Why is the right to bear arms not in the 1st amendment???

The 1st amendment contains a list of freedoms:

Amendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Yet the gun question is in a SEPERATE Amendment

Amendment II
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.

http://usinfo.state.gov/usa/infousa/facts/funddocs/billeng.htm

Is there really a right to bear arms that applies to individuals??

The people equals us.

We could collectively have the right to bear arms as part of a group but not individually have the right to own our own weapons.

I'm not a legal expert and the gun issue isn't a big issue for me, but I do see different ways to interpret that.

And since the abolishment of slavery, all people means precisely that... all people.

The use of a word multiple times in any given document does not change in definition with any or each additional use. In law, it's a given that the definitions are consistent throughout the document. That is why legal documents go to great lengths to identify groups or individuals and assign nomenclature at the onset.

He was quite clear on what he meant.

He also pushed for the Bill of Rights when Federalists poo-poohed the idea.

:crazy:

At the time, the tension between individual and collective notions was not as obvious, and usages like "the people" reflected the coming together of citizens who enjoyed full practice of their faculties for reason.

I think it was just a writing convention to seperate out different rights....And to give those voting on them the ability to not ratify it as "all or nothing". Indeed 2 (of the 12 proposed) were not approved immediately and of them 1 was approved a couple centuries later.

However the Supreme court decided long ago thats its a collective right anyway.

the second amendment gives us the right to bear arms for the purpose of defending our country. Some (with an agenda) claim that it is ambiguous. It is ambiguous if you want it to be.

but I've always read that as:

A well regulated militia (subject), being necessary to the security of a free state (explanatory clause), the right of the people to keep and bear arms (defining clause), shall not be infringed (statement).

Or, "A well regulated militia shall not be infringed" meaning that the federal government will not ban state militias.

Violates the 2nd Amendment???

authority for federalizing the Guard stems from (and am too lazy at the moment to do the research). It does seem there may be an argument, there.

Nerdy English teacher agrees with you. I don't know any other way to interpret that questions. The comma before the shall supports you greatly--and that level of punctuation has not changed that much. It's the militia that shall not be infringed and bearing arms is for the purpose of the militia. You'll never convince the NRA with grammar though.

The pen being information, and those controlling information generally control those with the swords.

Not any gun for any nut.

The founders didn't want a standing army and the 2nd amendment was their substitute for one. Here's wikepedia about the drafting of the 2nd amendment:
----------------snip-------------------------------
The Second Amendment itself was debated and modified during sessions of the House on August 17 and August 20.<18> These debates revolved primarily around risk of "mal-administration of the government" using the "religiously scrupulous" clause to destroy the militia as Great Britain had attempted to destroy the militia at the commencement of the revolution. These concerns were addressed by modifying the final clause, and on August 24 the House sent the following version to the U.S. Senate:
A well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, being the best security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed; but no one religiously scrupulous of bearing arms shall be compelled to render military service in person.
The next day, August 25, the Senate received the Amendment from the House and entered it into the Senate Journal. When the Amendment was transcribed, the semicolon in the religious exemption portion was changed to a comma by the Senate scribe:
A well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, being the best security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed, but no one religiously scrupulous of bearing arms, shall be compelled to render military service in person.
On September 4, the Senate voted to change significantly the language of the Second Amendment by removing the definition of militia, and striking the conscientious objector clause:
A well regulated militia, being the best security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed
The Senate returned to this Amendment for a final time on September 9. A proposal to insert the words "For the common defence", next to the words "Bear Arms" was defeated.<19> The Senate then slightly modified the language, and voted to return the Bill of Rights to the House. The final version passed by the Senate was:
A well regulated militia being the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.
The House voted on September 21 to accept the changes made by the Senate, however the Amendment as finally entered into the House journal contained the additional words "necessary to":
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.<20>
This version was transmitted to the states for ratification.
--------------------snip-----------------------
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution>

I believe precedence was placed on the free speech clause, because they knew if debate was shut off and information curtailed, a corrupt government could manipulate the people in to un wise or corrupt wars; such as we have in Iraq today.

That's the slippery slope to individuals having a right to carry nuclear missiles into libraries.

:-)

not according to that Supreme Court

And many others

This is a little tidbit the NRA does not like to tell you

But every time the right of individuals to bear arms has come before the court, or lower courst... something funny happens on the way to the forum... usually they come down on the side of well regulated militia, and the right to bear arms by individuals being conditional.

THere are other myths, such as the wide availability of firearms in the American West or Colonial times, NOT true

In fact, there was pretty extensive gun control in the old west, not that the NRA will tell you this

It is just that those who own firearms (We do now), should now the history both from a legal perspective and a historical perspective, not the myths that have gained the force of almost truth

had yet been invented when the Second Amendment was written?

except the internal casing

You put the charge, and the round (at the time round) and then rammed the whole thing down

You needed a cap to light the charge, with a small amount of powder in the pan

But essentially... they were there.

On edit, the technology has evolved from the first firearms back in the 14th century, but... the technology refereed to is the same

that sides on the side of a regulated militia but denies the absolute right OF INDIVIDUALS to own a gun

Though the right to peaceably assemble is both individual and collective.

Why do we have separate Amendments for the 5th, 6th, 7th, & 8th though they all deal with our judicial system?

What are you trying to say, that if something isn't included in the First Amendment, it doesn't apply? It is somehow not real? It isn't a valid right? What?

Gee, I guess that means we have no right to privacy, can be searched at a whim, and African Americans are still slaves. This is where your logic is leading:shrug:

The federal government was totally and completely dependent on a "citizen army" for all and any warfare. Congress had sole power to declare war and the funding for an army was strictly limited to two years.

The framers did NOT envision a government with the permanent possession of the means to wage war, either against other nations or against its own citizenry.

for the welding together of the populace against a common foe, the restriction and control of internal dissidents, the confiscation of an obscene amount of wealth in the form of taxes, the expansion and control of foreign markets and resources.

:patriot:

What most fail to pay much attention to in what I propose is that I view the military service option as almost entirely one of training. People argue that eighteen months to two years isn't enough to both obtain adequate training and be deployed in a combat role. I say "exactly!" I'm adamant that any decision to deploy our military ANYWHERE require a specific activation of the military (a draft) from a pool of trained citizens - "reserves" if you will. People who opt for other forms of national service - like the public health service or VISTA or the Peace Corps or forestry/firefighters on national lands - would have both an abbreviated ("basic") training in the military and an extended term of service in a civil role. My vision of this kind of national service emphasizes a "citizen reserve" and training in using firearms (sadly missing in a civil context) - as well as the human resources for dealing with the kinds of national emergencies that Katrina, Northridge, and tornado clusters exemplify. Indeed, I can't see an effective national health care system without a viable public health service.

or don't mean what they say?

The 2nd amendment debate has been canonicalized into all of its standard forms and derivations thereof in the guns forum and on usenet over the last 25 years or so. A straightforward literal original intent reading would give you and me the right to keep and bear basic military weapons. That original meaning has been re-interpreted over the last 160 years or so to mean something much less than that, and the reality of military technology and the permanent standing army that the founders feared have rendered the intention of the 2nd somewhat obsolete.

Amendment II

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.

Everything before the 2nd coma (Bolded) is invisible; people cannot read it or if they can, they cannot retain it long enough to finish the sentence.