whoah! i just had an epiphany!!

[DFSniper]

well, im working on a speech on reinterpreting the second amendment once an for all, and i just about kicked myself! i'll explain in a minute.

“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.”

that is the wording in the 2nd amendment.

“The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed; a well-armed and well-regulated militia being the best security of a free country; but no person religiously scrupulous of baring arms shall be compelled to render military service in person.”

thats pretty much what madison's original draft of the 2nd amendment looked like. at first glance they look almost completely different. but watch this:

“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.”

or

“A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state[and] the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.”

all these years our government has been arguing over a little discrepancy in the use of grammar and punctuation.

[marvin-martian]

welcome to many modern constitutional issues

[DFSniper]

i cant believe it took me this long to figure it out. i dont know if i should feel smart or dumb...

[marvin-martian]

there are alot of trivial things like that which people are fighting over. take illegal immigration for example. somewhere in the constitution it says something along the lines of "everyone living in a state has rights blah blah blah" when they wrote this, there was no such thing as an illegal immigrant, and they could never predict a problem like this, yet people found that one sentence and are using it.