The Second Amendment is Not Optional

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. These are some of the most controversial words in our Bill of Rights, the amendments to the Constitution forced through by the anti-federalist movement which set the tone for our democracy. They are also vitally important to the continuation of the American way of life.

The argument most used by the gun control people is that this refers to the establishment of militias, whose modern equivalent is the National Guard and the Army Reserve. This line of reasoning is patently false from the outset. The militias in question when the document was framed were not answerable to the federal government at all. In fact, to a large extent they didn't answer to their states except indirectly, being mostly beholden to their local communities. the intent was to keep the federal government from being able to exercise dictatorial control through force of arms. Although this has been the operating state of affairs since the union won the Civil War, the base intent survives.

In fact, the base recruitment quotas for the federal army was supposed to be ' one one hundredth of the total population, or twenty five percent of those able to bear arms'. This would result in an army of twenty five to thirty thousand men at the time, balanced against a militia of five hundred thousand members. In other words, the forces available to the federal establishment would be outnumbered twenty to one.

Why did they do this? The answer is simple, because they had just separated from a system that had forbid private ownership of firearms in the past, and regularly used it's army as a means to suppress the greater majority of their population for the benefit of a few. The Second Amendment is an attempt to prevent this, by insuring that the citizens should have a means of resistance should the government become oppressive. A quote from Noah Webster reads 'Tyranny is the exercise of some power over a man, which is not warranted by law, or necessary for the public safety. A people can never be deprived of their liberties, while they retain in their own hands, a power sufficient to any other power in the state.' That's a pretty clear statement as to the intent of the framers.

Now, I'm not saying that all the gun control people are rabid big government types who wish to deprive us of our arms so that we might be more easily compelled to do their bidding, though you may be sure that some of those exist. In fact, I agree with most of the gun control laws we have right now. Most people can't own automatic weapons or modern artillery, felons are forbidden to possess firearms of any sort, and the mentally ill are supposed to be banned as well, though the problems here stem more from difficulties in record sharing and privacy laws than the lack of ordinances. All of this is sensible, though I do not agree with concealed carry laws and thing guns should be worn openly by those who choose to carry them.

The majority of those who wish to pass more restrictive gun laws are more interested in promoting public safety than anything else, though their methods are short sighted. Russia has incredibly strong gun laws, yet their criminals are routinely able to get ahold of machine guns, explosives, and even rocket propelled grenades. Banning private ownership of firearms will not stop or even slow down those who truly wish to do harm.