Considering Commas

Earlier this month, the DC Circuit threw out some of the District's gun control laws, embracing a individual rights interpretation of the Second Amendment in the process. While much analysis has been made of the decision from legal and historical angles, this column in today's LA Times takes another approach - a grammatical one. Specifically, an English professor from the University of Illinois takes issue with the court's interpretation of the Amendment's commas:

The court dismissed the prefatory clause about militias as not central to the amendment and concluded that the operative clause prevents the government from interfering with an individual's right to tote a gun. Needless to say, the National Rifle Assn. is very happy with this interpretation. But I dissent. Strict constructionists, such as the majority on the appeals court, might do better to interpret the 2nd Amendment based not on what they learned about commas in college but on what the framers actually thought about commas in the 18th century.

I suppose it's only natural, if we're going to wed ourselves to the meaning of the Constitution when it was passed, to take a look at the grammar of the time as well. I would point out, however, to the good professor that one of the grammar texts he cites as being "popular . . . in the framer's day" was, by his own writing, published in 1795. That would be eight years after the writing of the Constitution and seven years after ratification.

A 1795 grammar book has about as much relevance to the original meaning of the Second Amendment's commas as that dang furrin' law that gets the conservatives so upset!