make it to the final draft, I imagine it would end up being amended later, to allow for the widespread use of rifles. If it was never changed, then it would go to a state by state basis... the right to bear muskets will be guaranteed to all, the right to bear other types of weapons will be on the state level...
How about:
"A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, with the right to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution#cite_note-8
"A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, with the right to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution#cite_note-8
The well-regulated militia. A group which is analogous to the National Guard, but which in the modern day has somehow been conflated into "everybody."
Dirk_Pitt
Banned
THAT is not true. At the time of its writing people considered any able-bodied person to be part of a militia(i.e everyone). Not only that but everyone on the frontier had to own a firearm, for protection(ie natives and bandits) and as a source for sustainence(ie hunting). The firearm was a tool just as the pick and shovel.
But there's a significant difference between the (I'm not 100% sure these are the technical terms) the organized militia, which is defined as the actual militia units that drill regularly - to pick a mid-19th century unit: http://dmna.ny.gov/historic/reghist/civil/infantry/7thInfNYSM/7thInfNYSMMain.htm, and "every able bodied free (possibly even 'white') male." in the unorganized militia.
Not entirely on track, but a thought that was running through my head earlier today - would the entire Second Amendment fall apart if you proved, as surely wouldn't be hard in the present day (though would've been harder in 1775) that a well-regulated militia is NOT necessary to the security of a free state?
Which may have been true in that time; But due to the formal establishment of the National Guard under the Militia Act (as well as the fact that soldiers of any sort no longer keep their guns at home, except in Switzerland), and the decline of the need for firearms (which really is the crux of the whole gun debate today), arguably, the second amendment no longer has the relevance as it did then.
Still, with regards to Elfwine's point, the term well-regulated militia would seem to exclude any militia group which doesn't drill one weekend a month and two weeks a year.
Since Heller, "the people" has come to mean individuals, not "the people" at large...
My attempt was to remove this debate distinction, and without the word people at all, the right to bear arms would be a debate about what is considered a well regulated militia.
That might work. I'm not sure it would be read that way by all readers, though.
It was the Virginia ratifying convention's expectation that Congress propose a Bill of Rights, and among the rights to be protected is (#17 of 20) "That the people have a right to keep and bear arms; that a well regulated Militia composed of the body of the people trained to arms is the proper, natural, and safe defense of a free state."
The people = individuals (freemen presumably)
Militia = the body or organized group of people
New York's ratifying convention said much the same thing, except it mentions a Militia "including the body of people capable of bearing arms,"
So you see, removing the concept that individuals have the right to keep and bear arms from the Constitutional debate would be quite difficult at best.
Highly unlikely, the Founders were, a good many of them, lawyers and not bad draftsmen. But if there were, "musket" would likely be treated as a synedoche for "arms," just as "press" in the First Amendment is understood to mean all forms of mass communication, and the final result would be little different from OTL. And in America most firearms would end up being called "muskets," because of the prestige of the constitution. "Check out this .45 Colt automatic handmusket. Nice grip, big magazine, and really a sweet shooter."