I suggest you stop pretending that the second amendment is something other than a restriction on a government that was never given any power in this area to start with
Your interpretation fails. In every other instance in the bill of rights "the people" refers to individuals and their individual rights. It is not used to mean the states, the states when referred to are specifically called to as such, so it doesn't refer to state powers. It limits the feds power to restrict the individual right to keep and bear arms. The 14th amendment applies that same restriction as against the states. See Heller, McDonald, and Bruen.
Except the text is unambiguous, and so their motivations don't actually come in to it. The text itself is a prefatory and operative clause pairing, and has the normal result of such a configuration IE you can read the operative clause by itself and get the same result. The operative clause refers to an individual right to keep and bear arms.
To prevent the federal government from limiting the individual right to keep and bear arms. Like the rest of the bill of rights, it takes powers away from the federal government and puts up strong limitations on what actions it may take even in accordance with its Art 1 Sec 8 grant of powers. That is the entire purpose of the bill of rights. As stated. See Heller, McDonald, and Bruen.
The reason was that they wanted to ensure that the States wouldn't neglect the militias, as some states were already doing, due to their distrust of a standing army. So by affirming the right of the people to form part of militias, they would encourage states to care for their needs. The 2nd A is much more about militias than it is about arms. Since they didn't want to give the appearance that they were meddling in affairs that belonged to the states, they used wording to emphasize the right of the people to organize and fight to protect the Union. There is more about this topic in this other thread http://www.politicalforum.com/index.php?threads/history-101-why-the-2nd-amendment.586263/
You're correct that the original 2A is a restriction on federal government. Where you're wrong is what restriction on federal government the original 2A entails.
You're right. The original 2A was more about regulations (, er, you may want to use the word formulation) of state militias than it is about arms. I don't get nearly the agreement as I've gotten from you on the meaning of the original 2A.
"The people" certainly doesn't mean the federal government. I you really think about it, your interpretation of the original 2A grants all kinds of power to the federal government by allowing 2A to establish 'universal arms rights for Americans'.
The text is ambiguous. The first 12 words of 2A deal with regulations of state militias and the last 13 words deal with not infringing on the rights of the people. That's why you need to read the motivations and the arguments which led up to the passage of 2A by the first Senate.
I'm not at all interested in bastardized interpretations of the original 2A by much later versions of SCOTUS.
At the time of the ratification of 2A, keep arms meant using arms not in war-time situations and bear arms meant using arms in war-time situations. Why did some of the last 13 words of 2A use the phrase 'keep and bear arms shall not be infringed' if the wording was to ensure the people organized state militias to organize and fight to protect the union, er, just the bearing of arms???Why not use the phraseology bear arms instead of keep and bear arms in 2A?
I didn't say the people was the federal ****ing government. Quote me otherwise. the people as used in the bill of rights always refers to the rights of the individual persons that make up the nation. Additionally: No, it simply prevents the federal government from establishing and laws infringing on the right to keep and bear arms of the individual persons. No fed gun laws is what it says. The 14th amendment pushes that same restriction to the states. What recognizes, not establishes, the universal right of americans to keep and bear arms is the 2a, yes. That's its function. That right predates and preexists the constitution, see Cruickshank.
It doesn't grant them power post incorporation either. The 2a establishes they have no power. 14a adds that restriction to the states. That means neither of those groups has power over gun laws, and the preexisting right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. Subtle distinction.
Keep means to possess ready for use. A shop keep. A lighthouse keeper. To keep house. to POSSESS and CARRY ready for use ; to keep and bear. It wasn't to ensure state militias. It was to recognize explicitly the right of the people to keep and bear arms and to stress that that right shall not be infringed by the federal government. Later, 14th amendment incorporation requires that same restriction be applied against the states. See Cruickshank, Heller, McDonald, Bruen.
The first 12 words are the prefatory clause. The last 13 are the operative clause. A prefatory clause has no operation to effect, change, alter, add to, or take away from, the operative clause. You can read the operative clause by itself and secure the same meaning. The text is not ambiguous. Its crystal clear according to the rules of grammar existing at the time in the language it was written in. See Heller.
Which is why you're there to look at the rules of grammar cited in the citations of the holding. Take it from the linguistics of the day.
The whole idiom "keep and bear arms" had a very specific meaning in the minds of any average educated person in the 18th Century. It's inseparable into the independent words that conform it, and it unequivocally indicated that they are referring to a military scenario. The "keep" part referred to "maintaining the arms clean and proper working condition". Pretty much like the word "housekeeping" means "keeping a house clean and in good condition". For the idiom "keep and bear arms" to refer to anything other than a military scenario, a qualifier would be necessary. For example "keep and bear arms for hunting and the defense of themselves and their country". Linguists used two databases that contain every single document (books. newspaper articles, letters, poems, ...) written at the time, and found that 100% of the time, the expression "keep and bear arms" with no qualifier, referred to a military-type scenario. In fact, any sentence with "keep" and "bear" within four words of the word "arms" (eliminating obvious irrelevant phrases like "she couldn't bear looking at his arms", or "he hugged her in his arms like a bear"...), the terms were a reference to military-type scenarios except in only 2% of the cases. A more expanded explanation of the investigations is here. http://www.politicalforum.com/index.php?threads/english-102-to-keep-and-bear-arms.586083/ As a matter of fact, the expression "keep and bear arms", had that same meaning ALWAYS until very very recently in which NRA propaganda has tried to re-define it. Even in 1995, a quote by historian Garry Wills “One does not bear arms against a rabbit” was wildly understood to be sarcastic.
Article I, Section 8, Clause 18 Write it down on a Post It Note and glue it to your monitor. So you don't forget it again. However, that has NOTHING to do with this thread.
