Gunny!

Just one more thought for the day, and something I'm been pondering for awhile.

In the big gun debate amid our current culture, I'm not hearing much, if anything, about the conditional phrase which begins the Second Amendment. Let's consider the full amendment:

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.

While it seems that that first comma might be a mistake grammatically (and was later removed in the version ratified by the states), the "well regulated Militia" part is interesting. I find that entire phrase to the second comma ignored in most Second Amendment discussions. Now, we know that a big intention of this amendment had to do with us liberating ourselves from England and remaining liberated. Not just from England but any other country or collective that wished to take us back over. So, I get why we should all have the right to be armed. But that "well regulated" part....isn't that what many of us want to achieve through Congress now? I admit, it's a tricky amendment to parse, especially in modern times, but I also think there might have just been some future-proofing in what our ancestors put down.

I've been thinking about this more, because the most recent episode of "Real Time with Bill Maher" contained a piece where Bill suggested a re-write of the Second Amendment. Being from Maher, it took a comical turn, but he took the concept seriously. I think the idea of re-writing our Constitution, especially the first ten amendments, is a dangerous one. Once you re-write one, you can introduce legislation to re-write any of them. And then we would be in trouble.

That's my gunny two cents for the day.