The correct terminology for the poll would have been: The second amendment protects the right of the people to keep and bear arms?
yes___ or no___. Then there would be much less confusion.
You will note that most comments, at least when I read them were in support of the right to keep and bear arms.
Here is what I said in two consecutive posts under comments, with some editing (as I wrote them late at night & have trouble with carpal tunnel so my wording doesn't always keep up with me):
cinhil wrote: 1d 15h ago
Having studied history for over 45 years, I have personally studied the meaning of the word, militia. In all references in time the militia was referred to as , "the people."
Our founding fathers desired that the ultimate way to keep a government from becoming huge, destroying our inherent & inalienable rights, was to allow the people, the militia, to have the means whereby they, the people, could keep government in check, or to overthrow that government should it supercede, or assume responsibilities not granted to it by the constitution.
Therefore the "power" of government rests ultimately with the people, or in other words, with we the people - or militia.
Government should always be in fear of the people & respect them. It is when governments do not do this that we have the right to correct that, part of that requires that we the militia, people, have the means at our disposal to do just that.
Being able to hunt, use weapons for self defense, or for target practice are all umbrella uses as a result of this inherent right. They are also how we as people, or as militia, have been able to help keep our skills and abilities with weapons up to date since time immemorial. Take for instance the fact that in old England Sundays required the people to practice with their bows. As a result there were always units of bowmen which, as militia, would be able to be called upon to defend the country.
The second amendment guarantees us this right. In fact all of our articles in the Bill of Rights, and within the constitution guarantee the rights of the people, therefore it only makes sense that this amendment speaks of rights of the people just as all of the others. To deny this denies the constitution and makes traitors of those who abuse the people by destroying it and eliminating this inherent right.
And remember Rights are God-given and are not to be denied citizens as these are rights we have regardless of our system of government. This is what the Constitution & Bill of Rights guarantee us, and they cannot be denied us.
cinhil wrote: 1d 15h ago
I would also like to add that arms means any weapon usable by man. This would include, and indeed did during our revolution and since, till the early 20th century,private ownership of cannon, rifles, machine guns, pistols, knives, swords and many more weapons. All of these are considered "arms." Therefore to only state that the second amendment is only about guns is an erroneous and false assumption. If this right is deleted from the rights of the people what is to stop the warmongers and criminally bent from eliminating all of these arms from the people. To understand this look to England which not only has outlawed most rifles and handguns--even from Olympic Team usage, but is working on elimination of knives too. Scotland has already outlawed most knives.
When will the insanity stop?
To top it all off, the UN (run by terrorist sympathizers, dictators and megalomaniacs) has tried for many years to force the US to eliminate guns so they could regulate the usage of them. This is insane & extremely tyrannical.
Hopefully this is more in line, or in tune with what the majority of us feel concerning the subject.
Thanks for letting me share.
