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Black Manta vs. Guy Incognito

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digsbe

Truth will set you free
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Black Manta and Guy Incognito will be debating the topic: "Was the original intent of the 2A to protect an individual right or a militia right?"

The debate will last from today until Friday evening. Each debater will be allowed to post one opening post, 3 posts of arguments, and one concluding post at the end.

The discussion thread is here: http://www.debatepolitics.com/battl...ck-manta-vs-guy-incognito.html#post1061777214
 
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Was the original intent of the 2A to protect an individual right or a militia right?

The right to bear arms was around long before the actual Bill of Rights. The 2A was based in part on the right to self defence or to bear arms in English common-law, and was heavyily influenced by the English Bill of Rights of 1689.

"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."

Going by Danial Websters 1828 Dictionary, none of the language used in this simple statement from our Bill Of Rights means other than intended even by modern standards...

People: 1. The body of persons who compose a community, town, city or nation. We say, the people of a town; the people of London or Paris; the English people. In this sense, the word is not used in the plural, but it comprehends all classes of inhabitants, considered as a collective body, or any portion of the inhabitants of a city or country.

Militia: from miles, a soldier; Gr. war, to fight, combat, contention. The primary sense of fighting is to strive, struggle, drive, or to strike, to beat, Eng. moil, L. molior; Heb. to labor or toil.] The body of soldiers in a state enrolled for discipline, but not engaged in actual service except in emergencies; as distinguished from regular troops, whose sole occupation is war or military service. The militia of a country are the able bodied men organized into companies, regiments and brigades,with officers of all grades, and required by law to attend military exercises on certain days only, but at other times left to pursue their usual occupations.


All inhabitants of a country are the militia. Lets go a step further and see what was being said at the time...

"Who are the militia? Are they not ourselves? Is it feared, then, that we shall turn our arms each man against his own bosom? Congress shall have no power to disarm the militia. Their swords, and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birthright of an American ... The unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or state governments, but where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the People." - Tench Coxe, 1788.

"I ask, sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people, except for a few public officials." — George Mason, in Debates in Virginia Convention on Ratification of the Constitution, Elliot, Vol. 3, June 16, 1788

"If the representatives of the people betray their constituents, there is then no recourse left but in the exertion of that original right of self-defense which is paramount to all positive forms of government, and which against the usurpations of the national rulers may be exerted with infinitely better prospect of success than against those of the rulers of an individual State. In a single State, if the persons entrusted with supreme power become usurpers, the different parcels, subdivisions, or districts of which it consists, having no distinct government in each, can take no regular measures for defense. The citizens must rush tumultuously to arms, without concert, without system, without resource; except in their courage and despair."- Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 28

They seem quite clear about who the people are and that the militia is "the whole" of the people.

So we are a militia and the militia is the people. So where does this leave us?

We as individuals are the last line of defence even with a full time standing army. It is up to us to defend ourselves from all enemies foreign and domestic. It is an individual right stated clearly that no federal or state governments shall infringe. This is the clear language of the 2A. The framers said "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." Not the right of the "militia." If they wanted to say or imply that it was a right by or for the militia, they would have stated it as clearly as all the other sentences in the Bill Of Rights. Why is the 2A the only original amendment we seem to have trouble interpreting? Considering the plain language of the Bill Of Rights in every other case?

The 2A is as written down in the Bill Of Rights for every legal citizen, and shall not be infringed as set down in the Constitution.

I will follow up with details and evidence from experts on law and history to support this position as we progress.

Sources:

Wiki Quote - https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Main_Page
1828 Webster Dictionary - Browse 1828 => Word PRESIDE :: Search the 1828 Noah Webster's Dictionary of the English Language (FREE) :: 1828.mshaffer.com
Constitution Society - Militia
Right to Keep and Bear Arms - Bear Arms
 
Over the next couple of days I will convincingly demonstrate that the original intent of the second amendment was to enshrine a right tied inextricably to the militia, rather than an individual right to gun ownership as it is understood in contemporary Constitutional jurisprudence.

