Is the PA Constitution, section 21 weak?

[TaePo]

I have a problem with the wording in the PA Constitution, section 21.

“The right of the citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves and the STATE shall not be questioned.”

My main concern is with the use of the conjunction AND.

By using AND, the logic indicates that the defense of oneself and the STATE must be inclusive and never mutually exclusive. Both conditions must be met.

In defending against criminal activity, one can argue that the individual is in effect indirectly defending the State. By stopping the criminal activity where the rubber meets the road, so to speak, we are preventing further crimes.

A similar argument can be made for cases of defending the home state against foreign or domestic troops that are attempting to capture and control the state government by force of arms or subterfuge.

However, a final case would regard a lawfully elected state government that had gone rogue. The tricky part would be how the citizens would decide where the proverbial last straw lay, and when to begin taking steps to thwart a rogue regime.

We may feel the last case least likely but the problem is, if it should ever happen, the quoted section would not provide relief as the defense of the individual would be exclusive to that of the current State government.

In light of this, would not the conjunction OR be more appropriate?

““The right of the citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves or the STATE shall not be questioned.”

If anyone has knowledge or links to the language and adoption of this section, I would like to see that as well.

What do you think?

[awkx]

I parse “The right of the citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves and the state shall not be questioned” as meaning:

The right of the citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves shall not be questioned, and
the right of the citizens to bear arms in defense of the state shall not be questioned

“The right of the citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves or the state shall not be questioned” could be interpreted as allowing the gov't the option to choose only one defensive use that it must respect; i.e., it could be interpreted as:

The right of the citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves shall not be questioned, or
the right of the citizens to bear arms in defense of the state shall not be questioned

Your proferred interpretation is a syntactically valid one; the sentence, like most other complex sentences, has some potential syntactic ambiguity in it. However, I think it is clear, from the historical record, that the intended meaning is that both defense of oneself and defense of the state are individually protected.

[CCinPA]

oops, I miss read the OP

[TaePo]

It is very easy to misread.

AWKX,

I like what you are doing there. In the second sentence with the or, I would write it with more clarity as

"The right of the citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves shall not be questioned, nor the right of the citizens to bear arms in defense of the State shall be questioned."

Then you can see that it would not be an either or decision for the state.

I am not sure, something in my mind is yelling "Danger Will Robinson, Danger!" when we distribute the phrase 'shall not be questioned' across that AND conjunction. I think I will have to do some more thinking and researching on that point.

Yes, the fear is, someday, the State might proclaim that the right to bear arms by the citizens is incongruent with the current goals of the State and that Section 21 is hereby and forthwith rescinded. (You say precedence should prevent this and I hope you are correct.)

For now, my brain hurts! (My bad) And thanks for your input.

[TaePo]

AWKX,

I am now thinking that if the AND were in the subject and not part of the preposition, we could parse it as you did.

In other words, if it said, " The right of the citizens AND the State to bear arms in defense of themselves shall not be questioned."; could be parsed as:

The right of the citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves shall not be questioned and the right of the State to bear arms in defense of itself shall not be questioned.

The above is just an example, I do not wish the State to claim any such right.

The basic statement is...

The right shall not be questioned.

Whose right?
The right of the citizens.

Which right of the citizens?
To bear arms.

What type of bearing arms do you mean?
Bearing arms in defense of themselves and the State.

It would be much better if it were "The right of the citizens to bear arms shall not be questioned."

Very similar to the 2A of the COTUS.

Is the State holding or reserving power over the manner of bearing arms that the Federal government did not?

[awkx]

Let me try adding a bit of verbiage and see if this makes it clearer:

“The right of the citizens to bear arms, [both] in defense of themselves and [[in defense] of] the State, shall not be questioned.”

The bracketed parts can be elided to produce the text found in the PA Constitution.


Anyhow, syntactially it can be parsed either way; the issue is one of scoping. Let me demonstrate on a syntactically similar example:

The right of the citizens to eat ice cream cones of all flavors shall not be questioned.

If you were going to translate this into standard first-order logic, there are two possibilities:

For every ice cream cone c, it is true that

for every flavor f,

if

cone c has flavor f

then

the right of citizens to eat c shall not be questioned.

and

For every ice cream cone c, it is true that

if

for every flavor f,

cone c has flavor f

then

the right of citizens to eat c shall not be questioned.

English syntax allows both scopings.

[rev214]

The right of the citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves and the State shall not be questioned.

I think the wording is stronger than the 2nd amendment of the US constitution in regards to an individual right...

Does anyone know who is regarded as the primary author(s) of section 21?

[Azzy]

Isnt the nitpicking of singular words where we got into trouble with the 2A?

Why cant it just be simple and mean as it says? Damn lawyers should never had the chance to get into law making.

[NineseveN]

Originally Posted by rev214

The right of the citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves and the State shall not be questioned.

I think the wording is stronger than the 2nd amendment of the US constitution in regards to an individual right...

Does anyone know who is regarded as the primary author(s) of section 21?

Benjamin Franklin if my memory serves me correctly.


A good link on state RKBA language:
http://www.law.ucla.edu/volokh/beararms/statecon.htm

[LAHeat]

Bottom line folks:

The U.S. Constitution, 2nd Amendment takes precedence over any state constitution verbiage! And/or, blah, blah, blah...

"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."

And it cannot be infringed by a state constitution as well.... (until the democrats get in office)