Does the &quot;a well regulated militia&quot; part of the 2nd Amendment apply only to militias? I'm currently debating the topic of gun control with a few people I know personally, and someone in the debate brought up the "a well regulated militia" part of the 2nd Amendment, saying that it's equivalent to governmental gun control. I argued that it applies to militias only though. Am I correct in assuming this, or does the "well regulated" part apply to gun ownership in general?
TL;DR: It's controversial, but it looks like it also protects the rights for the individual. 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. While the exact explanation is a matter of opinion, it reads like it's a subject, a reason and a right to the subject. Your question is essentially whether or not the subject is a group, an individual or both. The definition of "Militia" can be multiple things though, due to the age of the 2nd Amendment it changed over time and wasn't very exact to begin with. "the Militia ... civilians primarily, soldiers on occasion." "the Militia comprised all males physically capable of acting in concert for the common defense." "And further, that ordinarily when called for service these men were expected to appear bearing arms supplied by themselves and of the kind in common use at the time." In a militia, the character of the laborer, artificer, or tradesman, predominates over that of a soldier." "the militia system ... implied the general obligation of all adult male inhabitants to possess arms." . This site explains it quite well in my opinion. "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." The first two phrases are related to each other. The fact that the third phrase is separated from the verbal phrase by a comma indicates that the verbal phrase has more than the third phrase as its subject. The abbreviated grammatical construction actually renders the meaning of the Second Amendment as: "Neither a well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, nor the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall be infringed." So what does the Supreme Court think about the explanation? Current Supreme Court case law defines the Second Amendment (second part) as protecting from infringement by the federal and state governments, the right of the individual to keep and to bear a weapon which is part of the ordinary military equipment or which use could contribute to the common defense. Three cases are cited: U.S. v. Planned Parenthood v Casey (120 L. Ed. 2d 674 (1992)) U.S. v. Verdugo-Urquidez (108 L. Ed. 2d 222 (1990)) U.S. v. Miller (83 L. Ed. 1207 (1939)) According to the SAF the Justice Department includes individuals to be protected by the 2nd Amendment. The Justice Department’s enlightened interpretation of the Second Amendment as an individual right was hailed today by the firearms civil rights organization that has supported a key Texas case that led to a federal appeals court ruling upholding the individual rights concept. And: “Today’s constitutional scholars, including Prof. Laurence Tribe, confirm that the Second Amendment is an individual right,” LaCourse continued. “For years, our own Justice Department has been deaf and blind to such scholarship, and the Fifth Circuit ruling forced the government to face the facts. Solicitor General Olson and Attorney General John Ashcroft deserve credit for their courageous reversal of four decades of constitutional denial.” While the above is biased, it does state the opinion of non-trivial parties.
Usually these words refer to whether something (e.g. a law or government action) is or is not in accordance with the Constitution, including its amendments, as currently interpreted by US courts including the Supreme Court. So in view of Chaplinsky, the Constitution (as interpreted) does not protect "fighting words", and therefore a law that forbids "fighting words" is constitutional. As phoog points out in the comments, the word can also be used to refer to whether something is in accordance with the Constitution, as the speaker thinks it ought to be interpreted. So somebody might say that a certain law or action is (un)constitutional, even if a court has not considered it, if their own personal interpretation of the Constitution is (or isn't) consistent with it. Or, if a court has struck it down (or upheld it) but the speaker thinks they erred in doing so.
The US Constitution (broadly) does three things: It defines how the government should operate It places certain powers in the hands of certain individuals (branches of government, federal government vs states, etc.) It restricts the actions and powers of government (originally the federal government, and thought the 14th amendment, the states, and through them, municipal governments). The main thing is that there is a distinction between a governmental organization (which is effectively a portion of the government) and an organization that is funded in whole or in part by the government (The difference being if the government controls the organization or appoints (some of) it's leads, such as the FBI or Federal Reserve). Generally, the latter is not bound by the Constitution; however, it may be bound by laws or grant stipulations. Elaborating on your three questions: Free Speech: Constitutionally, no one but the government is restricted from moderating someone else's speech. There may, however, be legal repercussions, but not constitutional issues. Discrimination on protected characteristics: This is not forbidden by the Constitution, at least not in the way it is is meant colloquially. The Constitution only prohibits discrimination in access to voting, and then only for race, color, sex, and prior servitude. However, such discrimination is illegal, due to laws, such as the Civil Rights Act. A non-governmental organization that receives funds from the government constitutionally is no different than one that does not. Legally, there may be differences.
