There are times when you can quote parts of something, omit a bit in the middle, and not really change the meaning. Those middle parts are often superfluous to the meaning and so they can be omitted without a problem.

But if someone does that, they need to be prepared to be challenged. After all, in many other cases, removing something from the middle can drastically change the meaning of the quote.

Why am I talking about quotes and omitting a few words?

Because words matter, and in something like the Second Amendment, there are two words that are vital to correctly understanding what it means. Those words are "the people."

Yet Rep. Jerry Nadler doesn't seem to think they're all that important.

👀WATCH: @RepJerryNadler reads “the People” right out of the Second Amendment 😱

❌“A well regulated Militia being necessary for the security of a free State, the right to bear Arms shall not be infringed.” ❌ pic.twitter.com/BAWNv9NUKi

— Gun Owners of America (@GunOwners) May 8, 2024

Note that Nadler specifically says the word "quote" before beginning to recite most of the Second Amendment. Yet by omitted "the people," he changed everything.

See, Nadler is, in fact, correct that the Founding Fathers had little trust in standing armies. They did see them as tools of tyranny--standing armies were often used domestically in those days--and they wanted the United States to have a militia instead.

But the gist of what Nadler is suggesting is that they wanted the states to have militias. The phrase "the people" is a key giveaway that while they saw militias as being essential to American security, they saw it as the people's right to keep and bear arms so they could serve as militia. It's why the right is an individual one.

Nadler's omission wasn't likely to be a simple mistake. In fact, the folks over at American Greatness are positive it's not.

The omission of the crucial words “of the people” in the Congressman’s reading of the Second Amendment is more than a politician’s linguistic slip.

By deliberately leaving out the correct verbiage, Nadler radically alters the original meaning of the amendment which limits the power of government to infringe upon an individual right of the people to keep and bear arms.

I agree.

Nadler's omission will likely be explained away as a slip-up or that he was paraphrasing.

Neither of those holds water.

First, Nadler's anti-gun sentiments are well-known and well-documented. He's a proponent of the view that the Second Amendment is a collective right, which is easier to sell to the American public if you remove "the people" from the text entirely.

Especially since "the people" means individual rights everywhere else in the Bill of Rights but supposedly doesn't in just this one convenient instance.

As for paraphrasing, well, that would be easier to accept if he hadn't used the word "quote" before reciting part of the Second Amendment. You don't use that particular word when you're not intending to quote something.

No, Nadler knew what he was doing.

He just hoped that everyone listening would be too stupid to see it for what it was, an attempt a revisionist history by just ignoring that which he didn't like.

Well, we saw it and we're calling him out on it.