Well that's an entirely different animal now isn't it? This would mean infringement is, as you say, conditional and subject to revision. If it were truly an absolute there would be no "unless".
You're the one who created the "unless" in order to create this entirely different animal. As written, the "shall not" of the Second Amendment is an absolute. The statement that, "Constitutional provisions aren't necessarily meant to exist unfettered or unrestricted," is patently false in the absence of this "unless" that you invented, as the Second Amendment contains no reference to "unless" whatsoever.
Yes they can but in this case it was not a whim.
? Huh? You said there are no absolutes, only opinions. There is no "in this case" since "shall not be infringed" is not an opinion, it's an absolute. Opinions can be changed on a whim, the Second Amendment cannot. And even if the Second Amendment were changed, it wouldn't matter.
An Amendment is itself a restriction.
A restriction upon government, yes.
Actually, If I do not, as you say, understand what "infringed" means, then we are arguing meaning.
Yes, I know, that's why I said it's not semantics when you rhetorically suggested we could argument semantics. In order to argue semantics, you have to at least know the meaning of the terms you are arguing, and you clearly don't know the meaning of "infringed" nor the meaning of using the procedures to change the language of the Second Amendment to change the meaning of the Amendment. So no, we really can't argue semantics.
There is more than one method of eating that same pineapple.
Not according to the stated parameters. The parameters specified eating the pineapple whole. There is only one way to eat something whole, and that's whole (undivided; in one piece: to swallow a thing whole). You want to ignore the parameters and create brand new parameters.
Death is an absolute. The boiling point is an absolute. Freezing is an absolute. The Periodic Table of Elements is an absolute. There are some others but the U.S. Constitution and it's provisions are not absolute.
You obviously don't understand the meaning of "absolute." Granted, death certainly seems to be, in every way that matters, an absolute, but we don't yet know what life is, much less what death is, to make such an absolute statement.
As was previously noted,
absolute means free from restriction of limitation; not limited in any way. The boiling point and freezing point of a substance is limited to very restrictive circumstances and thus is not absolute. The boiling point of water, for example, is different in Ohio than it is in Cocoa Beach or Denver. Different conditions, primarily pressure, affect both the boiling and freezing point.
The
atomic number of individual elements on the Periodic Table of the Elements is an absolute, but the Table itself is hardly an absolute, as there are exceptions and restrictions of the Table. The row of the Period 4 Elements is the classic and simplest illustration of that.
The U.S. Constitution and its provisions are a mixed bag, where some parts are absolute and some parts are not. For example, the part where it gives the percentage of the Congress and of the States that are needed to make a change to the Constitution is an absolute, as it does not allow for deviation from the stated parameters under any circumstances. Someone can't come along and decree, for example, that we only need 12 states, or 47 states, to ratify an amendment. There are only two ways in which the Constitution may be amended (one of which has never been used, incidentally). The Constitution does not allow for any other ways beyond these two. That's an absolute.
While the speech guaranteed by the First Amendment is not an absolute, the First Amendment itself is nevertheless is an absolute, as it absolutely prevents Congress from passing any law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. Other laws can and have been created to restrict freedom of speech (and of religion, and of the press) in certain situations.... just not any laws by Congress. The Constitution doesn't guarantee free speech in any and all circumstances, it just guarantees that Congress won't make any law that abridges the freedom of speech.
The Second Amendment, on the other hand, is absolute, as it allows for no exceptions or restrictions of any kind (such as by Congress, as in the First Amendment). It says the right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed,
by anybody. The reason it makes no exceptions or hasn't any restrictions is because the right to keep and bear arms is considered to be an "absolute right." The Second Amendment was based in part on the long-standing English common-law which recognized the natural right of self-defense and self-preservation, resistance to oppression, and the civic duty to act in concert in defense of the state.
Unlike the First Amendment's freedom of speech, where the courts have ruled that exceptions can be made under certain circumstances and in certain situations, the courts have made no such allowances for the infringements on the right to keep and bear arms. The first big affirmation came in the 19th century with the Cruikshank case where the court flatly stated,
"The right to bear arms is not granted by the Constitution; neither is it in any manner dependent upon that instrument for its existence." Meaning, the right to keep and bear arms is a right regardless of whether the Constitution even exists or not. You can't get any more absolute than that, and changing the Second Amendment to the Constitution won't change the right in any way. There are no semantics to argue here.
Because gun control advocates (who don't even know what a militia is) desperately tried to muddy the meaning waters with "a well regulated militia" to prevent individuals from keeping and bearing arms, in 2008 the Supreme Court (who knows that a militia is) handed down in the Heller case the clarification that the Second Amendment expressly and implicitly protected an individual right to possess and carry firearms.
Then in the 2010 case of McDonald v Chicago, the Court ruled that the Second Amendment not only restricted the federal government from infringing on the right to keep and bear arms, but local and state governments were also equally restricted from such infringement. They made that ruling because the right to keep and bear arms is an "absolute right" that cannot be taken away by anyone.
So not only is the right to keep and bear arms an absolute right, the restriction on the state at any level to infringe that right is also an absolute. Absolutely.
