• Maggoty@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    You can deny it all you want. The Etymology is clear. If they wanted to write it as “healthy” or “well oiled” they would have. Instead they used the word that meant to control by rules since the Roman Empire.

    • FireTower@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      They also could have written “limited” but they didn’t. The people at the time widely understood it to refer to a militia attended to, to ensure it efficacious. The regulations they had at the time were there to ensure they were well trained and armed. See the militia acts of 1792 & 1795 or for example or any of the other many acts from the period like 1786 N.H. Laws 409-10, An Act for Forming and Regulating the Militia within this State,. Which provided:

      [E]very non-commissioned officer and soldier, both in the alarm list and training band, shall be provided, and have constantly in readiness, a good musket, and a bayonet fitted thereto, with a good scabbard and belt, a worm, priming-wire and brush, a cartridge-box that will hold at least twenty-four rounds, six flints, and a pound of powder, forty leaden balls fitted to his gun, a knap sack, a blanket, and a canteen that will hold one quart.

      When they wanted their militias well regulated they meant this.

      • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        So you have polling from 1792 to cite? For the word being widely understood to mean something other than what it actually means?

        • FireTower@lemmy.world
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          3 months ago

          If you go to the hyperlink above you can search for how regulating militia was used across the states during the founding period. They universally share the same efficacious meaning.

          • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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            3 months ago

            I’m going to trust the etymologists on this one. It’s literally their field of study. You don’t go to a mathematician for chemistry, and you don’t go to a lawyer for history.

            ETA- I had an extra moment so I took it for a spin and found this. I’m sure they’re just talking about how freely you can transport explosives…

            • FireTower@lemmy.world
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              3 months ago

              Entymologist notable studiers of the field of law not lawyers. You do go to lawyers for historical case law because that is the exact thing they’ve studied for their doctorate.

              And that isn’t analogous to militia regulation but rather cargo transportation restrictions similar to fire safety laws. Again betraying, that legal knowledge is actually helpful in understanding law. Rather than say a bastardized perversion of etymology used to confirm preexisting notions.

              I’m sure they’re just talking about how freely you can transport explosives…

              But for your sarcasm this would have been your most salient thought in the thread.

              • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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                3 months ago

                Oh, I’m sorry. It only means your special meaning in the one special place you want to reference it?

                No. It’s fucking debunked. It was understood to mean regulations in the exact same way we mean it today. In law and in common usage.

                • FireTower@lemmy.world
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                  3 months ago

                  Read more write less.

                  That novel theory fails on so many merits. Such as why would they have felt a need to specify that aspects at the time? Under the proper interpretation it make perfect sense as some states had failed to maintain an effective militia. As another commentor pointed out, the original interpretation of the word survives today:

                  On matters of law that view had been invalidated before its inception. In the words of early justice Joseph Story:

                  The importance of this article will scarcely be doubted by any persons, who have duly reflected upon the subject. The militia is the natural defence of a free country against sudden foreign invasions, domestic insurrections, and domestic usurpations of power by rulers. It is against sound policy for a free people to keep up large military establishments and standing armies in time of peace, both from the enormous expenses, with which they are attended, and the facile means, which they afford to ambitious and unprincipled rulers, to subvert the government, or trample upon the rights of the people. The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered, as the palladium of the liberties of a republic; since it offers a strong moral check against the usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers; and will generally, even if these are successful in the first instance, enable the people to resist and triumph over them. And yet, though this truth would seem so clear, and the importance of a well regulated militia would seem so undeniable, it cannot be disguised, that among the American people there is a growing indifference to any system of militia discipline, and a strong disposition, from a sense of its burthens, to be rid of all regulations. How it is practicable to keep the people duly armed without some organization, it is difficult to see. There is certainly no small danger, that indifference may lead to disgust, and disgust to contempt; and thus gradually undermine all the protection intended by this clause of our national bill of rights.

                  • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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                    3 months ago

                    The original meaning is to create rules. Well functioning devices wasn’t associated with it until 1660. Nobody is saying that’s not one of the meanings. But it’s meant to create rules since the literal Roman empire, and as I’ve demonstrated was used that way legally by our founding fathers.

                    The founding fathers were famously divided on federal power. The 2nd amendment is their compromise. Meant to be read in plain English. It doesn’t need partisan spin. If I cared though I could go find the other side to it but I don’t need to. They made sure of that by putting it in writing and cherry picking stuff isn’t going to change that.