You could almost define a country as, "an entity that can defend itself against invasions." Non-sovereign entities are indeed generally prohibited from deploying lethal autonomous defense systems like booby-traps. But governments and state-like actors, as a matter of practice, choose their own rules. laws-of-war and international-law are not like "regular" law: When it comes down to it, states only follow international conventions and treaties to the extent that they consider it to be in their own interest to do so. If you start mining your property, you will probably be forced to stop by local law enforcement. If a warlord starts mining his borders, he's going to get away with it until someone with more power convinces or forces him to stop. Was it "illegal" for Turkey to shoot down a Russian military aircraft? One could cite all sorts of laws and conventions to answer that question. But in practice the consequences of that act are limited to whatever Turkey allows, or to what Russia and its allies can impose on Turkey.
The legal definition you are probably looking for is machinegun rather than automatic weapon. It can be found in 26 U.S. Code § 5845, which in relevant part says: The term “machinegun” means any weapon which shoots, is designed to shoot, or can be readily restored to shoot, automatically more than one shot, without manual reloading, by a single function of the trigger. The term shall also include the frame or receiver of any such weapon, any part designed and intended solely and exclusively, or combination of parts designed and intended, for use in converting a weapon into a machinegun, and any combination of parts from which a machinegun can be assembled if such parts are in the possession or under the control of a person. Historical notes; TLDR The core of this definition dates back to the 1934 National Firearms Act (NFA) . The legislative history of that act includes testimony of Karl. T. Fredrick in front of the house ways and means committee. Mr. Fredrick, then president of the National Rifle Association (NRA), had devoted years to the study of earlier firearms legislation. He criticized earlier legislative attempts to define machine guns, calling them wholly inadequate. The earlier legislative definition was: "Machine gun", as used in this Act, means any firearm which shoots automatically more than twelve shots without reloading. Mr. Fredrick expressed several concerns with this definition, particularly with regard to the phrase more than twelve shots without reloading. His propoed language was substantially broader: A machine gun or submachine gun, as used in this act, means any firearm by whatever name known, loaded or unloaded, which shoots automatically more than one shot without manually reloading, by a single function of the trigger. Note that neither of the later two quotes is current. Thus the core of the definition used today, was in fact provided by an officer of the National Rifle Association, but that definition has been changed in the process of clarifying and codifying the law.
It could probably be argued that a bullet intentionally shot from a gun is abandoned property, and thus the shooter has no claim to its return. In addition, such a bullet might be evidence of a crime, to be seized by law enforcement, although that would not affect its ultimate ownership, at least not in the US. Intent matters in such cases. A person who shoots a gun probably does not reasonably expect to retain possession and control of the bullet, whatever may have been shot at. Well, someone shooting at a properly controlled target for practice on his or her own property probably retains ownership of the bullet.
Yes The US constitution is in the public domain. Anyone may publish a version of it, including an altered version. No US law forbidding publication of an altered version would itself be constitutional -- the First Amendment would prevent such a law. However, if an altered version were sold under such conditions that a customer might reasonably believe it to be an unaltered version, that might be false advertising, or perhaps fraud, because the seller would be deceiving the customer as to what the product is.
Here is a list of language-regulating bodies. There is none for English, but they exist for Spanish (Real Academia Española), French (Académie française) and Swahil (Baraza la Kiswahili la Taifa for Tanzania, Chama cha Kiswahili cha Taifa for Kenya). No language regulator addresses the issues which arise in the interaction between natural language and the needs of legal interpretation. Instead, these bodies generally strive to maintain the historical "purity" of the language. Rather than "define" a word like "sandwich", they decide whether to outlaw (or disparage) the word because it comes from English. The vast majority of language-related problems in law which arise in common-law countries pertains to characteristics of common law and the practice of establishing precedent. There are philosophical conflicts, for example between those to adhere to the text versus those who try to discern original intent. If we had an official agency that precisely defined what a "weapon" is, we would still have the struggle over interpretive philosophies which renders moot any rulings from the national language regulator. In the US, part of the problem of word-definition is the widespread practice of localized redefinition in statutes – the laws that say "In this subsection, 'weapon' has the meaning defined in 18 U.S. Code §920" (fictitious: §921 defines "firearm" undefined "weapon"). Tracking the scope of definition and range of variation of a word within a body of codified law is very difficult. The rule in common law is that words that are not statutorily defined are given their "ordinary" meaning. There is no authoritative resource for "ordinary meaning" in English (there is no such thing as "the" dictionary). In the US, it would require a constitutional amendment to immutably impose a particular dictionary standard for deriving word meaning (e.g. Webster's Fourth New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged, forthcoming) and there would be ensuing political protests. A legally precise definition of "repair" would be very difficult to understand, and would require hiring a lawyer in order to engage in the activity of "repairing broken windows", from a legally-safe perspective. And that is just word meaning. Ambiguity in sentence-meaning cannot be resolved by listing the sentences.