“This comment is in response to your column in the June 2024 Firearms News. In the article dissecting the wording of the Second Amendment the breakdown that allowed for a prefatory and an operative clause is based on where the comma is placed,” a comment submitted to my website, The War on Guns: Notes from the Resistance, began. “A long time ago – I’ll be 80 next year – it was pointed out to me that the Second Amendment had no punctuation in it. Meant to be read and understood as a single thought. A statement if you will. Of course, I haven’t that copy any more. My current Pocket Declaration and Constitution has 3 commas in its Second Amendment. If this can be shown to be the case it would be a great help. I’m sending this to you as it is beyond my means to ferret out the answer to this.”
“I’m going to answer this, but not here because I keep comments on topic,” I replied. It’s one of the rules on my site: I don’t let the topic I am offering for discussion get hijacked and redirected. If readers don’t see what they want to talk about offered, I’m easy enough to contact and am generally pleased to give their suggestion a spot of its own. That’s the case here; it escalated to an AmmoLand article because I believe it merits wider attention.
The first stop will be the National Archives, where they present the text as:
Amendment II
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.
They also posted a photo of the Bill of Rights that can be enlarged, and in that earlier version it was “Article the fourth.” It’s faded and tough to read, but an enlargement shows three.
There are a lot of articles you can find online about the commas, but one I find useful is “A Constitutional Conundrum of Second Amendment Commas” by William W. Van Alstyne of William & Mary Law School. That’s in no small part because it quotes writer, actor, investigative reporter, and Emmy-winning, Oscar-nominated producer (Waco, The Rules of Engagement) Dan Gifford, whom I’ve known since my early 2A activism days in Southern California:
“I raised some questions the other day about whether the different number of commas used in the Second Amendment make any difference in its meaning. Essentially, the older written versions I’ve seen in books – like Joseph Story’s – have one while more recent ones use three. I’m told the version on public display in Washington, DC has three, but that that is an anomaly to others of the period and to those sent around for ratification.”
This is where the conundrum comes in.
“[O]ne may raise a perfectly reasonable question as to what now shall we say as to the ‘authentic’ text of the Second Amendment? Van Alstyne asked. “Is it the text as approved in Congress, or is it the different text as approved by the requisite number of state legislatures (the ‘difference’ being precisely in the difference of one comma or more, neither more nor less)? And if one genuinely wants to pursue this particular matter even more rigorously, if we hold that there is a (meaningful?) difference between (a) the amendment as approved by Congress and (b) the ‘different’ amendment as approved by the state legislatures, then perhaps it is entirely possible that there is no Second Amendment as such.”
“As I understand it, you’re basically saying that it’s pointless to worry overmuch about typographic inconsistencies, and you’re also alluding to some people’s tendency to find any means, however unsound, to try to nullify the Second Amendment,” Prof. Eugene Volokh responded. “But my sense is that at least some of our readers won’t grasp this and will either think you’re making a serious argument about the possible invalidity of the Amendment, or a serious argument that the gun-control forces would indeed make such an argument.”
“My personal ‘point’ was neither to provide ammunition for the pro-gun-control forces as such nor necessarily to suggest (on the other hand) that ‘it’s pointless’ to worry overmuch about typographic inconsistencies,” Van Alstyne responded. But the bottom line is he has a point, and an inconsistency exists (more than one as a footnote documents, with St. George Tucker coming up with a different comment placement (after “keep”) in his View of the Constitution of the United States).
There’s still one factor not being considered though, even if such a “bold thought” should be more widely advanced by opportunistic violence monopolists trying to play “Gotcha!” with transcription glitches. As the Supreme Court Heller majority noted:
“The very text of the Second Amendment implicitly recognizes the pre-existence of the right and declares only that it ‘shall not be infringed.’ As we said in United States v. Cruikshank, ‘[t]his is not a right granted by the Constitution. Neither is it in any manner dependent upon that instrument for its existence.”
In other words, if a tyrannical government does repeal the Second Amendment, it will not take away our right to keep and bear arms. Only we can give that up.
We know the Democrats would like to. That they haven’t dared try to go all the way, more than anything else, shows the Second Amendment is still working. That fills them with frustrated rage, and more than anything else, with fear.
Never forget that. Those who demand to rule you are scared of you. That’s why they hate you, that’s why they disparage you as racists and domestic terrorists, and that’s why they want to destroy you, knowing full well that they can’t cross the Rubicon without finding they’ve roused the wrong sleeping giant.
About David Codrea:
David Codrea is the winner of multiple journalist awards for investigating/defending the RKBA and a long-time gun owner rights advocate who defiantly challenges the folly of citizen disarmament. He blogs at “The War on Guns: Notes from the Resistance,” is a regularly featured contributor to Firearms News, and posts on Twitter: @dcodrea and Facebook.
“shall not be infringed”This phrase is the most screwed with words in the Constitution. This statement alone makes any law concerning firearms UN-Constitutional! Plain and simple! End of Discussion!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!.
The only controversy…Is why? ‘We the People” haven’t dealt with those who strive to deny them their Rights. As did the Founding Fathers, because until that day comes the attacks will never cease and the danger will still exist.
Yes, all of our prepolitical Rights are God given. The Constitution only recognizes and promises to defend those Rights. If granted by man, then man could diminish, abridge, or infringe on those Rights, but man can not take away what God had granted.
The Bible itself is at risk for “isogesis,” taking one phrase from scripture for interpretation without putting it in context of the rest of scripture.
The Constitution and the Bill of Rights and be considered in the same manner. The rights exist in total to protect the citizen from a tyrannical government.
The second Amendment is noted because of people like Obama, Biden, Soros and their weaponized agents .
The Author is absolutely right about whether the Government can or cannot Take Away Your Rights. Only You can make that decision! Always Know the decision is Yours!
Good article. Fully agree that only WE THE PEOPLE can give up our rights!!! In the meantime, I intend to fully exercise every right I have for the rest of my life!!!
I am so tired of the BS. It’s not only my God given right to protect myself, scientists, phycologists and psychiatrists have stated that if someone does not stand to protect themselves from harm, they have a mental condition. When this information came about, sometime in the 80’s if I remember right, it was a proven science and had a name, now the left has hidden it from definition on their controlled web sites and I cannot find that it exists. Message to you democrat nuts, it’s the science, you should believe and support it like you do everything else… Read more »
Since when do words and facts and intentions matter to insurrectionists, (Democrats)? Thinking people know the truth. If conservatives weren’t too “conservative” to vote, it wouldn’t be an issue.
“That’s why they hate you, that’s why they disparage you as racists and domestic terrorists, and that’s why they want to destroy you, knowing full well that they can’t cross the Rubicon without finding they’ve roused the wrong sleeping giant.” A little side note about one of the world’s smallest but most historically important rivers, the Rubicon. In the times of the Roman Republic, the Rubicon marked the boundary between Cisapline Gaul and Italia. Commanders of legions posted outside of Italia were forbidden to bring their legion into Italia, as in by boat or by marching them across the land… Read more »
From a purely syntactical point of view, the third comma is meaningless – it holds no more value than that of a typo or archaic misspelling. So we can dismiss any effect it might have on meaning. While it might be tempting to impute a constraining meaning on the first, dependent clause (i.e. absent the first comma), which is purely prefatory and not operative in effect, or the strained construction resulting from the presence of the first comma (the cockamamie effect of which is the same as writing “A well-regulated militia, the right of the people . . .” That… Read more »