Texas has plenty of well-known textbook-related controversies. But this week the Daily Paul, an officially unaffiliated site popular among fans of Ron Paul, has a post encouraging readers to call Guyer High School, in Denton, and ask administrators-slash-complain about the AP History textbook. On page 102, the book apparently defines the ungrammatical second amendment this way:
“The people have the right to bear arms in a state militia.”
No matter how you feel about gun rights — and however you think I feel, you’re probably wrong — the real problem is the language in the amendment itself. As an English major and a writer, I find the language confusing. (Hence the perpetual debate over interpretations.) But don’t take it from me. Kurt Eichenwald goes deep linguistically here.