Stephen wrote:
> In what way? 

See my response to Warp's question posted 13 minutes before yours. It should 
clear up what I meant.

> your second amendment to be what they want it to mean by abbreviating it 

Not abbreviating it.

There's two valid sentences:
"Driving the cars that are green shall be illegal."
"Driving the cars, which are green, shall be illegal."

The first limits the cars being discussed to those with green paint. The 
second merely mentions that the cars are green without limiting the sentence 
to green cars.

The actual text reads
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.

Now that's just not grammatically correct. The first half of the sentence 
(before the second comma) is just kind of stuck on the front. So people in 
favor of control read the first half as putting a limit on the second half 
(else why would it be there?) while people in favor of freedom say that it's 
merely an explanation of why the government shouldn't interfere.

The version the 3/4ths of the states actually ratified essentially lacks the 
first comma there, so it's even less clear.

You could read it as "Since we need a militia, government should not 
regulate firearms." Does that mean that it shouldn't regulate fire arms and 
the reason is we need a militia? Or does that mean it shouldn't regulate the 
firearms of the militia?  There's a lot of argument because "The People" is 
used in specific ways in other places in the consitution as well, and those 
other places have been interpreted to mean the people here without 
limitation, rather than with the limitations from the clauses stuck on the 
front of *those* sentences.

Check out wiki for some of the other phrasings that were much more clear 
that weren't used for whatever reason. For example, the first versions 
explicitly said the militia is made up of the body of the people.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution

"""
The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed; a well 
armed and well regulated militia being the best security of a free country 
but no person religiously scrupulous of bearing arms shall be compelled to 
render military service in person.
"""

It is, overall, a mess, and one that's highly politicized at that.

> Yes it is quite succinctly put. (I was just joshing the legal profession.)

Yes. It's saying "this is not a tax on stuff, but a general tax." :-)

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   I ordered stamps from Zazzle that read "Place Stamp Here".

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