In fact, with his opening post my friend Black Manta has done a good job of supporting this point. You will notice that none of his many quotations all relate directly to the militia, which is comprised of the people, yes, but what is significant about this for our purposes is not that the militia is composed of the people (as opposed to a professional standing army or mercenaries), but rather that the right to "keep and bear arms" was originally understood at the time to be inextricably tied to participation in the militia. For instance, Mr. Manta cites an 1828 edition of Websters, which states in pertinent part that the militia "comprehends all classes of inhabitants, considered as a collective body[.]"

Consider the second amendment itself. The prefratory militia clause should is not merely decorative, it informs the entire sentence. It is an implied conditional, the right to keep and bear arms in conditioned on the need of a well-regulated militia to secure a free state. What else could the second amendment be for? The framers feared a standing army, and the states' militias were seen as a check on the federal government. Indeed, there is no sound historical basis for reading anything deeper into the second amendment than its application to the militia: "It would have been anathema to Anti-Federalists to demand an amendment to protect a private right of self defense since doing so would have meant conceding that the federal government had general police powers." 56 UCLA Law Review 1095 (2009) at 1114

In forthcoming posts I will show that the phrase "keep and bear arms" was a legal term of art that was only used in a martial context, and could not refer to hunting or recreational shooting. I will go on to show how certain quotations from the framers which are used to support the opposition's argument are in facts electively quoted out of context. And I will trace the evolution of the meaning of the second amendment and show how it is comparable to the evolution in the meaning of other constitutional amendments, such as the first amendment, which originally only protected a right to political speech.
 
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Lets start with an interpretation of the 2nd amendment in full.

"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."

A well regulated militia. A military unit made up of units, officers and trained for proficiency in their weaponry. Then a comma because it is a different addition or thought is coming.
Being necessary to the security of a free state. To protect the state from all enemies foreign or domestic. This to insure a free state. Then a comma because it is a different thought.
The right of the people to keep and bear Arms. The right of the people "The body of persons who compose a community, town, city or nation."
Shall not be infringed. Shall not be "Broken; violated; transgresses."

As I have already mentioned if the founders had meant for this somehow to be tied to anything other than the people. Why didn't they just say...

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the Militia to keep and bear Arms, shall be governed by each sovereign state.

Because that is not what they meant. The rest of the Bill Of Rights is interpreted this way. Only the 2nd amendment has been perverted to mean other than what it clearly states.

The comma between the two clauses denotes two different thoughts, the second part is the only complete sentence, which means it's the main clause. The first clause is not a complete sentence and so it's not the complete, or main thought. the grammatical argument has been upheld the United States Supreme Court...

In 2008 the SCOTUS ruled in The District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008), the Supreme Court ruled that the Second Amendment "codified a pre-existing right" and that it "protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia, and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home"

In McDonald v. Chicago, 561 U.S. 3025 (2010), the Supreme Court ruled that the Second Amendment limits state and local governments to the same extent that it limits the federal government.

Again the founding fathers had much to say on this subject...

No freeman shall ever be debarred the use of arms.---Thomas Jefferson: Draft Virginia Constitution, 1776.

To suppose arms in the hands of citizens, to be used at individual discretion, except in private self-defense, or by partial orders of towns, counties or districts of a state, is to demolish every constitution, and lay the laws prostrate, so that liberty can be enjoyed by no man; it is a dissolution of the government. The fundamental law of the militia is, that it be created, directed and commanded by the laws, and ever for the support of the laws. ---John Adams, A Defence of the Constitutions of the United States 475 (1787-1788)

Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom in Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops that can be, on any pretence, raised in the United States. A military force, at the command of Congress, can execute no laws, but such as the people perceive to be just and constitutional; for they will possess the power, and jealousy will instantly inspire the inclination, to resist the execution of a law which appears to them unjust and oppressive. ---Noah Webster, An Examination of the Leading Principles of the Federal Constitution (Philadelphia 1787).

This quote from Richard Henry Lee is the most telling of what was intended...

