ENGLISH USAGE EXPERT INTERPRETS 2ND AMENDMENT

by J. Neil Schulman
July 17, 1991
California Libertarian Party

I just had a conversation with Mr. A.C. Brocki, Editorial Coordinator
for the Office of Instruction of the Los Angeles Unified School
District. Mr. Brocki taught Advanced Placement English for several
years at Van Nuys High School, as well as having been a senior editor
for Houghton Mifflin. I was referred to Mr. Brocki by Sherryl Broyles
of the Office of Instruction of the LA Unified School District, who
described Mr. Brocki as the foremost expert in grammar in the Los
Angeles Unified School District — the person she and others go to when
they need a definitive answer on English grammar.
I gave Mr. Brocki my name, told him Sherryl Broyles referred me, then
asked him to parse the following sentence:
“A well-schooled electorate, being necessary to the security of a free
State, the right of the people to keep and read Books, shall not be
infringed.”
Mr. Brocki informed me that the sentence was overpunctuated, but that
the meaning could be extracted anyway.
“A well-schooled electorate” is a nominative absolute. “..being
necessary to the security of a free State” is a participial phrase
modifying “electorate”.
The subject (a compound subject) of the sentence is “the right of the
people”.
“..shall not be infringed” is a verb phrase, with “not” as an adverb
modifying the verb phrase “shall be infringed”.
“..to keep and read books” is an infinitive phrase modifying “right”.

I then asked him if he could rephrase the sentence to make it clearer.
Mr. Brocki said, “Because a well-schooled electorate is necessary to the
security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and read books
shall not be infringed.”
I asked: can the sentence be interpreted to restrict the right to keep
and read books to a well-schooled electorate — say, registered voters
with a high-school diploma?” He said, “No.”
I then identified my purpose in calling him, and read him the Second
Amendment in full:
“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.”
He said he thought the sentence had sounded familiar, but that he
hadn’t recognized it.
I asked, “Is the structure and meaning of this sentence the same as
the sentence I first quoted you?” He said, “yes.” I asked him to
rephrase this sentence to make it clearer. He transformed it the same
way as the first sentence: “Because a well-regulated militia is
necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to
keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”
I asked him whether the meaning could have changed in two hundred
years. He said, “No.”
I asked him whether this sentence could be interpreted to restrict the
right to keep and bear arms to “a well-regulated militia.” He said,
“no.” According to Mr. Brocki, the sentence means that the people
<are> the militia, and that the people have the right which is
mentioned.
I asked him again to make sure:

Schulman: “Can the sentence be interpreted to mean that the right can
be
restricted to “a well-regulated militia?”

Brocki: “No, I can’t see that.”

Schulman: “Could another, professional in English grammar or
linguistics interpret the sentence to mean otherwise?”

Brocki: “I can’t see any grounds for another interpretation.”

I asked Mr. Brocki if he would be willing to stake his professional
reputation on this opinion, and be quoted on this. He said, “Yes.”

At no point in the conversation did I ask Mr. Brocki his opinion
on the Second Amendment, gun control, or the right to keep and bear
arms.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“The whole of the Bill of Rights is a declaration of the right of the
people at large or considered as individuals. It establishes some rights
of the individual as unalienable and which consequently, no majority has
a right to deprive them of.”

Albert Gallatin of the New York Historical Society, October 7, 1789.