Author Topic: The Second Amendment and the 21st Century  (Read 425 times)

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Online Elderberry

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The Second Amendment and the 21st Century
« on: December 30, 2022, 12:09:08 am »
 The Sylva Herald 12/28/2022

https://www.thesylvaherald.com/opinion/letters_to_editor/article_aa2a38d2-86c3-11ed-bef2-c737c507ed86.html

To the Editor:

The other day I reread the Second Amendment: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State ...” Those words are the opening clause. I wondered why the word Militia was/is capitalized. What was meant by the words “well regulated?” What is the significance of the word “necessary?” What did the writers mean by “the security of a free State...?”

When I see a bumper sticker or window decal purporting to support the Second Amendment I wonder if the owner knows the first clause. Does he/she support the entire amendment or merely the second part “...the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed.”

Why has Congress never set up a “well regulated Militia”? If it was deemed “necessary” in 1791 why is it not still necessary? What “Arms” were citizens given the right to keep and bear? How could they have envisioned AK-47s and AR-15s that people currently have the right to keep and bear?

What would the constitutional framers say to those who have been murdered with rapid-fire weapons? To their parents who grieve? To relatives and friends? To you and me? Where would they see a line separating “the security of a free State” and the need for individual security to go to school or feel safe in a house of worship? Would they suggest we merely throw up our hands and claim there’s nothing we can do/we must protect the right to own any weapon?

Is it not high time we look at the Second Amendment and use the provision for a “well regulated Militia” to work for the security of all Americans? At the moment we seem hell bent on guaranteeing some the right to “keep and bear Arms” when that right clearly endangers others. Are we helpless? Let’s make the Second Amendment work in the 21st Century!

No, I am not suggesting that we confiscate people’s guns. I own five. None are rapid-fire. Yet, we could use the amendment itself to work for the security of all. We need a “well regulated Militia” in this century.

 Dave Waldrop, Webster

Online rustynail

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Re: The Second Amendment and the 21st Century
« Reply #1 on: December 30, 2022, 12:30:07 am »
Old Dave is a deep thinker.  You go Dave.

Offline Smokin Joe

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Re: The Second Amendment and the 21st Century
« Reply #2 on: December 30, 2022, 05:38:48 am »
First and foremost, the Second Amendment does not grant any rights, whatsoever.
We have those Rights, as a gift from Our Creator, in the terms of the Declaration of Independence.

None of the clauses in the Bill of Rights grant those Rights mentioned, they all exist to protect pre-existing unalienable Rights from being screwed around with by the Federal Government.

As for the Second Amendment, the predicate clause simply explains why the Right to Keep and Bear Arms shall not be infringed. A well-regulated (controlled) Militia (army) is necessary to the security of a free state. It has to be controlled or it will, at some point, take over and the State will no longer be free. Yet that force is necessary to keeping that State secured from invasion by those from outside who would invade, take over, and once again, render it less than free.

How to keep the Militia ("the army, in its entirety", as defined in Barclay's English Dictionary ca. 1820) from being the device which takes over the Free State and enslaves it?

From Federalist 46:

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Extravagant as the supposition is, let it however be made. Let a regular army, fully equal to the resources of the country, be formed; and let it be entirely at the devotion of the federal government; still it would not be going too far to say, that the State governments, with the people on their side, would be able to repel the danger. The highest number to which, according to the best computation, a standing army can be carried in any country, does not exceed one hundredth part of the whole number of souls; or one twenty-fifth part of the number able to bear arms. This proportion 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 of 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. Those who are best acquainted with the last successful resistance of this country against the British arms, will be most inclined to deny the possibility of it. Besides the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation, the existence of subordinate governments, to which the people are attached, and by which the militia officers are appointed, forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition, more insurmountable than any which a simple government of any form can admit of.

While those numbers are dated, the proportions are not. Being armed, and certainly as well as any soldier in that standing Federal Army was seen then as the bulwark against takeover by that Federal Army. It still is. Keeping that Militia well regulated, indeed.

Is this still relevant? (is this question?, after all, we are talking unalienable rights here)

Absolutely. Especially in a day and age when the increasingly totalitarian tentacles of Federal domination seek to not only neuter the State Governments, but to micromanage every aspect of day to day life, where censorship has abounded of late on platforms that are supposed to be independent of Federal influence yet which have been doing the Government's bidding.

With the clouds of tyranny building on the horizon, it is more relevant than ever.

FMCDH.

As for your individual security, abandoning your personal responsibility (even to the point of legislating it away) to keep you, yours, your person and possessions secure, as well as defend your community against brigands and those who would unleash mayhem, especially to the very organ which was mentioned by name in the Second Amendment, is not an 'update", but a surrender which undermines the very spirit and reason for the Amendment, and even the purpose stated in the predicate clause.

In the words of Dr. Franklin:
Quote
Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.
« Last Edit: December 30, 2022, 05:47:50 am by Smokin Joe »
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Seventeen Techniques for Truth Suppression

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.

C S Lewis