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"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."
Regardless of whether you are an untra leftwing person that believes no one should be armed with anything more deadly than a butter knife, or a hardcore gun enthusiast that thinks the government shouldn't be able in any way to limit access to weaponry, the Second Amendment should have been better written.
My point is there should not be very much left to interpretation. I disagree with people who think that it is a virtue that the Constitution is a "living document" that can be reinterpreted many different ways based on the whims and feelings of the people living in a particular era. I consider that a flaw. The Constitution should have been written in such a way that there would be no ambiguity, no room for widely varied opinions on what it meant.
There should not be a scenario where it is necessary to have highly trained legal scholars explain a short government document, and it certainly should not be the case that many different highly trained legal scholars end up with very different interpretations. It should be very clearly defined so that even the lowest lay person would understand what the document meant. Any debate about the document should be about the merits of its principals rather than what the document actually means.
Some parts of the Constitution are clearly defined such as the minimal age requirements of members of Congress. Other parts though, including the Second Amendment, are up to interpretation, and I think it has less to do with the genius of the Founding Fathers wanting a living document that will morph with the sentiments of the changing times and more to do with our Founding Fathers intentionally making it vague enough so that they could get the damn thing ratified without too many objections, and it leads to the kinds of debates that we have today.
The Second Amendment should have clearly defined the following items:
Regardless of whether you are an untra leftwing person that believes no one should be armed with anything more deadly than a butter knife, or a hardcore gun enthusiast that thinks the government shouldn't be able in any way to limit access to weaponry, the Second Amendment should have been better written.
My point is there should not be very much left to interpretation. I disagree with people who think that it is a virtue that the Constitution is a "living document" that can be reinterpreted many different ways based on the whims and feelings of the people living in a particular era. I consider that a flaw. The Constitution should have been written in such a way that there would be no ambiguity, no room for widely varied opinions on what it meant.
There should not be a scenario where it is necessary to have highly trained legal scholars explain a short government document, and it certainly should not be the case that many different highly trained legal scholars end up with very different interpretations. It should be very clearly defined so that even the lowest lay person would understand what the document meant. Any debate about the document should be about the merits of its principals rather than what the document actually means.
Some parts of the Constitution are clearly defined such as the minimal age requirements of members of Congress. Other parts though, including the Second Amendment, are up to interpretation, and I think it has less to do with the genius of the Founding Fathers wanting a living document that will morph with the sentiments of the changing times and more to do with our Founding Fathers intentionally making it vague enough so that they could get the damn thing ratified without too many objections, and it leads to the kinds of debates that we have today.
The Second Amendment should have clearly defined the following items:
- Is it intended for the maintenance of a militia only?
- Is it intended to still provide protections in the event that militias have been rendered obsolete by modern permanent armies?
- Is it intended for protection against a foreign enemy?
- Is it intended for protection against an internal enemy (i.e., the local, state, or federal government itself)?
- Is it intended for home defense against petty criminals?
- Is it intended to provide ALL people with the right to bear arms (i.e., convicted criminals, children, the mentally ill etc...)
- Does the Second Amendment allow local governments to pass any type of regulation or restriction on the sale or manufacturer of firearms?
- Does the right to bear arms extend to every location (i.e., court rooms, private businesses, public transportation, schools, churches etc...)?
- Which types of arms are actually we allowed to bear? (i.e., rifles, handguns, hand held rocket launchers, cannons etc...)?
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