Quick Background Information
The Constitution was ratified in 1787 by the Constitutional Convention, replacing the Articles of Confederation. Americans, remembering the tyranny that was imposed on them by Great Britain, were worried about the new government abusing or taking advantage of its citizens, so the Bill of Rights was added to the Constitution. In fact, the 13 states only agreed to ratify the Constitution if and only if a bill of rights was made soon after ratification; it was that important to the new Americans. The Bill of Rights consists of the first 10 Amendments to the US Constitution and they detail and expressively prohibit certain actions the government cannot do against its citizens while also granting certain rights to citizens that cannot be taken away or obstructed.
The 2nd Amendment Itself
"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."
-2nd Amendment, Bill of Rights, United States Constitution
What does that all mean? Well we have several problems from the start:
1) It was written in an older style of English writing, so there is a slight gap between modern and 18th Century English.
2) The punctuation of the sentence is called into question, why does this one sentence require three commas?
3) Its only one sentence! Why was such an important topic handled with just one quick sentence?
Three Statements Being Made?
I believe that we have something at work in this text that is not apparent from a quick glance. I believe these three statements are being made:
"A well regulated Militia,"
1) States and groups of citizens have the right to organize and operate their own militias. They must be well-run/well-trained.
"being necessary to the security of a free State,"
Ending statement one: These militias must be well-run and effective in order to provide for the protection of a free nation. Beginning statement two: In order to maintain a free country the people must be allowed to own and possess firearms.
"the right of the people to keep and bear Arms,"
2) Individual citizens must be allowed to own and possess firearms.
"shall not be infringed."
3) These rights shall not be violated or obstructed.
How Did I Come Up With All Of That From Just One Sentence?
"A well regulated Militia,"
1) "Well regulated" doesn't mean today what it meant then. With an 18th Century context, "regulated" means ["well"] trained, experienced, or maintained. The actual text does not say who is allowed or not allowed to organize or operate a militia, nor does it say what a "militia" actually is. To fill this gap I look at the example of the Founding Fathers, who employed both state-run and local community-run militias. Note that the Founding Fathers employed many different militias from all 13 colonies and countless local communities, yet the actual word in the text is singular, not plural. Again, apply the context and the word "militia" is not referring to just one single militia but rather a corps of militias across the country. Also, this same issue was brought up with the creation of the first national bank. Alexander Hamilton argued that the Constitution didn't expressively disallow or allow such a thing, and so the bank was created on the grounds that it was not forbidden and if it had been something that the Founding Fathers wanted forbidden, it would have been strictly forbidden in the text.
"being necessary to the security of a free State,"
I see this clause as the end of one statement and the beginning of another, and the commas allow for the ending and beginning of two separate ideals in one "sandwiched" conjunction clause. More simply put, this is what I believe it is saying:
Statement #1) A well-trained and maintained militia is necessary for the security of a free state.
Statement #2) For the security of a free state, individual citizens must be allowed to own and possess firearms.
What do we need security from? It’s in reference to security from both "foreign and domestic" threats. Foreign threats as in other nations attacking us and domestic threats as in internal threats such as our own government.
We're talking about men that defeated the most powerful military on earth, created a nation, invented electricity, the printing press, founded a college, and amassed countless important achievements. I think it's safe to say that they had the ability to make a compound sentence.
They knew from firsthand experience that threats can come from abroad and from their own government that has gone too far and become a threat itself.
"shall not be infringed."
3) This is probably the most straight-forward part of the 2nd Amendment itself. At least it should be. At first glance this seems like a water-tight statement that has no ambiguity, but questions emerge from this wording. What exactly does "infringe" mean? Do background checks and waiting periods "infringe" on our right to own firearms? What about a law that bans ammunition but allows citizens to own firearms? The questions are endless. I believe that the Founding Fathers in essence didn't want legislation or governmental red tape to get in the way of citizens owning firearms and being able to use them in self defense.
What about the National Guard as a Militia?
Many people of the opposing view argue that the National Guard is what the Founding Fathers were talking about when they were using the word "militia" in the text of the Amendment. Time to pull out the good old history book:
2nd Amendment: Ratified with the rest of the Bill of Rights in 1791
The National Guard: Officially organized as the "National Guard" in 1903
How can someone say that the word "militia" from a 1791 document is referencing a to something created in 1903? In their defense, the Congressional act was named the "Militia Act of 1903." But what did it do? It officially put the non-uniform state militias under Federal regulation and control. That's going in the opposite direction, wouldn't that be an Army? What if the Crown had enacted similar legislation on the Colonists leading up to the Revolutionary War? The same militias and citizens that were fighting the British would have been under control of the Crown. This doesn't make any sense. Militias protect their communities, not get deployed to foreign battlefields and fight nationally-headed wars. I believe part of this misconception comes from the lack of understanding with Americans today about what exactly a home guard is all about. In the Revolutionary War era communities and colonies had to worry about Indian attacks and other threats on their own soil, and many of the men of every town owned their own firearms and had to be part of the militia to answer the call in case their community was under threat. These men were ordered to have personally-owned firearms by the way.
