The Second Amendment to the US Constitution:
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.
The wording and intent of the 2nd Amendment has been controversial down through the years, mainly because of attempts to abnegate the meaning of the Amendment by those who would wish to disarm the People. So I thought to myself, self, if you had a chance to re-write this Amendment to make it perfectly clear even to the most dedicated gun-hater that this is a fundamental human right, how would you phrase it? I came up with this:
The right of the People to own and carry arms for defense of themselves and their neighbors, either at home or while going about their daily business, shall not be infringed at any level of Government; it is also recognized that, in time of dire emergency, the People serve as a militia in defense of the country. That Government which does not trust the People with the ownership of arms should itself not be trusted, and indeed should be thought of as a tyranny.
How would you folks go about re-writing it? Just as an exercise, since I know that some of you will declare the current version doesn't need improvement.
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3 comments:
Giving lawyers words to play with is like giving matches and gasoline to an arsonist. BAD things will happen. Just keep it short... very short.
"A free people having the right to be armed, no action by governmnet shall infringe on the right of the people to own and carry weapons"
Interesting. I'd reword it "... in defense of their community and country." The Katrina example is explicit; less explicit is the Battle of Hellen, TN.
Carteach0 has a point, though.
@Borepatch, Carteach0: I think the brevity of the original is what opened the door to inventive interpretation of the 2nd. Other versions found in state constitutions are usually longer, although I must grudgingly admit that it hasn't stopped hoplophobes in the slightest.
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