What The Second Amendment 'Should' Say, And What It Actually Does.

Some conservatives think the Second Amendment gives private citizens the right to own guns. It does not. It is based on the older English Bill of Rights, 1689, which stated that private citizens had the right to own guns "for their defence suitable to their conditions and as allowed by law". But the opening to the Second Amendment "A well regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State", made it clear our founding fathers didn't want to take it that far. It only applies to state militias, and maybe law enforcement too, now. But no one else. And only for "defence" clearly in both bills of rights. Not hunting, or other recreation.

But one thing that people overlook about the Second Amendment, and this surprisingly includes the Catholics on the Supreme Court, is that it forbids Catholics from ever owning guns in the United States. The people thought this was so obvious, they didn't even include it in the original text. They only thought that people might try to misconstrue the amendment to apply to private citizens in the future, ironically. And this all goes back to Pope Pius V in 1570, when he issued his Regnans in Excelsis. It said, that Queen Elizabeth I could never be queen. She was illegitimate, so how could she, he pointed out? Parliament recognized Henry VIII's annulment to Elizabeth's mother Anne Boleyn, in 1534? Well, he sure didn't. Henry VIII was always a Catholic, though a very bad and disobedient one. England was still a Catholic nation. And Elizabeth I was illegitimate, the bitch, and had to be killed, Pius V declared. And then with Elizabeth gone, he hoped, England might turn Catholic again.

The Second Amendment restrains the federal government, and therefore no person in the U.S. army can ever own guns, or Navy, etc. Some people say that the equal protection of the 14th Amendment grants equality to Catholics in the U.S. Thus, they can join the army, and own guns now. But the 14th Amendment clearly says "...nor [shall any State] deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws..." Read that again. "Any *STATE*". It was never meant to apply to the federal government. Of course, in 1954 the Supreme Court said that the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment should apply to the federal government. And so they did, using the idea of substantive due process reverse incorporation. It "should"? It "should"? So then, it "does"? Well. Like former Chief Justice Warren Burger told Gwen Ifill on MacNeil/Lehrer Report in 1991 , I certain believe that the Second Amendment should protect private conduct. It "should", it "should" he said. But it doesn't, you idiots. He told his fellow conservatives.

 

The Second Amendment is a pernicious artifact from a time when we were a confederation of states, had no standing army, and the standard infantry weapon had a firing rate of four rounds a minute and a range of a hundred yards. Now we garrison a global empire, and the Second Amendment's sole raison d'etre; to maintain "a well regulated militia", has been a moot point for over 100 years. More Americans have been shot to death in the last 50 years than in all of the wars in American history; more than 1.5 million. To attempt to justify such carnage based upon reverence for a legislative fossil that should have been repealed when high-button shoes and buggy whips went out of fashion is as idiotic as it is obscene. The U.S. Constitution has been amended 27 times. It's well past time we amended it again and repealed the Second Amendment.

 

The wording of 2A is a classic debate.

I’ve always taken the intent to both be that the citizenry should be armed in order to form militias when called upon (an antequated notion at best), AND to allow the citizenry a chance at fighting tyranny. Also a little antequated, but the point is that the founders repeatedly, throughout their writings, talk of the need to stave off tyranny in order to let liberty flourish.

To that end, the gun was an instrumental tool. It could be used via militia (army) to stave off external tyranny, internal tyranny, and was as well a rather workaday tool which allowed people especially in rural areas or the frontier to make their own liberty. There wasn’t the air of “ooh, a gun” that there is today, it was more like we’d think of a tractor or a hammer today. Thus in my reading, it was important enough a tool to merit specific mention as something which should be protected.

Is my reading the correct one? Who knows. I’m not a constitutional scholar, after all. But it does make sense to me when viewed with other writings like the Declaration of Independence, the federalist papers, etc. as a background. This is more my opinion on how this should be read rather than a command to read it as I do.

 

Why do you need guns. You could just run off with their walking frames,

 

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The first two articles strike home with my reading - you kinda gotta own a gun back then anyway if you’re out in the boonies. Let’s get this into the constitution, and use the fact that you kind of have to own a gun anyway, into a feature rather than a bug. A militia, or irregular army, is something called up, almost like reserves today. Citizen-soldiers, if you will, except this is convenient for a young nation which can’t easily pay for its own private arms and doesn’t want a standing army anyway. So it hit that perfect trifecta: Dem boys need guns just to exist and build the economy, we can use that to our advantage when we need to raise an army, and we can use it as a check on the government domestically. As I see it, there was an expectation that there would be private gun ownership, again outside of serving in a militia being seen as a workaday tool which could be called upon when in need as a benefit to the country as a rich bonus.

The article on the California assault weapon ban was a real outlier here. I don’t see where either a private militia fits in (I don’t see any room for private militias unless there’s a PutinTrump usurping things) nor is there (in my opinion) any thing special about an assault rifle which is either especially dangerous or outside the bounds of what can be expected in private ownership. If anything, the assault weapon’s force multiplier lies in that it’s less powerful. In any case, I think it gets into some weeds which split hairs and don’t really address the fundamental right, and I dare say, expectation, for people to own firearms. It’s a bulwark against either invasion or insurrection, and it was…maybe not expected, but kind of tolerated that private defense might include having to shoot a person but more widely accepted that it might include anything from hunting subsistence to defense against a hungry bear or aggressive coyote. Eastern Coyotes are not to be messed with and wolves…yeah.