AK47s To Go Hunting?
Many opponents of the 2nd Amendment argue that you don't need an AK47 or AR15 to hunt deer. I would agree with them completely. An AK47 isn't very accurate, the AR15 shoots a weak round, and both have 30 rounds of ammunition in one magazine; way more than required for one deer that doesn't even shoot back. But hold the phone for a second...
The 2nd Amendment wasn't put in our nation's Constitution so we could go hunting! It was put in there because the Founding Fathers wanted to ensure future Americans had the means to take down a tyrannical government, exactly like our Founding Fathers did themselves. It wasn't just the Founding Fathers that believed in this, it was all 13 states, as I said before the states WOULD NOT sign off on the Constitution unless this was written into the Constitution. Remember the context of history, we are talking about a nation that just fought its way out of oppression under the grip of tyranny and governmental abuse, these people admittedly wanted to make sure that future Americans had the ability to rise above tyranny in the future, should it exist like it had existed over them.
My favorite argument in this regard is 2nd Amendment opponents saying 'these guns belong on a foreign battlefield, not in our own streets.' What are they supposed to do when the battlefield IS in our own streets? During the LA riots people were running out to gun stores to buy guns to defend themselves against suburban anarchy and chaos. The problem was that California had passed a waiting period, which meant a gun purchaser had to wait over a week from the purchase date to actually pick up the firearm. More simply put, these people were screwed. This draws back to my belief that Americans have lost the concept of self defense and personal responsibility and have taken for granted the security and tranquil domestic life of America today. Americans today take for granted that there will always be electricity to power their house, gas (although expensive) to fuel our cars, food in the grocery stores to buy whenever we please, and we will never get shot at while just trying to run daily errands around town. Most Americans today have no concept of how the most anarchic and chaos-ridden corners of the world are forced to live, and have become complacent and narrow-minded because of our own tranquil lives.
So to end this part of it, you don't need an AK47 to hunt deer but it would come in handy if you needed to defend your own life and/or family from riots or some other threat. This "life or death" threat is rarely experienced in modern American society. An exemption from this is the Hurricane Katrina situation.
Hurricane Katrina
Overnight, whole neighborhoods were flooded and cutoff from all authority, medical services, and aid for weeks at a time. It was complete anarchy, and that in itself is a shameful understatement. It was Hell on earth. Imagine for a second;
A family made a signal for airborne rescuers to let them know they were still alive. Can you image living like this for several weeks on end?
The hurricane has passed; your neighborhood is under water. The bottom half of the first floor of your house is under water, all of your neighbors are taking refuge upstairs on the roofs of their houses. You don't have many supplies, food is going to run out in several days, and you have almost no water. Stagnate water that has flooded everything is full of dead bodies and polluted with fuel and toxins and is of no drinking use, it burns your skin to even touch it. There is no electricity, no utilities, and no help or law enforcement. And there are thousands of people in your area, and these people all need supplies to survive. When the water subsides, looting and rape gangs roam throughout the nights, taking advantage of whomever they want with whatever weapons they can get their hands on. The weak and defenseless are pillaged, raped, and left for dead. This is Hell on earth, there's no mistake about it. This is the kind of situation a militia and armed citizens are for. And in fact that's exactly what happened. Citizens that owned guns banded together and formed local home guard brigades who rationed supplies, helped those in need, and stood watch day and night to protect their fellow citizens until law and order had been restored. Those are the true Americans, and that's the kind of situation we have the 2nd Amendment for. Yes, it's an extraordinary situation, but it happens, even in our modern day.
You see, what I just described is the shattering of this modern American idea that our safety and tranquility is guaranteed, and our personal protection is the responsibility of someone else. WE are responsible for our own self defense and protection, not the police or the government. WE are the first line of defense at protecting our own lives. WE were afforded the ability to own firearms in the Bill of Rights to enable us to carry out these things we know (and our Founding Fathers knew all too well) to be true.
That's It
I think you all know where I stand on the 2nd Amendment. It wasn't a misguided rambling talking about a government's right to defend itself from its citizens (that doesn't even pass the 'laugh test'). It was the underlying principle that the Founding Fathers understood was paramount, insomuch that it's 2nd in order out of the 10 Amendments to the Bill of Rights, second only to the basic human right of self expression. The 2nd Amendment is the shadow watchdog of the other 9 Amendments. Corrupt and tyrannical governments don't crumble from lobbyists, demonstrators, protesters, politicians, or reporters. They come to an end by their own citizens coming together as patriots and realizing enough is enough. I am not advocating for the toppling of our government or any other, I am advocating for the remembrance of our own history and recognition as to why we have the things we have today. I love my country, "I was born an American; I will live an American; I shall die an American." God Bless America.
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