Eric S. Raymond · @esrtweet
23rd Jul 2012 from Twitlonger
@IJasonAlexander There are numerous factual and logical problems with your post.
One is your reading of the Second Amendment's militia clause, which is mistaken in at least three ways.
One is that the clause is restrictive rather than explanatory, and thus limits firearms ownership to militia members. That was not its intention, and courts have not so interpreted it. In historical context, it was an explanatory clause added because of previous debates about whether religious pacifists were subject to militia call-up.
Second, you misunderstand "well regulated". In the English of the time it did not mean controlled by governmental authority, it meant "well trained" - that is, able to perform close-order drill and the elaborate loading sequence required before percussion-cap firearms.
Thirdly, the clause applied to both the organized and unorganized militia; the latter being defined at the time as "the entire body of the people capable of bearing arms".
Thus, in modern English, the militia clause of the Second Amendment would read "Citizens well-trained in the use of firearms being necessary to the security of a free state".
Today under Federal code title 10, the unorganized militia consists of all males between the ages of 17 and 45, a smaller category. So even if the militia clause were restrictive, it would have little to no actual effect. Technically, given the wording of Federal Title 10, it might be construed to limit the right to able-bodied males between 17 and 45, but no court has taken this position.
But the restrictive reading of this clause is a twentieth-century invention, both false to fact and dishonest. The intention of the Second Amendment was to protect an individual right to bear arms (including military-grade arms) for defense of self and country.
The Supreme Court reaffirmed this right in the 2008 Heller vs. DC ruling, and it is settled law.
You ask why pro-fireams-rights people won't engage in what you think is a "reasonable" debate over "reasonable" restrictions. The truth is this: we have been radicalized by decades of lies, manipulation, and bad faith on the other side.
The distortion of the militia clause to try to make it restrictive in a way the framers of the Constitution never intended is an example, and not by any means the worst.