Gun laws are always contentiously debated. A recent NYT article by Adam Freedman sheds new light (for me at least) on the issue, going back all the way to the oft-quoted Constitution and which shows that the use and subsequent interpretation of English and, more importantly in this case, punctuation and the use of capitals can have. The Constitution states:

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.

Note the commas and the lack of capitalisation of ‘people’, both used by the two factions debating gun laws to further their argument and cause, for and against. Taking away the commas helps I think but, as the intriguing article points out, could lead to only outlaws having them!

If only we had access to The Framers to ask them what they intended when they penned (quilled?) the Constitution, and to be able to ask if they would change it now based on the current dispiriting and too-often deadly circumstances endured here.

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 16th, 2007 at 3:28 pm and is filed under Other Stuff. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.