The actual purpose of the 2nd Amendment

[Bucky]

I hear lots of people present the historical meaning of hte 2nd Amendment with their particular biases. Pro-gun people say the amendment came about because the Founders had just "overthrown the government" and that guns exist primarily to protect us from Big Brother whose helicopters are circling my bunker even as I type.

Anti-gun people say the "well regulated militia" clause means that gun ownership is only a collective right.

Moderates try to go after the extreme ends of the issue by talking about how hunters and sportsmen don't need assault weapons.

Sadly, only the moderates are totally wrong about this. The pro- and anti-gun folks are each telling about half the truth. While the 2nd Amendment was intended as something of an insurance policy against the Founders' naive fear of a standing army, the real work of controlling would-be Cromwells was left to the Constitution's provisions about only allowing Congress to authorize any army to stand for a period of two years.

The Founders were perfectly aware that, if the Government ever went 1984 on the people, the 2nd Amendment and the rounding up of the people's guns would be little more than an inconvenience to an American dictator.

The real need for guns in the 18th Century was along the frontier where Indian nations were militarily about on par with the American settlers threatening their lands. The firearms amendment was intended to make them feel a bit more comfortable in their ability to shoot back at the Indians, who were getting armed by Spanish and American merchants as well as those eeevil Canadian red coats who didn't want us moving too close to the Mississippi.

The 2nd Amendment, along with most of the Bill of Rights, was intended by the Founders as a sop to the more paranoid Antifederalists who were threatening a second Constitutional Convention, which might undo the work of the Philadelphia Convention of 1787. The movers and shakers (small "s") of the first government, Washington, Madison, Hamilton, Jay, et al didn't want a Bill of Rights at all. They didn't think it would be needed since each state already had one.

[DarkPhenyx]

1. Actually the Moderates are right.

Hunters don't "need" assault weapons. For the record I am pro-gun and a hunter.

[Bucky]

2. you're right

I should've caught that in edit. What the moderates say is not part of the debate on the historical origins of the amendment. I shouldn't have put that comment in. The point I should have stuck to is that there is an element of truth and an element of truth avoidance on both sides of the debate.

[Township75]

3. Hunters don't "need" guns either....

mankind hunted long before firearms were available, and many people today still choose to hunt using a bow and arrow.

[dofus]

4. I just got done listening

to a series of lectures about English history from 1485 to 1715. At the end, after all England had been through, it emerged essentially a modern nation, with a lot of rights set in law.

Our founding fathers were well aware of their English history, and wanted to make absolutely sure that certain excesses could never happen again. They were, as noted above, very afraid of a standing army, although they recognized the need to call one every so often.

Back then, the average citizen could easily own a gun the equal of what the average soldier would have, although I realize the average citizen wouldn't be likely to have cannon. And since this country's history included taking this land by force from those already here, the need for the inhabitants to be armed to defend themselves against the natives, was also obvious to everyone. (I'm neither condoning nor condemning, just commenting.) And I suspect a fairly high percentage of people here were hunting game.

Assault weapons are entirely different.

[Man_in_the_Moon]

6. why?

"Assault weapons are entirely different. "

Why?

[Bucky]

11. "entirely different"

Although I suspect that we're on different sides of this issue (I'm generally pro-regulation of firearms) I agree with you that assault weapons are not different from Brown Besses in the eyes of the 2nd Amendment.

The economic need for keeping guns on the frontier (hunting for food) was not exactly the intent behind the 2nd Amendment. But that need to hunt would have made sense in the minds of the Founders. Their discussions in the First Congress (1789-91) centered on the need of the populace to maintain a credible deterrent to a potential tyrant.

But keep in mind that to the Founding generation, it was not the federal Congress that represented a threat. They saw the Congress--made up of the representatives of the people--as the central deterrant to tyranny. The entire experience of the Revolution confirmed that executives threatened liberty and legislative assemblies protected liberties. The relative chaos during the Confederation years (1781-1787) showed that assemblies could be just as threatening to stability as executives were to freedom. That's why Washington et al wanted the Constitutional reforms in the first place.

