[Ref]
Okay, so I had an email from one Richard Meyer which got me giving some further thought to the issue of the second amendment. First off, it needs to be said that Richard's an Aussie (commiserations on the Italy game incidentally, that was never a penalty) and I'm a Brit, so the constitution doesn't affect either of us directly. The thing is that I happen to think that the US Constitution is one of the most profound statements of democracy there is and as such it behoves those of us who are committed to democracy, freedom and liberty to take an interest in it.

Now, I accept that perhaps I wasn't quite as clear as I should have been in my earlier post. It cannot be stated categorically what the 1791 authors of the Bill of Rights had in mind in terms of the militia they refer to, but it could well have been all men of fighting age. The thing is that this is a very different world to that of 1791, and the statement that a militia is necessary for a free society doesn't hold water anymore. Once you remove the reason for the right to bear arms, the supposed right is also removed. The interesting thing is that the wording of the amendment suggests that the right to bear arms was a presupposed right, rather than one being conferred by the bill.

In the twenty-first century perhaps it's time, in the words of President Bartlett, to "agree it's a stupid-ass amendment that was written before there were street lamps, much less police forces, and move on". The thing is that the need for a regulated militia composed of the general public is obviated by the existence of police forces, local, state and federal. The need of a civilised and free society was not for a militia itself, but for the enforcement of law and order.

So, perhaps it's time for a new, 28th, amendment that doesn't ban gay marriage, but revokes the second.

...I don't like Mondays...

Well, today's been okay actually. Had a nice lunch with Rachel (I provided pickle, cos y'know, sometimes you just have some pickle to hand) and morning prayer at college was pretty cool - it's a liquid worship type affair this week, and I'm providing some percussive sounds.

Updated Mauricio's hackergotchi on Planet SUSE.

Linux on the LifeDrive. Interesting.

Nice one Stephan on the Kerry 0.2 packages, and for providing Beagle packages, I've also got 0.2.7 packages up (must get myself a Build Service account...) which include the risky, unstable, do not use unless you have a death wish, insecure Epiphany extension and the Python bindings. Oh yeah, you can get them i686 optimised too if you want.

I once didn't get a job because I use vi (actually, Vim) and the interviewer used emacs.

Was having a drink with an American last week and we were talking about the second amendment. She pointed out that the amendment does not provide the right to bear arms to all people, but only to a militia. Having had another look, I'm not sure that's 100% true, but it does seem to be the jist - it would seem the people writing the Bill of Rights did not envisage a free-for-all on weaponry.