Grammar and the Second Amendment

To grasp the original intent of the twenty-seven words of the Constitution’s Second Amendment, the Supreme Court would do well to review the Framers’ understanding of the Latin construction, the Ablative Absolute, on which the Amendment’s introductory phrase, an English Nominative Absolute, is based. The Court needs to get beyond the oversimplification and obfuscation in law professor Nelson Lund’s amicus curiae brief on behalf of The Second Amendment Foundation (“Such constructions are grammatically independent of the rest of the sentence, and do not qualify any word in the operative clause to which they are appended.”). If the Court does, it will recognize that the grammar of the Absolute argues for a rigorous connection between the first thirteen words (“A well regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State”) and the following fourteen (“the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed”).

Numerous grammar books written closer to the time of the Republic’s founding than to ours agree that “the usual function of Absolute constructions is to convey some information about the circumstances surrounding the statement in the main clause.” In this non-lawyer’s view, grammarians are clear on the relationship of an Ablative Absolute relative to its sentence’s main clause. While the Absolute stands free of (i.e., not dependent on) the grammar of the main clause (hence its designation absolute), its force is “to indicate and express the time, cause, condition, means, manner, concession or attending circumstances” expressed by the sentence’s main clause. In the words of Albert Harkness’s Latin Grammar (1864), the Absolute expresses the “existing condition or state of affairs” out of which the main clause follows, “adding to the predicate [i.e., the logic and meaning of verb in the main clause] an attendant [i.e., logically accompanying] circumstance.” Note that most grammarians begin their explanation of the role of the Absolute with its temporal meaning.

Grammar textbooks are replete with relevant examples. Consider the Latin sentence Marco imperante, omnia bene administrantur. It can be translated into English as “Because Marcus rules, all is well administered,” indicating cause, or “While Marcus rules, all is well administered,” indicating time. Similarly, hoc facto, tutus eris can be rendered, “If this is done, you will be safe,” indicating condition, or “When this has been done, you will be safe,” indicating time.

Every second-year Latin student learns that the force of the Absolute often depends upon the tense of the verb in the main clause. This being so, it serves the Court well to examine closely the pairing in the Second Amendment of the Absolute with the future tense verb in the main clause. Consider, for example, oppidis nostris captis, bellum geremus, which can be translated causally as “Because our towns have been captured, we shall wage war,” conditionally as ”If our towns are captured, we shall wage war,” or temporally as “When our towns are captured, we shall wage war.”

Now apply this grammar lesson to the Second Amendment’s opening Nominative Absolute and its connection to the future tense of the verb in the main clause. If we construe it to be causal, the text becomes “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.” If we construe it conditionally we have “If [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.” If we consider the Absolute in its most common form, which is temporal, we arrive at the following reading: “When [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.” While all three renderings are significant, the temporal version argues most convincingly for the common sense of the District of Columbia’s effort to ban handgun possession in the Nation’s Capital.