Whereas, to preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them; nor does it follow from this, that all promiscuously must go into actual service on every occasion. The mind that aims at a select militia, must be influenced by a truly anti-republican principle; and when we see many men disposed to practice upon it, whenever they can prevail, no wonder true republicans are for carefully guarding against it. ---Richard Henry Lee, The Pennsylvania Gazette, Feb. 20, 1788.

The founders said "the people" for a reason. This has been upheld by the United States Supreme Court as well as the words of the founders at the time of the writing and signing of the Constitution itself.

1828 Webster Dictionary - Browse 1828 => Word PRESIDE :: Search the 1828 Noah Webster's Dictionary of the English Language (FREE) :: 1828.mshaffer.com
Constitution Society - Militia
Right to Keep and Bear Arms - Bear Arms
 
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lets start with an interpretation of the 2nd amendment in full.

I agree that this is a good place to start, but it can only tell us so much.

For instance, I wouldn't get too caught up with the commas if I were you. For one thing, there were two versions of the second amendment, one of which only contained the middle comma. The commas of the era didn't really have the same grammatical effect that they have today, if they did then the sentence would be incoherent. See: Commas and the Second Amendment.

What is really significant about the commas is that you will note that each of them follows a term of art: "a well regulated Militia," "the security of a free State," and "keep and bear Arms." Each of those phrases had a specialized legal meaning which the framers understood implicitly and yet these are not the same meanings as their contemporary meaning.

"Well-regulated militia" means more or less the same thing as it does today, as does "the security of a free State." Neither of these are identical to their contemporary meanings as you pointed out, but they are close enough that we are able to understand. "Keep and bear arms," however, had a very different meaning then than it does today, which is well-known to historians but lost on the modern reader. You might recognize "arma" from the opening line of Vergil's Aeneid. The framers certainly did. This phrase "to bear arms" is a calque from the Latin, in fact, as were many phrases from English common law. See the quote below, written by a distinguished history professor, for an illuminating discussion of what "keep and bear arms" actually meant to the framers:

1. Bear Arms. "To bear arms is, in itself, a military term. One does not bear arms against a rabbit. The phrase simply translates the Latin arma ferre. The infinitive ferre, to bear, comes from the verb fero. The plural noun arma explains the plural usage in English ('arms'). One does not 'bear arm.' Latin arma is, etymologically, war 'equipment,' and it has no singular forms. By legal and other channels, arma ferre entered deeply into the European language of war. To bear arms is such a synonym for waging war that Shakespeare can call a just war 'just-borne arms' and a civil war 'self-borne arms.' Even outside the phrase 'bear arms,' much of the noun’s use alone echoes Latin phrases: to be under arms (sub armis), the call to arms (ad arma), to follow arms (arma sequi), to take arms (arma capere), to lay down arms (arma ponere). 'Arms' is a profession that one brother chooses as another chooses law or the church. An issue undergoes the arbitrament of arms. In the singular, English 'arm' often means a component of military force (the artillery arm, the cavalry arm)
[...]
2. To keep. Gun advocates read 'to keep and bear' disjunctively, and think the verbs refer to entirely separate activities. 'Keep,' for them, means 'possess personally at home'— a lot to load into one word. To support this entirely fanciful construction, they have to neglect the vast literature on militias. It is precisely in that literature that to-keep-and-bear is a description of one connected process. To understand what 'keep' means in a military context, we must recognize how the description of a local militia’s function was always read in contrast to the role of a standing army. Armies, in the ideology of the time, should not be allowed to keep their equipment in readiness." [...]
In America, the Articles of Confederation required that "every state shall always keep up a well regulated and disciplined militia sufficiently armed and accoutred shall provide and constantly ready for use, in public stores, number of field pieces and tents, a proper quantity of arms, ammunition and equipage" (equipage being etymological sense of arma). Thus is as erroneous to suppose that "keep" means, of itself, "keep at home" as to think that "arms" means only guns. Patrick Henry tells us, the militia's arms include "regimentals, etc."˜ flags, ensigns, engineering tools, siege apparatus, and other "accoutrements of war.
Some arms could be kept at home, course. Some officers kept their most valuable piece of war equipment, a good cross-country horse, at home, where its upkeep was a daily matter feeding and physical regimen. But military guns were not ideally kept home. When militias were armed, it was, so far as possible, with guns standard issue, interchangeable parts, uniform in their shot, upkeep and performance— the kind of "firelocks" Trenchard wanted kept "in every parish" (not every home)[.]"
http://www.potowmack.org/garwills.html
 
