“The right to bear arms”
Thursday, June 26th by carlaBill Poser approaches the Second Amendment in his blog, Language and the Law from a linguistic perspective. He focuses on whether the phrase “to bear arms” was intended to mean military use of weapons solely, or whether the Founders intended the phrase to include personal ownership of firearms.
Poser writes:
Among the numerous amicus briefs submitted is the so-called “Linguists’ Brief”, written by Dennis E. Baron, Richard W. Bailey, and Jeffrey P. Kaplan. This brief argues that the Second Amendment protects only a public right on two grounds: the afore-mentioned interpretation of the leading clause, and the argument that the expression “bear arms” refers only to the organized military use of arms, not to individual use. They claim that the term “bear arms” is “an idiomatic expression that means ‘to serve as a soldier, do military service’”.
To assess the merits of the “Linguists’ Brief,” Poser turns to the texts of the time to see what the phrase meant at the time the Bill of Rights was written. He concludes:
… while the Linguists’ Brief may well reflect the view of the meaning of “bear arms” in 1791 formed on the basis of its authors experience reading material from that period, there appear to be clear and convincing examples of the use of this term in an individual, non-military, sense. The characterization of such examples in the Brief as anomalous is not supported by any sort of scientific linguistic analysis.
Among my high school students in this part of the country, the Second Amendment is cherished. Writing research papers … not so much. I’m planning to bookmark this blog as an example of why we research and why we write. Maybe this blog post will demonstrate the value of the process in a way the textbook examples (with due respect to the writers of textbooks) just don’t.
Breaking news: Supreme Court rules against DC gun ban (@ CNN) (@ Fox)