But the threats people needed guns against were (1) a regular army, (2) the Indians, and (3) neighboring states that might want to encroach on their lands. There actually were fights and potential fights among competing settler groups, including between Connecticut and Pennsylvania, between New York and Vermont, and between Virginia and Maryland. Let's also not forget that in 1787 there were also not a few roadside bandits, piratical land squatters, and the percieved threat of encroachment from Spain from the south and Britain from the north.

It was a threatening, only semi-stablized world in 1787. Guns were a key part of stablizing the place and making it a safe environment in which to rob Cherokees and Seminoles of their birthright. None of those needs to day are particularly relevant. The best deterrent against a military tyranny today is our military's culture of deferrence to civilian authority. Even a maniacal government out of control, such as the one Bush "leads", is limited in how much tyranny it can do and how much crap it can get away with. This is the definition of a working democracy.

[dwckabal]

5. You forget, though

that only one in ten Americans in the 1700's had operable guns. So while your argument makes a certain amount of sense, it doesn't fully explain the rationale behind the 2nd Amendment.

[Man_in_the_Moon]

7. Where'd you get that stat?

That 1 in 10 thing?

[dwckabal]

9. Garry Wills

A Necessary Evil

I'll have to look up his citation, I don't have the book in front of me.

[MrBenchley]

10. Worth noting

that from the founding of the Republic, the various states have bought guns for their militias collectively. The NRA's pretense that gun owners grabbed their trusty shootin' arns from over the mantle and went off to fight the British or Pancho Villa or Hitler is just so much hooey.

[Bucky]

12. myth, not "hooey"

It is myths, such as the need for every family to have a gun to protect its land, that lead to traditional liberties like the Bill of Rights. You can't have a sustaining culture without myths.

[MrBenchley]

13. Too frigging funny...

"You can't have a sustaining culture without myths."
Hell, every savage tribe has myths...a democracy is built on an informed citizenry and rational truth, not superstitious buffoonery.

[SlavesandBulldozers]

17. rational truth eh?

you mean the "rational truth-loving informed citizenry" that wiped the "savage tribes with their superstitious buffonery" off the earth with their guns?

[BullDozer]

16. But not for what you want people to think

that from the founding of the Republic, the various states have bought guns for their militias collectively.

CLearly not for the purposes of fully arming the militias otherwise why were militia members required to supply their own firearms and other equipment?


Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled, That each and every free able-bodied white male citizen of the respective States, resident therein, who is or shall be of age of eighteen years, and under the age of forty-five years (except as is herein after excepted) shall severally and respectively be enrolled in the militia, by the Captain or Commanding Officer of the company, within whose bounds such citizen shall reside, and that within twelve months after the passing of this Act. And it shall at all time hereafter be the duty of every such Captain or Commanding Officer of a company, to enroll every such citizen as aforesaid, and also those who shall, from time to time, arrive at the age of 18 years, or being at the age of 18 years, and under the age of 45 years (except as before excepted) shall come to reside within his bounds; and shall without delay notify such citizen of the said enrollment, by the proper non-commissioned Officer of the company, by whom such notice may be proved. That every citizen, so enrolled and notified, shall, within six months thereafter, provide himself with a good musket or firelock, a sufficient bayonet and belt, two spare flints, and a knapsack, a pouch, with a box therein, to contain not less than twenty four cartridges, suited to the bore of his musket or firelock, each cartridge to contain a proper quantity of power and ball; or with a good rifle, knapsack, shot-pouch, and power-horn, twenty balls suited to the bore of his rifle, and a quarter of a power of power; and shall appear so armed, accoutred and provided, when called out to exercise or into service, except, that when called out on company days to exercise only, he may appear without a knapsack. That the commissioned Officers shall severally be armed with a sword or hanger, and espontoon; and that from and after five years from the passing of this Act, all muskets from arming the militia as is herein required, shall be of bores sufficient for balls of the eighteenth part of a pound; and every citizen so enrolled, and providing himself with the arms, ammunition and accoutrements, required as aforesaid, shall hold the same exempted from all suits, distresses, executions or sales, for debt or for the payment of taxes.


http://www.constitution.org/mil/mil_act_1792.htm

[juancarlos]

14. 1 in 10

Probably came from the discredited book my Bellesiles (did I spell his name right?) Even if that figure is true, the number of people armed would have still been larger than the total number of people in the military.


edit: whoops just saw the cite you gave, sorry. But my comment of 1/10 being bigger than the military stands.

