The 2nd Amendment

While browsing Facebook one day I came across a post with a link to this article: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/05/nra-guns-second-amendment-106856

Essentially, it accuses the NRA of attempting to rewrite the Constitution with regards to the 2nd Amendment. I am not now nor I have I ever been a member of the NRA but I’m pretty sure it isn’t that organization that is trying to rewrite the Constitution.

I’m not sure why the 2nd amendment is seen as something ephemeral, open to multiple interpretations or hard to understand. It’s really simple, especially when put in the context of the times it was written in. Why was it felt important enough to call out in the bill of rights in the first place? Immediately leading up to the Revolutionary War, the British banned the import of firearms and gunpowder to the colonies (1774) and started confiscating firearms and gunpowder (1774-75). And again, in context, this wasn’t some foreign invader but their own government at a time when most colonists had proudly called themselves British citizens up until not long before these events. These events and events like them were specifically what the framers of the Constitution and of the 2nd Amendment were looking to prevent moving forward.

Even if you believed you had to be part of a “well regulated militia” (which seems a very poor reading based on the reality of the time) what does that mean? A militia is basically everyone capable of firing a gun, or more specifically:

“The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age and, except [for felons], under 45 years of age who are, or who have made a declaration of intention to become, citizens of the United States…”

Though I don’t think anyone today would argue you can’t have a gun if you are a woman or over 46 (I don’t think anyone would have argued that even in 1776).

And “well regulated” during that time didn’t mean “strictly controlled by the government”, it meant something more like “properly functioning” or arguably “well trained”.

Yes, it’s true that the supreme court took a long time to rule on the issue but that is at least in part because it took a long time before anyone even questioned it as a right. The first major gun control law I could find was a ban on handguns in Georgia in 1834. This was overturned by the Georgia supreme court for violating the 2nd amendment 8 years later. The first federal legislation did not come about until the National Firearms Acts of 1934 and 1938. These taxed machine guns and recorded sales and also banned violent criminals from owning guns. The first outright bans didn’t come until the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 so the fact that the Supreme Court has only started recently to rule on these issues is not exactly surprising but given that the 2nd Amendment is part of the Constitution and ruling on Constitutional issues is the job of the supreme court, it was inevitable.

I’m not sure how the NRA has attempted to rewrite anything. Legislation over the past few decades has certainly made that attempt though.

The article claims we don’t know what James Madison meant but:

“[The Constitution preserves] the advantage of being armed which Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation…(where) the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms.”
–James Madison, The Federalist Papers, No. 46

and he is backed up by numerous other founders and commentators from the time:

“A militia, when properly formed, are in fact the people themselves… and include all men capable of bearing arms.” – Richard Henry Lee

“The great object is, that every man be armed … Every one who is able may have a gun.”
— Patrick Henry, Elliot, p.3:386

” … to disarm the people – that was the best and most effectual way to enslave them.”
— George Mason, 3 Elliot, Debates at 380

“That the said Constitution shall never be construed to authorize Congress to infringe the just liberty of the press or the rights of conscience; or to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms … ”
— Samuel Adams, Debates and Proceedings in the Convention of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, at 86-87 (Pierce & Hale, eds., Boston, 1850)

“The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that they be properly armed.”
— Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist Papers at 184-188

If the representatives of the people betray their constituents, there is then no recourse left but in the exertion of that original right of self-defense which is paramount to all positive forms of government, and which against the usurpations of the national rulers may be exerted with infinitely better prospect of success than against those of the rulers of an individual State. In a single State, if the persons entrusted with supreme power become usurpers, the different parcels, subdivisions, or districts of which it consists, having no distinct government in each, can take no regular measures for defense. The citizens must rush tumultuously to arms, without concert, without system, without resource; except in their courage and despair.
— Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 28

” … but if circumstances should at any time oblige the government to form an army of any magnitude, that army can never be formidable to the liberties of the people, while there is a large body of citizens, little if at all inferior to them in discipline and use of arms, who stand ready to defend their rights …”
— Alexander Hamilton speaking of standing armies in Federalist 29

“Whereas, to preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them; nor does it follow from this, that all promiscuously must go into actual service on every occasion. The mind that aims at a select militia, must be influenced by a truly anti-republican principle; and when we see many men disposed to practice upon it, whenever they can prevail, no wonder true republicans are for carefully guarding against it.”
–Richard Henry Lee, The Pennsylvania Gazette, Feb. 20, 1788.