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I agree that this is a good place to start, but it can only tell us so much.

For instance, I wouldn't get too caught up with the commas if I were you. For one thing, there were two versions of the second amendment, one of which only contained the middle comma. The commas of the era didn't really have the same grammatical effect that they have today, if they did then the sentence would be incoherent. See: Commas and the Second Amendment.

What is really significant about the commas is that you will note that each of them follows a term of art: "a well regulated Militia," "the security of a free State," and "keep and bear Arms." Each of those phrases had a specialized legal meaning which the framers understood implicitly and yet these are not the same meanings as their contemporary meaning.

"Well-regulated militia" means more or less the same thing as it does today, as does "the security of a free State." Neither of these are identical to their contemporary meanings as you pointed out, but they are close enough that we are able to understand. "Keep and bear arms," however, had a very different meaning then than it does today, which is well-known to historian but lost on the modern reader. You might recognize the Latin "arma" from the opening line of Virgil's Aeneid. The framers certainly did. This phrase "to bear arms" is a calque from the Latin, in fact, as were many phrases from English common law. See the quote below, written by a distinguished history professor, for an illuminating discussion of what "keep and bear arms" actually meant to the framers:

There is very little to comment on here. You expect me to read entire articles on law instead of you selecting the necessary quotes and posting them then listing the resource? This is going to be a short debate as no one is going to do that.

Secondly that is one quote and goes against 200 years worth of evidence saying the exact and polar opposite.

None of this even really addresses most of the evidence I have posted.

The only thing so far you have really offered is that somehow only historians know the true meaning of "to bear arms" well lets look at a dictionary of the time...

We can leave the "to" out since it's meaning has not changed. So lets start with "bear":


bear

BEAR, v.t. pret.bore; pp. born,borne. [L. fero, pario, porto. The primary sense is to throw out, to bring forth, or in general, to thrust or drive along. ]

1. To support; to sustain; as, to bear a weight or burden.
2. To carry; to convey; to support and remove from place to place; as, "they bear him upon the shoulder;", "the eagle beareth them on her wings."
3. To wear; to bear as a mark of authority or distinction; as, to bear a sword, a badge, a name; to bear arms in a coat.
4. To keep afloat; as, the water bears a ship.
5. To support or sustain without sinking or yielding; to endure; as, a man can bear severe pain or calamity; or to sustain with proportionate strength, and without injury; as, a man may bear stronger food or drink.
6. To entertain; to carry in the mind; as, to bear a great love for a friend; to bear inveterate hatred to gaming.
7. To suffer; to undergo; as, to bear punishment.
8. To suffer without resentment, or interference to prevent; to have patience; as, to bear neglect or indignities.
9. To admit or be capable of; that is, to suffer or sustain without violence,injury,or change; as, to give words the most favorable interpretation they will bear.
10. To bring forth or produce, as the fruit of plants, or the young of animals; as, to bear apples; to bear children.

11. To give birth to, or be the native place of.

Here dwelt the man divine whom Samos bore.

12. To possess and use as power; to exercise; as, to bear sway.

13. To gain or win.

Some think to bear it by speaking a great word. [Not now used. The phrase now used is, to bear away.]

14. To carry on, or maintain; to have; as, to bear a part in conversation.

15. To show or exhibit; to relate; as, to bear testimony or witness. This seems to imply utterance, like the Latin fero, to relate or utter.

