In 1623, Virginia forbade colonists to travel unless they were 
"well armed." In 1631, Virginians were required to engage in 
target practice on Sunday and "bring their peeces (sic) to church." 
By 1658, every Virginian was to have a firearm at home, and in 
1673 state law said that a citizen who claimed he was too
poor to buy a gun "could have one purchased for him by the 
government, which would then require him to pay a reasonable 
price when able to do so." 

37 responses total.

"peecees"

You know what (sic) means?

yew no whutta PC is?

Shouldn't there have been a (sic) after "state law" as well?

Hah!!  The question is:  has time changed?

Has the intent of the framers of the Constitution?

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What does this item have to do with posting the Ten Commandments?

nice, i can respond but how do i create my own.

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oh thanx

jp2, How so?  It never stopped anyone before.

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#10 is a good example of that.

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And the Alabama state constitution forbids racially integrated education. 
Your point is?

re #s 10,13 & 15:

In your pathetic attempt to display your own imagined superiority, you 
have consistently misspelled deity, heightening to epic proportions the 
irony of #7.

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That the irony has played you, rather than the other way around.

Well, I guess I don't have to answer #13.

Here's a diety commandment: "Thou shall eat broccoli."

this item, specifically its sequelae, is sick (sic).

Watch for this pattern: 

Jamie is a subliterate poser.  Somebody notices.  Jamie says, "Just 
kidding."  

Quiz next week.

[btw, sic = "thus" in Latin.  You use it to inform your editor and your 
readers that "that's the way it is in the original" -- that is, please 
don't change it, it's an accurate quote, it isn't an error (on my 
part)."  In the hands of amateurs, it is often used as shorthand 
for "error."  I've seen it used to signal an error of fact in a passage 
being quoted, or even just an opinion the writer doesn't agree with, 
something clearly not the writer's own error or opinion.  In the case 
of "peeces" in #0, you could make the case that no antique usage needs 
to be so marked, and that consequently Brian's sic deserves a sic of 
its own.  On the other hand, Brian is such a sloppy, self-indulgent 
writer that it *is* reasonable of him to fear that we'd think "peeces" 
was his own misspelling, so maybe the sic is appropriate after all.]

It IS only one letter different from the accepted contemporary spelling, 
so I'll give him the benefit of the doubt, despite the persuasiveness of 
your argument, md.

re#24: Or I cut and pasted it from the 'news' (betcha that is
was it was).

re#8:  Connect the dots...
The framers of the consitution (you know, those all knowing
forseeing genius types we all pretended to look up to but in
fact picked on in high school until they discovered firearms)
came from a certain mileu - were members of a culture where
certian values and assumptions were a given.  Among them 
obviously from the quote is that personal ownership of firearms
is a given, indeed required.  Part of the requirement was to
appear at 'church' on sunday for purposes of increasing skill
in the use thereof.  And 'church' being a convenient gathering
point where all would assemble so as not to inconvenience any
particular citizen by otherwise mandating one week-end a month
or some such thing...

You mean you didn't research that yourself?  You just copied-an-pasted 
it from somewhere??  

26: "all-knowing."  "foreseeing" or "farseeing," 
whichever.  "milieu."  "certain."  "church" (no quotes 
needed).  "Sunday."  Plus the rambling pointless digressions, the 
trailing off into mumbled weirdness at the end, and the hilarious idea 
that the connection between a) folks in the "state" of Virginia in 1673 
(still haven't explained that one) being required to bring their guns 
to church, and b) "posting the 10 commandments," exists anywhere but in 
your head, where the evil ACLU forces its atheistic agenda on helpless 
children even as it while deprives their parents of guns or something.

I wonder if it is a continuation of the welsh practice of training with the
longbow, or just a realization that practice makes perfect and everybody is
in one place at this particular time.

Actually, that was English.  One of the Henrys (II ?) decreed archery practice
after church.

Virginia still isn't a State; it's a Commonwealth (one of four).  However,
I'm not sure that "state" isn't an applicable term for the colony before 1776.

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The Constitution refers only to States. 

The term "state" tends to refer to a wide variety of countries and
country-like entities, some of which call themselves "States" and some of
which call themselves something different.  The Commonwealths of Pennsylvania,
Virginia, Massachusetts, and whatever the fourth one is, are among the 50
States of the US.  In this case, even State with a capital S seems to apply
in some contexts.

That Virginia law likely comes from a time when there wasn't much law
enforcement, weren't as many people around to get caught in the cross-fire,
and weren't the types of guns available today.  It was presumably a law
requiring people to protect themselves, much like the laws today requiring
those riding in cars to wear seatbelts.  Whether it was good public policy
then is probably a matter reasonably open to debate.  Whether such a
requirement would be good public policy now is likely a quite different
question, given changed circumstances and knowledge about the effects of gun
violence on our modern society.

Shouldn't an infallable deity be able to spell deity however he says it's
spelled? ;)

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Yes, Kentucky, and my comment was a counter to the person (and I don't
care to scroll back to see who) who was complaining that Virginia of the
1600s should not be called a "state".  If it wasn't then, it isn't now;
if it is now, it was then.

It was a colony.  Nobody called it a state.

I do recall, in the movie "Dumb and Dumber", the motorcycle cop warning 
that it was illegal to have an open alcohol container in the "State of 
Pennsylvania".  Don't know how the Internet Movie Database mixed that 
goof.

Richard - send it in to them; they'll add it to the database.

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