The Constitution

Incorporationista Kryptonite: Ratifying Conventions Prove 2nd Amendment Is Local

todayNovember 3, 2014 1

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Mandeville, LA  – If there remain any Incorporationistas out there, the evidence against you seems to know no end. ESPECIALLY when it applies to the Second Amendment. Congress could not have altered the Second Amendment with Amendment 14 without altering the complete understanding of Article I, Sec 8. And how do I know this? Simple, the VA Ratifying convention covered the exact scenario of federal usurpation of State militia powers and none other than future chief Justice John Marshall led the debate for the Federalists to rebut that this was even possible.

“But the worthy member [William Grayson] fears, that in one part of the Union they will be regulated and disciplined, and in another neglected. This danger is enhanced by leaving this power to each state; for some states may attend to their militia, and others may neglect them. If Congress neglect our militia we can arm them ourselves. Cannot Virginia import arms? Cannot she put them into the hands of her militia-men?”

“He [Marshall] then concluded by observing, that the power of governing the militia was not vested in the states by implication, because, being possessed of it antecedent to the adoption of the government, and not being divested of it by any grant or restriction in the Constitution, they must necessarily be as fully possessed of it as ever they had been. And it could not be said that the states derived any powers from that system, but retained them, though not acknowledged in any part of it.”

Thus the power to control a “well regulated militia” was never granted to Congress, reserving the power “to keep and bear arms” there as well. The Second Amendment then is yet a restatement of this FACT and a backup plan in case the Congress should attempt to renege on the deal. There are dozens of these debates and conclusions in the ratifying conventions and the conventions that ratified the Bill of Rights. The BOR is a check against the Feds, a backup plan for the Doctrine of Reserved Powers and as this case shows the power over arms (guns) was reserved to the states. END OF STORY.

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TheKingDude
Host of the Mike Church Show on The Veritas Radio Network's CRUSADE Channel & Founder of the Veritas Radio Network. Formerly, of Sirius/XM's Patriot channel 125. The show began in March of 2003 exclusively on Sirius and remains "the longest running radio talk show in satellite radio history".

Written by: TheKingDude

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  1. Transvaluation on November 4, 2014

    Looking at the excerpt you have listed of the time, isn’t there a double meaning of militia from the era? That of organized Army and that of unorganized common people that could be called in time of need?

    Isn’t ‘well regulated’ also of the meaning of familiar with, as the norm of usage in the agrarian society of the era?

    Haven’t there been English scholars that have dissected the Amendment and found that neither at the time nor in today’s vernacular grammar that the Militia section is not a phrase or statement but a Present Participle that the subject is ‘the right’?

    If the intention was to reserve the right of arms ownership to the State why does the amendment call out the people as the owner of the right?

    While some of these questions may seem at odds with each other, isn’t it also true that you are pulling from an individual debate in a one ratifying states discussions?

    Isn’t it also possible, as it is today in politics, that this discussion was the ‘sales job’ of the time to get ratification?

    Following your state’s rights discussion, don’t most states have within their constitutions the exact same verbiage or a close approximation of the same? For those states that have the exact verbiage of the second amendment, is it limiting the state’s execution to a local authority or to the people?

    I realize that some of this is devil’s advocate stuff, but this topic is very controversial.

    Thanks

    Jim

    • TheKingDude on November 5, 2014

      Even if there were a “double meaning” there wasn’t a person drawing breath in North America that used one other than that used in these debates.

      • Transvaluation on November 5, 2014

        To Be Clear, I listen to you every morning, and believe myself to be a [r]epublican.

        The questions I listed, I think, are valid for discussion.

        I also, look at the recent election results with hope that this huge ship of a federal leviathan with its miniscule rudder has been pushed to the right just a little.

        But I really would like to explore these questions on the Second Amendment further.

        Thanks

        Jim


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