| Aielyn said: I'm sorry, but who's ignoring context? I read those arms-rights provisions in the various state constitutions and the conventions, and see a repeating theme: "defense of a free state" or "defense of a free government". Some even explicitly make it clear that the well-regulated militia was intended as a way to avoid having a standing army during a time of peace. In other words, a reserve force. Just as I said. A number of them even explicitly use the phrasing along the lines of "the military should be subordinate to the civil power" - in other words, the civil government should be under the control of the militia. And I'll remind you that, in those days, there was no such thing as a police force - which, one could argue, is literally a "well-regulated militia that is subordinate to the civil power". It is abundantly clear that the people of the time were concerned with protecting their nation and setting up their society - the fear of tyrannical government was clearly in the minority with regards to the second amendment. And shock horror - when you go to a site run by the executive vice president of the NRA, talking about the second amendment (which it refers to as America's "first freedom" - remarkable, given that the first amendment lists off a heap of freedoms), you get a select listing of historical newspaper fragments in favour of the NRA's interpretation. I'm sure he made absolutely sure to provide a representative sample, and it's just that the vast majority of writers back then interpreted it the way the NRA wants. And I'm sure that, when it truncates its references, that it hasn't at all altered the meaning, like "A free people ought ... to be armed ...". Yes, I'm sure that it couldn't have said something like "A free people ought not find it necessary to be armed except in defense of their nation." (not saying that's what it really said, just making the point that the truncation is suspicious, given how they had plenty of space to include the entire sentence). |
It was perhaps a minority concern compared to the prospect of further war with Great Britain, but you can't merely handwave away the writings of Jefferson, Madison, and others on the matter, however convenient that might be. The reason there was such a great deal of concern about the dangers posed by a permanent standing army was precisely because the possibility of tyranny weighed on their minds. That is why the right of gun ownership was recognized all the way down to the individual level, so that no one has a monopoly on the ability to inflict violence. It provides for checks and balances on force and the tempetation to use it, just as the founders built a system of checks and balances into the federal government itself.
