Michael B.: yes -- case in point, me.

Keep can't mean anything by itself, so both keep and bear must apply to the same thing. If this meant anyone could have weapons, there would be no distinction between keeping and bearing and you wouldn't need both words.

"Keep" means to store weapons under some form of collective ownership.

"Bear" means to take them out of storage and practice and parade with them and do more, like use them for fighting also of course.

You should look at the text in the Articles of Confederation. (which nobody does because first few people see it, and it never was in the interests of the NRA and its supporters to make the meaning clear)

" ..but every state shall always keep up a well regulated and disciplined militia, sufficiently armed and accoutred, and shall provide and constantly have ready for use, in public stores, a due number of field pieces and tents, and a proper quantity of arms, ammunition and equipage."

- Part of Article 6 of the Articles of Confederation adopted by Congress on November 15, 1777 and effective when ratified by the 13th state, Maryland, on March 1, 1781.

This was later superceded by the 1787 Constitution of the United States, which ignored the rules for amendment
contained in the Articles of Confederation.

Now you may note that the Constitution begins with:

"We the People.."

This was not just poetic words. This was the legal justification for ignoring the terms that the Articles of Confederation had for its own amendment.

They were breaking out of it.

This is also the meaning in the Second and Tenth amendments.

Look at the Tenth amendment:

"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people."

Now a power is an act of government. It is a collective act,
and not an individual right.

The conception clearly here is that sometimes a state can exercise power - but at other times it could also be the "people" - sort of unanimous or clear consent, even if not otherwise within the franmework of pre-existing law.

The law cannot be a straightjacket.

The reason it doesn't say "state" in the second amendment is:

1) To include Vermont (whose status was unsettled in 1789)
and maybe such places as Kentucky and Tennessee.

2) To include situations where ordinary local government has broken down or is not effective. Congress cannot stop people from defending themselves from invasion or insurrection or make that a crime.

No, no, Eugene. This isn't a zeugma (or syllepsis, depending on which grammarian you're talking to) problem, it's a clarity of meaning problem.

To illustrate the difference, consider your example: "He caught three trout and a cold." There the phrase "caught three trout" has a literal meaning, but the verb *must* forsake its literal meaning to complete the sentence "caught ... a cold." In other words, the use of zeugma is clever because it is clear.

But in the Second Amendment the phrase *need not* become idiomatic to make good sense. Consider the Justice's example: "He filled and kicked the bucket." Although "to kick the bucket" has the idiomatic meaning of "to die," it also has a literal meaning. Thus the use of an idiom is not *necessary* to make the sentence work.

Moreover, another canon of construction suggests the literal reading: noscitur a sociis. In English, this is the commonsense notion that a word must be interpreted in context. This notion especially applies to words in a list, where a word's companions (its "sociis") suggest a particular meaning by comparison. So in the Justice's example, the literal phrase "filled ... the bucket" suggests that the phrase "kicked the bucket" should also be interpreted literally.

Under these circumstances, the reading of the second phrase to be idiomatic is thus not only unnecessary, but unnatural, whether we're discussing the Justice's example or the Second Amendment itself.

Pauldom: I looked into the syllepsis question before posting, and there is some disagreement. The OED reports that a syllepsis is "A figure by which a word, or a particular form or inflexion of a word, is made to refer to two or more other words in the same sentence, while properly applying to or agreeing with only one of them (e.g. a masc. adj. qualifying two ns., masc. and fem.; a sing. verb serving as predicate to two subjects, sing. and pl.), or applying to them in different senses (e.g. literal and metaphorical)." Dictionary.com, on the other hand, defines syllepsis as "the use of a word or expression to perform two syntactic functions, esp. to modify two or more words of which at least one does not agree in number, case, or gender, as the use of are in Neither he nor we are willing." Since I have in mind a usage in which there's no grammatical disagreement, but simply the presence of two different meanings for the underlying word, I chose "zeugma."