In sum, while society has evolved, I think the basic underpinnings are largely the same. We are armed to the teeth. Invade at your own risk. Dissolve Congress and declare a dictatorship at your own risk. And otherwise, empower the people to possess and use firearms responsibly. If the people do not take up that latter responsibility, then punish the irresponsible use of the firearms, not the possession, or the ability to acquire them. If a gun randomly goes off without irresponsible handling or being dropped (there’s some overlap), it’s exceedingly rare. A gun doesn’t sit there and shoot anybody. The people have to be responsible. Go after the people, not the guns. “Well-regulated”.

In other words, don’t be a dumbass. You have the liberty, use it wisely, because the person next to you has it as well. I think where this has gone more and more awry lies where we have lost the idea of community. We live in suburbs, we don’t walk the streets amongst our neighbors, we don’t have local butchers or bakers where you congregate for better food than we have now, we’ve lost civic pride and left inner cities in a void post-redlining where we kind of don’t care what “those miscreants” our society created do to each other. We aren’t fixing our communities and making society livable. We aren’t creating opportunities for folks who have had to hustle for generations to get by create a better reality, where you don’t settle scores or debts with guns. Guns are misused far, FAR too often, and we blame the tool rather than the user. A wide-open look should include the societal gaps our forefathers created and try to fix those:a post-industrial society where you find the poverty, the lack of healthcare and housing and mental health resources, the food deserts, the tax base which has fled, the broken homes and lack of support for parents who want to do better, the flailing schools (schools are a pet peeve of mine; another topic someday), the resultant drug use and how that affects crime. Disinvestment in what should be prime locations and a throwaway attitude towards people who live there. Didn’t we already go through this with marshaling women’s right to vote, blacks’ right to vote, integrating both of those plus millions of immigrants’ willingness, ability, and skill to work? We don’t have a gun violence problem because there’s a gun violence problem, or even because there’s a gun problem. We have a gun violence problem because we ignore a really dark societal ignorance which has so many elements to it, I haven’t even listed a fraction of them. Wealth inequality, offshoring, wages, crappy middle class, my god this could go on and on and on and on….big money liberals and Alabama conservatives are functionally the same in ignoring all of this in any meaningful way. WE NEED COMMUNITIES WHICH FLOURISH, so nobody feels the need to pull a gun over hustling scarce resources instead of having them as a tool. Congress can’t just will all of this into being.

OK at this point I’m on a rant. Thanks for the discussion, I love this, and I do want to hear what you have to say. Parting shot, I really love earnest civil discussion. First Amendment at work, I appreciate your comments. Much respect.

 

I'm going to have to disagree with this take.

The wording suggests, at least to me, that what the 2nd is really about is the understanding that a well regulated militia--an armed, standing government force--while necessary to protect the freedom of the state, makes the citizens vulnerable. Therefore, in case this well regulated militia becomes tyrannical, we the people can fight back. I also think "shall not be infringed" is a pretty definitive statement.

That said, I find it hilarious people clutch their AR 15 dearly in case they have to go to war with the USA. I'd love to see a hillbilly with a semi automatic rifle go up against tanks, artillery, bombs, jets, etc.

It seems the original point to the ammendment had to do with the citizenry keeping pace with the militia...just in case. But, no private citizen will ever be as well armed as the American soldier. The second is already a obsolete. Now it just makes schools more dangerous.

 

I don't care how many kids get shot to death; it's a small price to pay to preserve my God-given 2nd Amendment right to overcompensate for my profound sense of inadequacy, impotence, and deep-seated insecurities about my manhood by prancing about brandishing a mass-murder machine like a surrogate phallus.

 

The potential shooter of Trump had an assault weapon with a filed off serial number. As a felon, he would not be able to purchase any firearm.

Repealing the 2nd will not remove illegal weapons from circulation; but its an easy issue to campagain on.

The law enforcement component of safe streets has been de-emphasied.

Cops fear handguns in circulation, some purchased from a far away red state gun shop and then trafficked.

 

Curious. Is this an opinion? Or is there a source you can cite?

 

For example without an armed population the George Floyd protests would have been crushed and Derek Chauvin would have never went to prison.

The only reason they don't roll in Tiananmen Square style is because they know at some point if they became too abusive people will start shooting back.



As he explains with saying history only knows the past. If they had gone after the NAZIs before WWII and prevented it no one would ever know the extent of the atrocities prevented.

We need the second Amendment to prevent tyrannical government and I believe it already has because all the big changes for the better brought on by mass protest might have been crushed if the people in Government at the time did not have to worry about the possibility of an armed population deciding to shoot back.

Most people when discussing the second amendment focus on preventing future tyranny's but we have no way of knowing what it has already prevented.

Like the civil rights movement, how would that have worked out if only the government had guns ?

 

an Opinion only.

Assault rifle allegedly used by Ryan Wesley Routh in attempt to kill Trump revealed

 

Can you show the class precisely where that notion can be found in the actual text of the 2nd Amendment?

 

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The Second Amendment & The Right to Kill Black People in Slavery and Reconstruction - The Reconstruction Era
https://www.npr.org/2021/06/02/1002107670/historian-uncovers-the-racist-roots-of-the-2nd-amendment