[ExI] second amendment rights

[Lee Corbin]

BillK writes

> Samantha wrote:
> 
>> Freedom was the intent including freedom from government getting out of
>> hand.  That is rather clear in the major documents and in the writings of
>> many of the founders.    Analyzing particular phrasings of the 2nd amendment
>> in the light of much later thoughts and opinions and quibbling over the same
>> in my view totally misses the central point and is deadly (perhaps
>> literally) dull to boot.
> 
> If you don't want to work out what the 2nd amendment means for the
> time and circumstances in which it was written, then you're pretty
> much making it up as you go along.

I agree.  It is necessary to try to understand what a document
meant when it was written, and to revise if meanings change.

But the problem is that any function which  smoothly creates a
canonical mapping from then to the present...

Oops.  Let me rephrase.  But the problem is that if we try to
smoothly analogize what the intent behind an older law was
to present circumstances, we encounter some severe problems:
tanks and atomic bombs 1780s.  Are they also to be included?  

(My own answer---though of course it is debatable---is that 
atomic weaponry would not be a factor in a citizen uprising.
As for tanks and missiles, what cannot be obtained by 
the citizens taking over the local National Guard armories is
not worth bothering about.  Therefore, an amendment should
be made to the 2nd Amendment:  namely, that the rights of
citizens to bear arms should be guaranteed up to but not
including weapons of mass destruction.  End of particular
opinion.)

Lee