I do remember that I have heard that koala joke before, but what is with the second comma in the second amendment?
Second amendment:
"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."
Some say: "The provision’s second comma divides the Amendment into two clauses; the first is prefatory, and the second operative."
"The decision invalidating the district’s gun ban, written by Judge Laurence H. Silberman of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, cites the second comma (the one after “state”) as proof that the Second Amendment does not merely protect the “collective” right of states to maintain their militias, but endows each citizen with an “individual” right to carry a gun, regardless of membership in the local militia."
Or no individual right to carry guns or what?
Others think that you should read it as “a well-regulated militia ... shall not be infringed.”
"Now that the issue is heading to the Supreme Court, the pro-gun American Civil Rights Union is firing back with its own punctuation-packing brief. Nelson Lund, a professor of law at George Mason University, argues that everything before the second comma is an “absolute phrase” and, therefore, does not modify anything in the main clause. Professor Lund states that the Second Amendment “has exactly the same meaning that it would have if the preamble had been omitted.”
"Refreshing though it is to see punctuation at the center of a national debate".
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/16/op...dman.html?_r=0
The Supreme Court then ruled that the second amendment offers an individual right to carry guns,right?
But what if the court changes its mind about the meaning of the comma one day?
