A bad grade that changed the U.S. constitution (2017)

It was also not in dispute in the first constitution of the united states, but they just did away with that for funsies (I'm being facetious). I imagine we'll see something similar in the EU as the bloc becomes more integrated.

"Every idea of proportion and every rule of fair representation conspire to condemn a principle, which gives to Rhode Island an equal weight in the scale of power with Massachusetts, or Connecticut, or New York; and to Deleware an equal voice in the national deliberations with Pennsylvania, or Virginia, or North Carolina. Its operation contradicts the fundamental maxim of republican government, which requires that the sense of the majority should prevail. Sophistry may reply, that sovereigns are equal, and that a majority of the votes of the States will be a majority of confederated America. But this kind of logical legerdemain will never counteract the plain suggestions of justice and common-sense. It may happen that this majority of States is a small minority of the people of America; and two thirds of the people of America could not long be persuaded, upon the credit of artificial distinctions and syllogistic subtleties, to submit their interests to the management and disposal of one third. The larger States would after a while revolt from the idea of receiving the law from the smaller. To acquiesce in such a privation of their due importance in the political scale, would be not merely to be insensible to the love of power, but even to sacrifice the desire of equality. It is neither rational to expect the first, nor just to require the last. The smaller States, considering how peculiarly their safety and welfare depend on union, ought readily to renounce a pretension which, if not relinquished, would prove fatal to its duration."

Or here's another one (#41):

"But if the Union, as has been shown, be essential to the security of the people of America against foreign danger; if it be essential to their security against contentions and wars among the different States; if it be essential to guard them against those violent and oppressive factions which embitter the blessings of liberty, and against those military establishments which must gradually poison its very fountain; if, in a word, the Union be essential to the happiness of the people of America, is it not preposterous, to urge as an objection to a government, without which the objects of the Union cannot be attained, that such a government may derogate from the importance of the governments of the individual States? Was, then, the American Revolution effected, was the American Confederacy formed, was the precious blood of thousands spilt, and the hard-earned substance of millions lavished, not that the people of America should enjoy peace, liberty, and safety, but that the government of the individual States, that particular municipal establishments, might enjoy a certain extent of power, and be arrayed with certain dignities and attributes of sovereignty? We have heard of the impious doctrine in the Old World, that the people were made for kings, not kings for the people. Is the same doctrine to be revived in the New, in another shape that the solid happiness of the people is to be sacrificed to the views of political institutions of a different form? It is too early for politicians to presume on our forgetting that the public good, the real welfare of the great body of the people, is the supreme object to be pursued; and that no form of government whatever has any other value than as it may be fitted for the attainment of this object. Were the plan of the convention adverse to the public happiness, my voice would be, Reject the plan. Were the Union itself inconsistent with the public happiness, it would be, Abolish the Union. In like manner, as far as the sovereignty of the States cannot be reconciled to the happiness of the people, the voice of every good citizen must be, Let the former be sacrificed to the latter."

The 2nd Amendment never had anything to do with crime and self-defense prior to DC v. Heller 2008. Militias do not enforce law. It also, fwiw, has nothing to do with hunting. The sole original purpose of the 2nd was to be a check against tyranny. That is all it ever was until Justice Scalia invented the idea that the 2nd Amendment was a right of self-defense because most Americans (incorrectly) believed that it was... but it was not and is not true that most Americans believed a right of self-defense was included in the 2nd, only those repeating the false propaganda of the NRA.

> Since we've gone off to the first amendment, do you believe "the right of the people peaceably to assemble" only applies to an organized militia and not individual people?

You missed the point, but I'd like to see a single individual try to peacefully assemble.

Having the ability to defend against tyranny with a weapon doesn't mean you drop your right to self defense. The 2nd amendment absolutely protects the right to bear arms as a check against tyranny. I don't understand your bone to pick as to why someone bearing arms couldn't defend themselves with them.

Edit: The bill of rights doesn't outright state a right to self defense. I'd like to see you argue why someone who bears arms (which is their right per 2A) shouldn't be able to defend their life with the arms that they have. If someone starts violently attacking my kid with a knife, do you seriously think I shouldn't be able to use arms to protect them because that's not the tyranny of the government? 2A doesn't say you have the right to keep and bear arms except in self defense. Fortunately for me, I'll be killed or imprisoned for life before someone like you takes my right to armed self defense away -- because that is the only way I'll ever stop keeping my means of self defense.