16. To sustain the effect, or be answerable for; as, to bear the blame.

17. To sustain, as expense; to supply the means of paying; as, to bear the charges, that is, to pay the expenses.

18. To be the object of.

Let me but bear your love, and I'll bear your cares.
19. To behave; to act in any character; as,"hath he borne himself penitent?"

20. To remove, or to endure the effects of; and hence to give satisfaction for.

He shall bear their iniquities. Is. 53. Heb.9.

To bear the infirmities of the weak, to bear one another's burdens, is to be charitable towards their faults, to sympathize with them, and to aid them in distress.

To bear off, is to restrain; to keep from approach; and in seamanship, to remove to a distance; to keep clear from rubbing against any thing; as, to bear off a blow; to bear off a boat; also, to carry away; as, to bear off stolen goods.

To bear down, is to impel or urge; to overthrow or crush by force; as, to bear down an enemy.

To bear down upon, to press to overtake; to make all sail to come up with.

To bear hard, is to press or urge.

Cesar doth bear me hard.

To bear on, is to press against; also to carry forward, to press, incite or animate.

Confidence hath borne thee on.

To bear through, is to conduct or manage; as,"to bear through the consulship." B.Jonson. Also, to maintain or support to the end; as, religion will bear us through the evils of life.

To bear out, is to maintain and support to the end; to defend to the last.

Company only can bear a man out in an ill thing.

To bear up, to support; to keep from falling.

Religious hope bears up the mind under sufferings.

To bear up, to keep afloat.

To bear a body. A color is said to bear a body in painting, when it is capable of being ground so fine, and mixed so entirely with the oil, as to seem only a very thick oil of the same color. To bear date, is to have the mark of time when written or executed; as, a letter or bond bears date, Jan.6,1811.

To bear a price,is to have a certain price. In common mercantile language,it often signifies or implies, to bear a good or high price.

To bear in hand, to amuse with false pretenses; to deceive.

I believe this phrase is obsolete, or never used in America.

To bear a hand, in seamanship, is to make haste, be quick.


So far nothing?

Lets try "arms":

ARMS, n. plu. [L. arma.]

1. Weapons of offense, or armor for defense and protection of the body.
2. War; hostility.
Arms and the man I sing.
To be in arms, to be in a state of hostility, or in a military life.
To arms is a phrase which denotes a taking arms for war or hostility; particularly, a summoning to war.
To take arms, is to arm for attack or defense.
Bred to arms denotes that a person has been educated to the profession of a soldier.
3. The ensigns armorial of a family; consisting of figures and colors borne in shields, banners, &c., as marks of dignity and distinction, and descending from father to son.
4. In law, arms are any thing which a man takes in his hand in anger, to strike or assault another.
5. In botany, one of the seven species of fulcra or props of plants, enumerated by Linne and others. The different species of arms or armor, are prickles, thorns, forks and stings, which seem intended to protect the plants from injury by animals. Sire arms, are such as may be charged with powder, as cannon, muskets, mortars, &c.
A stand of arms consists of a musket, bayonet, cartridge-box and belt, with a sword. But for common soldiers a sword is not necessary.
In falconry, arms are the legs of a hawk from the thigh to the foot.


So if we put them together it means exactly the same thing it means today: To support; to sustain; as, to bear a weight or burden. Weapons of offense, or armor for defense and protection of the body.

So your unreferenced quote from "Garry Wills" is meaningless when compared to what the founder wrote.

1828 Webster Dictionary - Browse 1828 => Word PRESIDE :: Search the 1828 Noah Webster's Dictionary of the English Language (FREE) :: 1828.mshaffer.com
 
There is very little to comment on here. You expect me to read entire articles on law instead of you selecting the necessary quotes and posting them then listing the resource? This is going to be a short debate as no one is going to do that.

I did select the necessary quotes. The ellipses break up the three pertinent sections I quoted from a scholarly article by Garry Wills, a distinguished, conservative history professor at Northwestern University. A link to the full article is provided in compliance with the rules of this true debate.

