Melanie RockyFord <spoofeddatnospam@RockyFord.not> wrote in
news:Xns98F8806A9E636spoofedatnospamRocki@216.196.97.142:

http://www.pulpless.com/stopsamp.html#UNABRIDG

The Unabridged Second Amendment

If you wanted to know all about the Big Bang, you'd ring up Carl Sagan,
right? And if you wanted to know about desert warfare, the man to call
would be Norman Schwarzkopf, no question about it. But who would you
call if you wanted the top expert on American usage, to tell you the
meaning of the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution?

The 2A don't mean nothin'. It's so vaguely written, you can read anything
you want into it. Most of the BOR is like that though americans are too
dumb to see it.

On Mar 19, 10:37 am, Melanie RockyFord
<spoofeddatnos...@RockyFord.not> wrote:

http://www.pulpless.com/stopsamp.html#UNABRIDG

The Unabridged Second Amendment

If you wanted to know all about the Big Bang, you'd ring up Carl Sagan,
right? And if you wanted to know about desert warfare, the man to call
would be Norman Schwarzkopf, no question about it. But who would you
call if you wanted the top expert on American usage, to tell you the
meaning of the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution?

That was the question I asked A.C. Brocki, Editorial Coordinator of the
Los Angeles Unified School District and formerly senior editor at
Houghton Mifflin Publishers - who himself had been recommended to me as
the foremost expert on English usage in the Los Angeles school system.
Mr. Brocki told me to get in touch with Roy Copperud, a retired
professor of journalism at the University of Southern California and
the author of American Usage and Style: The Consensus.

A little research lent support to Brocki's opinion of Professor
Copperud's expertise.

Roy Copperud was a newspaper writer on major dailies for over three
decades before embarking on a distinguished seventeen-year career
teaching journalism at USC. Since 1952, Copperud has been writing a
column dealing with the professional aspects of journalism for Editor
and Publisher, a weekly magazine focusing on the journalism field.

He's on the usage panel of the American Heritage Dictionary, and
Merriam Webster's Usage Dictionary frequently cites him as an expert.
Copperud's fifth book on usage, American Usage and Style: The
Consensus, has been in continuous print from Van Nostrand Reinhold
since 1981, and is the winner of the Association of American
Publishers' Humanities Award.

That sounds like an expert to me.

After a brief telephone call to Professor Copperud in which I
introduced myself but did not give him any indication of why I was
interested, I sent the following letter on July 26, 1991:

I am writing you to ask you for your professional opinion as an expert
in English usage, to analyze the text of the Second Amendment to the
United States Constitution, and extract the intent from the text.

The text of the Second Amendment is, "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 debate over this amendment has been whether the first part of the
sentence, "A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security
of a free State," is a restrictive clause or a subordinate clause,
with respect to the independent clause containing the subject of the
sentence, "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be
infringed."

I would request that your analysis of this sentence not take into
consideration issues of political impact or public policy, but be
restricted entirely
to a linguistic analysis of its meaning and intent. Further, since your
professional analysis will likely become part of litigation regarding
the consequences of the Second Amendment, I ask that whatever
analysis you make be a
professional opinion that you would be willing to stand behind with
your reputation, and even be willing to testify under oath to support,
if necessary.

My letter framed several questions about the text of the Second
Amendment, then concluded:

I realize that I am asking you to take on a major responsibility and
task with this letter. I am doing so because, as a citizen, I believe
it is vitally important to extract the actual meaning of the Second
Amendment. While I ask that your analysis not be affected by the
political importance of its results, I ask that you do this because of
that importance.

After several more letters and phone calls, in which we discussed terms
for his doing such an analysis, but in which we never discussed either
of our opinions regarding the Second Amendment, gun control, or any
other political subject, Professor Copperud sent me the following
analysis (into which I've inserted my questions for the sake of
clarity):

[Copperud:] The words "A well-regulated militia, being necessary to
the security of a free state," contrary to the interpretation cited in
your letter of July 26, 1991, constitute a present participle, rather
than a clause. It is used as an adjective, modifying "militia," which
is followed by the main clause of the sentence (subject "the right,"
verb "shall"). The right to keep and bear arms is asserted as
essential for maintaining a militia.

In reply to your numbered questions:

[Schulman: (1) Can the sentence be interpreted to grant the right to
keep and bear arms solely to "a well-regulated militia"?;]

[Copperud:] (1) The sentence does not restrict the right to keep and
bear arms, nor does it state or imply possession of the right
elsewhere or by others than the people; it simply makes a positive
statement with respect to a right of the people.

