Can we please stop pretending that the Second Amendment contains an unfettered right for everyone to buy a gun? It doesn’t, and it never has. The claims made by the small number of extremists, before and after the Orlando, Fla., massacre, are based on a deliberate lie. The Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution doesn’t just say Congress shall not infringe the right to “keep and bear arms.” It specifically says that right exists in order to maintain “a well-regulated militia.” Even the late conservative Supreme Court Associate Justice Antonin Scalia admitted those words weren’t in there by accident. Oh, and the Constitution doesn’t just say a “militia.” It says a “well-regulated” militia.
The problem with listening to most Proudly Closed-minded Gun Control Foes © is that their arguments about the 2nd Amendment tend to revolve around the “it’s immutable, inflexible, and unchangeable,” if not “Divinely ordained.” Convinced that their absolutist interpretation- and ONLY that absolutist interpretation- is correct and that any other is evidence that “THEY’RE COMING TO TAKE OUR GUNZ!!!”, they refuse to even entertain the possibility they may be incorrect.
Such an absolutist, inflexible, and frankly monstrous interpretation is without a doubt incorrect, and for at least two reasons:
1) Proudly Closed-minded Gun Control Foes ©, while quick to embrace “the right to bear arms,” often blithely ignore the “well-regulated militia” part. The 2nd Amendment isn’t a la carte; there’s nothing in the amendment’s 27 words that allows for cherry-picking what serves a particular agenda and discarding what doesn’t.
2) There’s no need to guess what the Founding Fathers meant by “well-regulated militia,” because they laid that definition our for us in Federalist No. 29 “Concerning the Militia”) of the Federalist Papers.
Alexander Hamilton explained at great length precisely what a “well-regulated militia” was, why the Founding Fathers thought we needed one, and why they wanted to protect it from being disarmed by the federal government.
And there’s a reason absolutely no gun extremist will ever direct you to that 1788 essay because it blows their baloney into a million pieces.
A “well-regulated militia” didn’t mean guys who read Soldier of Fortune magazine running around in the woods with AK-47s and warpaint on their faces. It basically meant what today we call the National Guard.
When you read Hamilton’s words, it’s easy to see that the intent behind the 2nd Amendment was never to provide a blank check for a citizen to possess any type of firepower they deemed necessary. Nor was it to provide cover for those who wish to openly carry any sort of weaponry in public spaces in order to “protect” themselves. It’s not a license to be a dick and endanger public safety in the name of exercising one’s “2nd Amendment rights.” In short, it’s NOT a blank check.
The reference to “well-regulated militia” was exactly what a reasonable would think those three words might mean- an organized military force maintained by the government.
It should be a properly constituted, ordered and drilled (“well-regulated”) military force, organized state by state, explained Hamilton. Each state militia should be a “select corps,” “well-trained” and able to perform all the “operations of an army.” The militia needed “uniformity in … organization and discipline,” wrote Hamilton, so that it could operate like a proper army “in camp and field,” and so that it could gain the “essential … degree of proficiency in military functions.” And although it was organized state by state, it needed to be under the explicit control of the national government. The “well-regulated militia” was under the command of the president. It was “the military arm” of the government.
Before going any further, I think it would be helpful to be reminded of the text of the 2nd Amendment, which represents very likely the most willfully misinterpreted 27 words in the English language:
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.
The reader will notice that “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms” comes after “A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free State.” These are not independent clauses, each with their own meaning and interpretations. It’s “A, then B,” not “A, then B, which is whatever an individual determines best fits their own personal agenda.”
Simply put, the 2nd Amendment doesn’t exist to be cherry-picked. The “right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed” isn’t independent of “A well-regulated militia.” Despite the pushback, the bluster, and laughably empty threats I’ll undoubtedly get from Proudly Closed-minded Gun Control Foes ©, the 2nd Amendment isn’t a blank check. Period. End of story.
Part of the responsibility upon all of us as citizens is to respect the rights of others…unless you’re a Proudly Closed-minded Gun Control Foe ©, in which case you can tell the rest of us to pound sand- because the 2nd Amendment allows you to do whatever you want.
Sorry, Cupcake, but it doesn’t work like that. Your “gun rights” are no more- or less- important than my right to not be murdered by a madman wielding an AR-15. No, more guns don’t make us safer, nor will a good guy with a gun stop a bad guy with a gun. If you could be bothered to stop parroting propaganda, we might actually have a chance at having a calm, reasoned, and rational discussion about guns.
Yeah, like that’s ever going to happen….