This post here does not count towards my three and you are in violation of the terms of the true debate in refusing directly address my points and the points I have made through sourced references. Please address my post directly.
 
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I did select the necessary quotes. The ellipses break up the three pertinent sections I quoted from a scholarly article by Garry Wills, a distinguished, conservative history professor at Northwestern University. A link to the full article is provided in compliance with the rules of this true debate.

After I was replying.

This post here does not count towards my three and you are in violation of the terms of the true debate in refusing directly address my points and the points I have made through sourced references. Please address my post directly.

No. You edited your after I started a reply. So I was in violation of nothing. Even without the quotes I most certainly did address it.
 
After I was replying.



No. You edited your after I started a reply. So I was in violation of nothing. Even without the quotes I most certainly did address it.

Haha. Ok, so then address the post after my edits. And next time I post wait at least for the edit time to expire, please, because I usually use it all making changes.

You need more patients. :D
 
Due to the misunderstanding I will add this to my previous response...

As to your source, it is one mans opinion vs the opinion of the men who were there. He is also no conservative...

However, during the 1960s and 1970s, driven by his coverage of both civil rights and the anti-Vietnam War movements, Wills became increasingly liberal. His biography of president Richard M. Nixon, Nixon Agonistes (1970) landed him on the master list of Nixon political opponents.[14] He supported Barack Obama in the 2008 Presidential Election

I have already pointed out no difference in the 1800's dictionary and his interpretation. The article is also from 1995. Lets get up to date with the legal issue.

In its June 26 decision, a 5-4 majority of the Supreme Court ruled that the Second Amendment confers an individual right to keep and bear arms, and that the D.C. provisions banning handguns and requiring firearms in the home disassembled or locked violate this right.

In the majority opinion authored by Justice Antonin Scalia, the Court first conducted a textual analysis of the operative clause, "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." The Court found that this language guarantees an individual right to possess and carry weapons. The Court examined historical evidence that it found consistent with its textual analysis. The Court then considered the Second Amendment’s prefatory clause, "[a] well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State," and determined that while this clause announces a purpose for recognizing an individual right to keep and bear arms, it does not limit the operative clause. The Court found that analogous contemporaneous provisions in state constitutions, the Second Amendment’s drafting history, and post-ratification interpretations were consistent with its interpretation of the amendment. The Court asserted that its prior precedent was not inconsistent with its interpretation.

The Court stated that the right to keep and bear arms is subject to regulation, such as concealed weapons prohibitions, limits on the rights of felons and the mentally ill, laws forbidding the carrying of weapons in certain locations, laws imposing conditions on commercial sales, and prohibitions on the carrying of dangerous and unusual weapons. It stated that this was not an exhaustive list of the regulatory measures that would be presumptively permissible under the Second Amendment.


So as much as I find Gary Wills interesting, according to the original intentions of the founders in their own words, backed up by the language from a dictionary of the time and the United States Supreme Court, His opinion is not evidence of anything other than his own conclusions.

loc.gov - Second Amendment | Law Library of Congress
Wiki - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garry_Wills
 
As to your source, it is one mans opinion vs the opinion of the men who were there. He is also no conservative...

You say this and then all you do is go on to cite Scalia. Scalia wasn't there either, and he is less qualified than Garry Wills to comment on history. You also do not directly address Wills' argument, you quotation is not on point and is no more evidence of the fact of the matter than Wills' opinion is evidence of the fact of the matter; the only difference is Wills is a disinterested, distinguished historian whereas Scalia is a partisan judge without historical credentials. You have effectively conceded this point to me. Again, I ask that you address the substance of the post or concede the point altogether.