“What country can preserve its liberties if its rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms.”
— Thomas Jefferson to William Stephens Smith, 1787. ME 6:373, Papers 12:356

“No Free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms.”
— Thomas Jefferson, Proposal Virginia Constitution, 1 T. Jefferson Papers, 334,[C.J. Boyd, Ed., 1950]

“As civil rulers, not having their duty to the people before them, may attempt to tyrannize, and as the military forces which must be occasionally raised to defend our country, might pervert their power to the injury of their fellow citizens, the people are confirmed by the article in their right to keep and bear their private arms.”
— Tench Coxe, in `Remarks on the First Part of the Amendments to the Federal Constitution’ under the Pseudonym `A Pennsylvanian’ in the Philadelphia Federal Gazette, June 18, 1789 at 2 col. 1).

“Who are the militia? Are they not ourselves? Is it feared, then, that we shall turn our arms each man against his own bosom. Congress have no power to disarm the militia. Their swords, and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birthright of an American…[T]he unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or state governments, but, where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the people.”
–Tenche Coxe, The Pennsylvania Gazette, Feb. 20, 1788.

“The prohibition is general. No clause in the Constitution could by any rule of construction be conceived to give to Congress a power to disarm the people. Such a flagitious attempt could only be made under some general pretense by a state legislature. But if in any blind pursuit of inordinate power, either should attempt it, this amendment may be appealed to as a restraint on both.”
— William Rawle, A View of the Constitution 125-6 (2nd ed. 1829)

“I ask, sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people, except for a few public officials.”
— George Mason, in Debates in Virginia Convention on Ratification of the Constitution, Elliot, Vol. 3, June 16, 1788

“Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom in Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops that can be, on any pretense, raised in the United States. A military force, at the command of Congress, can execute no laws, but such as the people perceive to be just and constitutional; for they will possess the power, and jealousy will instantly inspire the inclination, to resist the execution of a law which appears to them unjust and oppressive.”
–Noah Webster, An Examination of the Leading Principles of the Federal Constitution (Philadelphia 1787).

“Are we at last brought to such humiliating and debasing degradation, that we cannot be trusted with arms for our defense? Where is the difference between having our arms in possession and under our direction, and having them under the management of Congress? If our defense be the real object of having those arms, in whose hands can they be trusted with more propriety, or equal safety to us, as in our own hands?”
— Patrick Henry, 3 J. Elliot, Debates in the Several State Conventions 45, 2d ed. Philadelphia, 1836

“O sir, we should have fine times, indeed, if, to punish tyrants, it were only sufficient to assemble the people! Your arms, wherewith you could defend yourselves, are gone …”
— Patrick Henry, Elliot p. 3:50-53, in Virginia Ratifying Convention demanding a guarantee of the right to bear arms

“The people are not to be disarmed of their weapons. They are left in full possession of them.”
— Zachariah Johnson, delegate to Virginia Ratifying Convention, Elliot, 3:645-6

“The militia is the natural defense of a free country against sudden foreign invasions, domestic insurrections, and domestic usurpation of power by rulers. The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered, as the palladium of the liberties of the republic; since it offers a strong moral check against the usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers; and will generally … enable the people to resist and triumph over them.”
— Joseph Story, Supreme Court Justice, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States, p. 3:746-7, 1833

” … most attractive to Americans, the possession of arms is the distinction between a freeman and a slave, it being the ultimate means by which freedom was to be preserved.”
— James Burgh, 18th century English Libertarian writer, Shalhope, The Ideological Origins of the Second Amendment, p.604

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