[Schulman: (2) Is "the right of the people to keep and bear arms"
granted by the words of the Second Amendment, or does the Second
Amendment assume a preexisting right of the people to keep and bear
arms, and merely state that such right "shall not be infringed"?;]

[Copperud:] (2) The right is not granted by the amendment; its
existence is assumed. The thrust of the sentence is that the right
shall be preserved inviolate for the sake of ensuring a militia.

[Schulman: (3) Is the right of the people to keep and bear arms
conditioned upon whether or not a well-regulated militia is, in fact,
necessary to the security of a free State, and if that condition is
not existing, is the statement "the right of the people to keep and
bear Arms, shall not be infringed"
null and void?;]

[Copperud:] (3) No such condition is expressed or implied. The right
to keep and bear arms is not said by the amendment to depend on the
existence of a militia. No condition is stated or implied as to the
relation of the right to keep and bear arms and to the necessity of a
well-regulated militia as requisite to the security of a free state.
The right to keep and bear arms is deemed
unconditional by the entire sentence.

[Schulman: (4) Does the clause "A well-regulated Militia, being
necessary to the security of a free State," grant a right to the
government to place conditions on the "right of the people to keep and
bear arms," or is such right deemed unconditional by the meaning of the
entire sentence?;]

[Copperud:] (4) The right is assumed to exist and to be unconditional,
as previously stated. It is invoked here specifically for the sake of
the militia.

[Schulman: (5) Which of the following does the phrase "well-regulated
militia" mean: "well-equipped," "well-organized," "well-drilled,"
"well-educated,"
or "subject to regulations of a superior authority"?]

[Copperud:] (5) The phrase means "subject to regulations of a superior
authority"; this accords with the desire of the writers for civilian
control over
the military.

[Schulman: If at all possible, I would ask you to take into account
the changed meanings of words, or usage, since that sentence was
written two-hundred
years ago, but not to take into account historical interpretations of
the intents of the authors, unless those issues can be clearly
separated.]

[Copperud:] To the best of my knowledge, there has been no change in
the meaning of words or in usage that would affect the meaning of the
amendment. If it were written today, it might be put: "Since a
well-regulated militia is necessary to the security of a free state,
the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be abridged."

[Schulman:] As a "scientific control" on this analysis, I would also
appreciate it if you could compare your analysis of the text of the
Second Amendment
to the following sentence,

"A well-schooled electorate, being necessary to the security of a free
State, the right of the people to keep and read Books, shall not be
infringed."

My questions for the usage analysis of this sentence would be,

(1) Is the grammatical structure and usage of this sentence, and the
way the words modify each other, identical to the Second Amendment's
sentence?; and

(2) Could this sentence be interpreted to restrict "the right of the
people to keep and read Books" only to "a well-educated electorate" -
for example, registered voters with a high-school diploma?]

[Copperud:] (1) Your "scientific control" sentence precisely parallels
the amendment in grammatical structure.

(2) There is nothing in your sentence that either indicates or implies
the possibility of a restricted interpretation.

Professor Copperud had only one additional comment, which he placed in
his cover letter: "With well-known human curiosity, I made some
speculative efforts to decide how the material might be used, but was
unable to reach any conclusion."

So now we have been told by one of the top experts on American usage
what many knew all along: the Constitution of the United States
unconditionally protects the people's right to keep and bear arms,
forbidding all government formed under the Constitution from abridging
that right.

As I write this, the attempted coup against constitutional government
in the Soviet Union has failed, apparently because the will of the
people in that part of the world to be free from capricious tyranny is
stronger than the old guard's desire to maintain a monopoly on
dictatorial power.

And here in the United States, elected lawmakers, judges, and appointed
officials who are pledged to defend the Constitution of the United
States ignore,
marginalize, or prevaricate about the Second Amendment routinely.
American citizens are put in American prisons for carrying arms,
owning arms of forbidden sorts, or failing to satisfy bureaucratic
requirements regarding the owning
and carrying of firearms - all of which is an abridgement of the
unconditional ...

read more »

Leif speaking: There are a couple of reasons why this sentence is not
parallel in structure to that of the Second Amendment:

"A well-schooled electorate, being necessary to the security of a free
State, the right of the people to keep and read Books, shall not be
infringed."

In the first place, "read Books," has no figurative meaning like that
of "bear arms," the figurative meaning of which in military use is
"serve as a soldier."

In the second place, if you want to subscribe
to an "individual rights" interpretation of the Second Amendment,