Reply #111: the "fact" you posted earlier, and that I responded to in my previous post [View All]

[hansberrym]

was a quote from John Adams. I see you are dodging again.

That Seth Waxman says something about the Second Amendment does not make it so, anymore than what John Ashkroft says about it.


You offered John Adams' quote as proof that only a collective right was intended, when in fact the quote shows just the opposite. Adams' makes an exception for "private self-defense", and the quote is actually evidence AGAINST an exclusively collective right.



According to Seth Waxman:
"The language of the Second Amendment, when it was first presented to the Congress, makes it quite clear that it was the right of the States to maintain a militia that was being preserved, not the rights of an individual to own a gun"
{end Quote}

Yet Waxman is completely wrong in the above statement.

Madison's draft of what became the second amendment, nor any working draft thereafter, ever used the phrase "the right of the States" to do anything, it always was "the right of the people".


It seems Mr. Waxman and yourself share a penchant for substituting words at your pleasure. Neeedless to say this is not a valid form of interpretation.