a well-regulated militia, comma, being necessary for the security of a free state, comma, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, comma, shall not be infringed. those 27 words and three commas constitute the entirety of the second amendment. no disrespect to james madisons, but grammarians and their red pens would have a field day with the sentence. no one is exactly sure what the first clause about the militia has to do with the clause about the right to bear arms. for almost 200 years, the puzzlement over the meaning was barely an issue. but then in the 1970s, new leadership took over at the nra and and made it the group s mission to protect every citizen s right, supposedly enshrined in the second
entire amendment to the constitution concerns guns. but does that amendment truly mean what the nra and others have recently led us to believe? a well-regulated militia, comma, being necessary for the security of a free state, comma, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, comma, shall not be infringed. those 27 words and three commas constitute the entirety of the second amendment. no disrespect to james madison, but grammarians and their red pens would have a field day with the sentence. no one is exactly sure what the first clause about the militia has to do with the clause about the right to bear arms. for almost 200 years, the puzzlement over the meaning was barely an issue. but then in the 1970s, new leadership took over at the nra
step for a man. and that missing a has been setting off grammarians ever since. lift-off. the final lift-off of atlantis. reporter: through all the years nasa has insisted that he did say the a, and modern microphones would have picked it up. instead, the word was lost on scratchy old equipment operating nearly a quarter million miles away. and armstrong, though he rarely gave interviews, throughout his life agreed with nasa. thank you so much. reporter: many scientists have tried to analyze the recordings and break down the sound waves with inconclusive results. but now researchers from michigan state and ohio state believe they have evidence that armstrong s utterance may have been shaped less by space than by something very down to earth. the famous astronaut was an ohio boy, and these researchers studied hundreds of recordings of natives saying the word for and a and they found almost 200 times the words were pushed
reporter: when neil armstrong stepped out to become the first man on the moon, not a soul on earth could have guessed he would land in the middle of a cosmic controversy. that s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind. reporter: the problem? the first part of his historic sentence, that s one small step for man, is grammatically incorrect. it should have been one small step for a man. and that missing a has been setting off grammarians ever since. lift-off. the final lift-off of atlantis. reporter: through all the years nasa has insisted that he did say the a, and modern microphones would have picked it up. instead, the word was lost on scratchy old equipment operating nearly a quarter million miles away. and armstrong, though he rarely gave interviews, throughout his life agreed with nasa. thank you so much.
for more than 40 years nasa s maintained that the quote was just ever so slightly different. and now researchers in the midwest may have solved an enduring lunal and linguistic mystery. tom foreman reports. the eagle has landed. reporter: when neil armstrong stepped out to become the first man on the moon, not a soul on earth could have guessed he would land in the middle of a cosmic controversy. that s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind. reporter: the problem? the first part of his historic sentence, that s one small step for man, is grammatically incorrect. it should have been one small step for a man. and that missing a has been setting off grammarians ever since. lift-off. the final lift-off of atlantis. reporter: through all the years nasa has insisted that he did say the a, and modern microphones would have picked it up.