Now About that Second Amendment

Not many but the most fringe elements want to outlaw all guns. Most however, think we need some kind of common sense regulation of the acquisition and ownership of firearms.

When the 2nd Amendment was written, the latest technology in firearms was rifling the barrels! Modern, high-velocity ammo, high-capacity magazines, and auto-loading were not even a fantasy! Guns were for the most part single shot flintlock muzzle loaders. High tech might be a rifled barrel!

Let's break down the Second Amendment: 

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 first part of the Amendment only makes sense in the context of the time it was written as well. The founders wrote that the nation neither needed nor could afford a standing army. Therefore a militia was required if a threat to the nation was to be dealt with. Like in Switzerland to this day, after an initial service, everybody is required to be ready to be called up in a moments notice if there is a threat. We no longer require this. We now have a standing military, and the state and national guards. The largest by far in the world today. Yes, I am aware that the Supreme Court somehow found in Heller that the Second Amendment protects an individual's Right to keep and bear arms, unconnected with service in a militia. I can't for the life of me understand how those supposedly brilliant writers of this Amendment could have intentionally penned something so ambiguous! Actually, I contend that they did no such thing. I believe they wrote precisely what they meant. They knew that linking gun ownership and militias was critical.

As Alexander Hamilton opined in his Concerning the Militia essay published in 1788: "... it will be possible to have an excellent body of well-trained militia, ready to take the field whenever the defense of the State shall require it. This will not only lessen the call for military establishments, 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 the use of arms, who stand ready to defend their own rights, and those of their fellow-citizens. This appears to me the only substitute that can be devised for a standing army, and the best possible security against it, if it should exist."

18th century laws governing a 21st century nation. It makes no sense! Our constitution was written to govern a nation of mostly farmers, miners & loggers, not forgetting slaves and Native Americans, with a population under four million. It was so inadequate that it needed to be amended twenty-seven times, most recently on May 5, 1992! We now expect this document to guide the governance of over three hundred million individuals, mostly urban dwellers, in an age where near-instant global communication is the norm and tensions are exacerbated by weapons capable of destroying the world if the contamination caused by overpopulation and exploitation of resources don't destroy it first.

We need to rewrite the Constitution of the United States just as a start. It does not reflect the realities of the twenty first century.

As the right loves to point out for some reason, America was founded as a Republic, not a pure democracy, like Athens was. It's claimed that pure democracies tend to devolve to mob rule, and are easily manipulated by demagogues so they tend to devolve into dictatorships. Okay fine. 

But a nation where everyone owns guns is effectively a mob. By decoupling the militia from legitimate authority, the NRA and GOP have been either accidentally or deliberately setting the stage for a dictatorship for decades.

Which brings us to the other thing about the second Amendment. I keep hearing, usually from woefully uninformed Second Amendment supporters, that Hitler was able to take power by banning guns. The exact opposite is true! Hitler deregulated guns for 99% of the German population. He reduced the age at which it was legal to purchase a gun from 20 to 18, he removed all restrictions on purchasing rifles, and he expanded the number of classes that didn't have to get a license to purchase a handgun. German militias (known as freikorps, literally "free corps") put Hitler in power. 

Which gets us back to the first part of the Second Amendment again: "well regulated militia". That doesn't seem to mean a bunch of Wolverine wannabes camping out and playing soldier in the woods somewhere. Again, the writers wrote precisely what they meant. Well regulated meant by the government. As Hamilton explained further in Federalist #29 quoted above: "This desirable uniformity can only be accomplished by confiding the regulation of the militia to the direction of the national authority."

Pretty unambiguous if you ask me.