Amendment II (1791)
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.
If you are a political liberal that believes that the
dependent phrase "A well regulated militia" refers to the National Guard, do you want the facts or is your mind made up?
The Second Amendment was approved in 1791. The act that created the National Guard wasn't enacted until 1903. You also apparently don't understand what the militia is. Five months after the adoption of the 2nd Amendment, May 1792, the Militia Act was passed. That act distinguished between the enrolled militia and the organized militia. Before the passing of that act, there was only the
enrolled militia, which is the body of all able-bodied men between the ages of 17 and 44, inclusively, and it is the enrolled militia to which the 2nd Amendment refers. It couldn't refer to the organized militia because it didn't exist yet. The 2nd Amendment was to ensure that this body of citizens is armed and that's why the Founding Fathers thought to place it in the Bill of Rights. Legally, both militias still exist.
Even if you are over 44 or female, you still have the right to keep and bear arms. The dependent clause, "A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, " does not stand alone, but the non-dependent portion, "the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed" can stand as a complete sentence. It is the right of the
people that is guaranteed. The founders wanted the states and the people to be able to defend themselves against the federal government they were constituting. The people being armed with the latest weaponry, including canons, allowed for the common defense and was an attempt to keep from having a standing army. The founders found a standing army contrary to personal freedom since the central government could use the army to oppress the people. Even now, the army is only to be funded for no more than two years.
U.S. Constitution, Article 1, Section 8, clause 12
To raise and support armies, but no appropriation of money to that use shall be for a longer term than two years;
"Laws that forbid the carrying of arms... disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes... Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man."
-- Thomas Jefferson, "Commonplace Book" (1774-1776), quoting from "On Crimes and Punishment," by criminologist Cesare Beccaria (1764)
The complete quote from "On Crimes and Punishment," by criminologist Cesare Beccaria (1764) is :
False is the idea of utility that sacrifices a thousand real advantages for one imaginary or trifling inconvenience; that would take fire from men because it burns, and water because one may drown in it; that has no remedy for evils, except destruction. The laws that forbid the carrying of arms are laws of such a nature. They disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes. Can it be supposed that those who have the courage to violate the most sacred laws of humanity, the most important of the code, will respect the less important and arbitrary ones, which can be violated with ease and impunity, and which, if strictly obeyed, would put an end to personal liberty — so dear to men, so dear to the enlightened legislator — and subject innocent persons to all the vexations that the guilty alone ought to suffer? Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve to rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man. They ought to be designated as laws not preventative but fearful of crimes, produced by the tumultuous impression of a few isolated facts, and not by thoughtful consideration of the inconveniences and advantages of a universal decree.
John Adams and Thomas Jefferson were both big fans of Beccaria and his 1764 treatise On Crimes and Punishments. Adams quoted Beccaria during his arguments in the 1770 Boston Massacre trial.
Thomas Jefferson admired On Crimes and Punishments so much that he carefully copied many lengthy passages into his "Commonplace Book" of favorite sayings. As Garry Wills notes in Inventing America, Jefferson used Becarria as "his principal modern authority for revising the laws of Virginia." Among the passages the Jefferson copied was the above passage about firearms.
"The highest number to which a standing army can be carried in any country does not exceed one hundredth part of the souls, or one twenty-fifth part of the number able to bear arms. This portion would not yield, in the United States, an army of more than twenty-five or thirty thousand men. To these would be opposed a militia amounting to near half a million citizens with arms in their hands, officered by men chosen from among themselves, fighting for their common liberties and united and conducted by governments possessing their affections and confidence. It may well be doubted whether a militia thus circumstanced could ever be conquered by such a proportion of regular troops. Besides the advantage of being armed, it forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition, more insurmountable than any which a simple government of any form can admit of. The governments of Europe are afraid to trust the people with arms. If they did, the people would surely shake off the yoke of tyranny, as America did. Let us not insult the free and gallant citizens of America with the suspicion that they would be less able to defend the rights of which they would be in actual possession than the debased subjects of arbitrary power would be to rescue theirs from the hands of their oppressors." - James Madison, Federalist No. 46, The Influence of the State and Federal Governments Compared, From the New York Packet.
Tuesday, January 29, 1788.
They expected the people to be able to defeat the army of the United States.
"The Constitution shall never be construed to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms." - Samuel Adams 1788, Debates & Proceedings in the Convention of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, 86-87.
There are lots more. Here is a neat narrative.
http://www.grifent.com/docsLinks/docs/second.htm
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He couldn't resist.
That's what I wanted to see. I agree with your views (unless you believe any citizen has a right to a SFM). I own hand guns, shotguns & rifles and will until the day I die. Thanks for the history lesson.
