On Wed, 2 Feb 2011 19:15:48 -0500
Henry E Schaffer wrote:
> My conclusion is that while "militia" means "all able bodied adults"
> (at that time it only included men), adding the modifying "well
> regulated" meant that the militia had to not only exist, it had to
> function properly - which at
Add "well regulated" with regard to piano keyboards -- all the keys have the
identical "feel" and all operate flawlessly. The terminology is still used.
*
Professor Joseph Olson, J.D., LL.M.
There is a common misconception that "regulated" meant "governed by a
gov't agency."
However there was, and still is, a very important sense of the word
which means "properly functioning."
This term is still used when referring to the point-of-aim of all the
barrels of a multi-barreled fire
You left out "the security of". But the original meaning of "militia"
translates as "defense service", an activity. In idiomatic English it
is common to make words polysemes,
and in particular, a kind of polyseme I call an actronym,
for a word that originally meant an activity and has come to a
I think that we can safely assume that the framers would not commit 10% of the
Bill of Rights to a "meaningless" right. If that is the case then which of
your presuppositions is inaccurate?
Not every state has a militia. Merely having the physical strength to fire a
gun does not make one "cap
You can find related references at least back to Charles I, who sought an
"Exact Militia." If militia is taken to mean all men capable of bearing arms,
then "a militia is necessary to a free state" is meaningless. Every state, free
or unfree, has one.
-Original Message-
>From: Greg Jac
One of the questions surrounding the Second Amendment is, what exactly
is a "well regulated" militia? So, what did the phrase "well regulated"
mean at the time? The Oxford English Dictionary has a sample. Gibbon
used it twice.
FYI, not only was that term anciently used and understood by the
Fr
I don't recall ever seeing that. I have seen militia laws which provided
arms for the poor who could not afford them, or required masters/fathers to
provide arms to servants/sons.
Steve Halbrook
In a message dated 2/1/2011 1:34:28 P.M. Eastern Standard Time,
vol...@law.ucla.edu writes:
