From: Mike Lorrey (mlorrey@yahoo.com)
Date: Tue Feb 11 2003 - 13:19:55 MST
--- spike66 <spike66@attbi.com> wrote:
>
> Looks to me like Taxifornia is denying gun ownership
> rights to U.S. citizens who are illiterate, the blind
> (I need to think about that one), those who can read but
> not English. So in what sense is it legal to require a
> written test to own a gun?
The Second Amendment says "well regulated militia", with the 'militia'
being the whole of the people, according to George Mason, James
Madison, and other founding fathers. In legal dictionaries of the day,
"well regulated" did not mean statutorily restricted, it meant 'well
trained and drilled'. On this basis, according to the Constitution,
provided all *citizens* are given the opportunity to obtain such
training and drilling, they can be reqired to pass some examination to
determine whether the individual has been 'well regulated'.
That being said, any military veteran with a form DD214 should be
exempt from such tests, since they could not be veterans if they had
not received training in excess of any that a state may require of a
civilian.
I might mention that in colonial and post-Revolution America, most
every community had regulations *requiring* that all residents bring
their firearms to church on Sunday so that they may participate in
drill after church, with fines for those who did not do so.
Even those who registered as concientious objectors in time of war were
not exempt from such peacetime requirements in many cases.
=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
- Gen. John Stark
"Pacifists are Objectively Pro-Fascist." - George Orwell
"Treason doth never Prosper. What is the Reason?
For if it Prosper, none Dare call it Treason..." - Ovid
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