Plus "zeugma" is funnier.

EV and Pauldom: I don't have a source for this, but as I learned it, this (and either of pauldom's examples) would be syllepsis: a zeugma is where the verb only properly applies (in any sense) to one of the nouns, as in Pope's "See Pan with flocks, with fruits Pandora crowned," where Pan can't plausibly be "crowned" with sheep.

Interesting that Pope seems to be such a fruitful source of examples; my three favorite syllepsises (syllepseis?), however, are all found in this song.

Great words both, though 'zeugma' sounds like something that might require an ointment.

Of course there's also the line from the commercial for the skin care product in "Putney Swope": "Since my man uses Face-Off he's really out of sight---and so are his pimples."

In defence of J. Stevens, though I disagree with him....

The 2nd Amendment has a long history of being interpreted in such a way as to be subject to more regulation by states than by the federal government (f. ex., see Prosser). In this regard, "the people" may be seen as a collective entity beyond the reach of the Federal Government, and not individual persons (note this is not quite the left-wing national guard argument either since each state would own that right collectively rather than the national guard units raised by the state). What would be left to determine in Hellar on that basis would be what this means with regard to DC, given the fact that Article 1 of the Constitution asserts direct rule by Congress. My reading of the dissent in Hellar was that DC should be treated as a state in terms of what further restrictions can be enacted.

The problem with the dissent, though IMO, the city of Washington essentially instituted a full and outright ban which was unparalleled in other cases relating to whether states could further restrict the right to bear arms. Since militias are understood to be fully volunteer organizations of civilians where members furnish their own weapons, individual gun ownership is a prerequisite to being able to form militias... IMO, this went sufficiently far as to ask whether the states had total rights to enact such measures without running amok with the 2nd and 14th amendments.

In my lay opinion (and I believe this was the majority opinion in Hellar), the mandate to use the second amendment to help ensure the possibility of well-regulated militias still means (as per many Supreme Court precedents not entirely overturned by Hellar) that states can adopt regulations beyond what the federal government can adopt, but that these must be done in the service of building a base of people who can, if times require, participate in civil defence forces rather than undermine this. This means that though the individual right to own guns may be subject to further regulation from the state, it may not be eliminated entirely, as in the DC case.

anonymous skeptic: why so skeptical? you are restating scalia's point. DC was advocating an interpretation that used the idiomatic meaning and scalia was pointing out the absurdity of it. glad you and he agree the literal interpretation is proper.

Twill wrote:

Sammy -

Your redefinition of "keep" and "bear" fails the chuckle test.

Here's the part of the Tenth you quote -- "are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people."

Note that this is either-or. "The states" and "the people" are distinct entities.
---------------------------------

That's right. They are alternatives, the way for instance ratification of amendments by a state legislature or a convention are alternatives.

"The people" is kind of more inclusive and really would apply only in extremis. They presumbably put that in ro cover special situations - mostly in which a state could nto act.

I read also this above:

"ince militias are understood to be fully volunteer organizations of civilians where members furnish their own weapons,"

That sounds like post Civil War National Rifle Association peopaganda. It's nonsense (althouigh maybe adopted by Congress in 1903) But it is nonsense. the name of the Militia was gradually changed to Ntional Guard in order to obscure this.

"Now the part of the Second that is directly relevant - "the right of the people to keep and bear arms".

The wording clearly specifies that it is not a right of "the state", but a right of "the people".

Although it says "right" this is really a power. It is a right as against the Federal government, whuich cannot forbid it.

What is "the people?" It is not always individuals. It is a colective group. If it always meant individuals, the tenth Amendment would be incoherent.



Since those two amendments are part of the same document, it would be ludicrous to argue that the term "the people" means different things in the two clauses.

Why select this one right of the people to make a collective thing? Why not make free speech a collective thing? Why not make religion a collective thing? Why not make abortion a collective thing?

Because it's not a right of "the people" if the government gets to decide which or how or when.