Scalia's opinion in Heller no more determines this argument than Stevens' dissent. The Scalia majority is an example of what another distinguished historian, Saul Cornell, rejected as the "law office" approach to history. 56 UCLA L. Rev. 1095 Scalia's approach to history is shoddy and selective. The Heller majority has been roundly criticized for this filing, not merely by historians such as Prof. Cornell, Id., but also other members of the bench, such as the eminent conservative jurist Richard Posner, a quotation from his article "In Defense of Looseness" makes Scalia's failings in Heller particularly salient:

The text of the amendment, whether viewed alone or in light of the concerns that actuated its adoption, creates no right to the private possession of guns for hunting or other sport, or for the defense of person or property. It is doubtful that the amendment could even be thought to require that members of state militias be allowed to keep weapons in their homes, since that would reduce the militias' effectiveness. Suppose part of a state's militia was engaged in combat and needed additional weaponry. Would the militia's commander have to collect the weapons from the homes of militiamen who had not been mobilized, as opposed to obtaining them from a storage facility? Since the purpose of the Second Amendment, judging from its language and background, was to assure the effectiveness of state militias, an interpretation that undermined their effectiveness by preventing states from making efficient arrangements for the storage and distribution of military weapons would not make sense.
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/books/defense-looseness#

If you're not interested in addressing Wills' (or Cornell's, or Posner's) and my points about the meaning of the second amendment directly, you have de facto ceded this point. You can have one more chance and then I am moving on to the next phase of the argument, taking the keep and bear arms meaning as having been demonstrated in my favor, by virtue of your default.

I can understand why you shy away from addressing this head on, as it exposes the inherent weakness of your argument. But at least you should take the initiative to address the point in some way, rather than simply ignoring it.
 
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Addendum:
You said in your last post, "So as much as I find Gary Wills interesting, according to the original intentions of the founders in their own words, backed up by the language from a dictionary of the time and the United States Supreme Court, His opinion is not evidence of anything other than his own conclusions."
1. I have already explained in my second post that the dictionary clearly states that the militia was collective, not individual, so the roughly contemporaneous dictionary does not advance your argument, it is at best neutral and at worst actively works against you.
2. The founders in their own words have also only supported my point, since I do not dispute that the militia is comprised of "the people."
3. Furthermore, I have demonstrated by multiple sourced academic articles that the phrase "keep and bear arms" was understood by the founders to have a technical meaning that contradicts your argument and supports mine. You have failed to rebut this argument directly.
 
Addendum:
You said in your last post, "So as much as I find Gary Wills interesting, according to the original intentions of the founders in their own words, backed up by the language from a dictionary of the time and the United States Supreme Court, His opinion is not evidence of anything other than his own conclusions."
1. I have already explained in my second post that the dictionary clearly states that the militia was collective, not individual, so the roughly contemporaneous dictionary does not advance your argument, it is at best neutral and at worst actively works against you.
2. The founders in their own words have also only supported my point, since I do not dispute that the militia is comprised of "the people."
3. Furthermore, I have demonstrated by multiple sourced academic articles that the phrase "keep and bear arms" was understood by the founders to have a technical meaning that contradicts your argument and supports mine. You have failed to rebut this argument directly.

2. Participants may not post their next argument until their opponent has had a chance to post a rebuttal. The exception would be when a further post is needed due to character limit, in which case end the post with "Continued due to character limit".

This debate is over.
 
I ran out of edit time and posted an addendum. You chose to wrap yourself in the rules now? Ha! No doubt because you are losing. Poor sportsmanship indeed. I'll await a ruling from the mods before i post my conclusion.
 
I ran out of edit time and posted an addendum. You chose to wrap yourself in the rules now? Ha! No doubt because you are losing. Poor sportsmanship indeed. I'll await a ruling from the mods before i post my conclusion.

Not wrapping myself in anything and I am far from loosing. You should not have posted anything at all until you were done, period. I was done and you asked me to add on the first time. I did not want to as again it was your fault.

If you do not want to follow the rules then stick to the regular forums. Otherwise there is no reason for a true debate with rules.

It will make no difference what the moderators say because I am done. Although I am certain they will say the same thing.
 
Moderator's Warning:
This thread is concluded. For clarity, it is considered a violation of the debate rules to post additional comments even after the time to edit a post has passed. Due to debate rules being violated there will not be a poll deciding a winner.
 
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