[Man_in_the_Moon]

8. Well this has been discussed

times innumerable here.

Lets just say that my opinion differs from yours in several areas.

1- It is not a 'naive fear' that a standing army is a threat to liberty.

2- It was not about ONLY keeping a 'runaway army' in check, it was also about keeping a 'runaway Congress' in check.

3- No the founders were not aware that a 'government gone 1984' would be unstoppable. They were of the opinion that the PEOPLE were the government, they did not envision a '1984' scenario because they assumed (wrongly to the most part) that the people through their being the militia and the power behind the goevernment would keep it in check. You see it was not the standing army that the Founders feared the most, it was in reality an out of control 'Parliment'. The Founders wanted to keep the power, both politically and militarily, in the hands of the 'People'. We have long ago destroyed that idea though. Our military power is now in the hands of one man, and our political power is in the hands of a very select few.

4- The Bill of Rights, while added to satiate the fears of the Anti-federalists, was not thought to not be needed because every state already had one, it was thought to not be needed because the federalists were of the opinion that unless a power over something was specifically written into the Constitution then no such power existed. In this the Anti-federalist's fears were justified because the government has historically overstepped what is actually delegated to it in the Constitution.

Dont forget that both the Federalists and the Anti-Federalists held the idea that 'We the People' ordained the Constitution and the government created by that document, in other words they both believed that power sprung from the people, not the document, most certainly not the government(s). That the People held all power, and that the people simply delegated to either the Federal government, or to state governments, certain powers in order to more efficently govern themselves.

[Bucky]

15. point by point

Man_in_the_Moon wrote:
1- It is not a 'naive fear' that a standing army is a threat to liberty.

I think that it is. There was some legitimate fear in the early 1780s, but the threat was brief and has never returned. The abortive coup against FDR in 1933 was headed off by an army man. The US military has been one of the strongest elements in democratizing this country, leading the way in effective integration in the 1950s and affirmative action in the 1970s and advocating the only real cure to the "Vietnam Syndrome" (not fighting stupid, pointless wars). The threats to democracy generally come from the corporate sector, not the military.

But its main contribution to democracy has been in cultivating a tradition of deference to civilian authority. The fact that the CIA hasn't whacked Karl Rove yet speaks to that point. Whenever there has been an abuse of our military or police powers, (Vietnam, Nicaragua, COINTELPRO, Waco) you will find behind it cops and generals loyally carrying out the policies of a corrupt or mistaken civilian administration. A standing army has never threatened the US from within since 1781.

2- It was not about ONLY keeping a 'runaway army' in check, it was also about keeping a 'runaway Congress' in check.

That's not my read from history. The Antifeds were pretty sold on the idea of the virtuous legislature of the people. There was some concern about Delawareans "giving law" to Virginians, or Georgians voting against the interests of New Englanders, or Eastern states conspiring against the growth of Western (meaning "Southern") states in the Ratification debates. But the concern was generally that there would be discriminatory laws, not men with guns, coming out of Congress.

3- ...the founders... were of the opinion that the PEOPLE were the government, they did not envision a '1984' scenario because they assumed (wrongly to the most part) that the people through their being the militia and the power behind the goevernment would keep it in check. You see it was not the standing army that the Founders feared the most, it was in reality an out of control 'Parliment'.

The Founding Fathers were hardly of a single mindset on these questions. To oversimplify (as we must for this discussion), there were two schools of thought dividing the Federalists and the Antifederalists. The arch-Federalists, like Hamilton, the Morrises (Gouverneur & Robert), Dickinson of Delaware, and King of Massachusetts, did fear paper money men in the legislatures would undermine social stability with easy debt-relief schemes, which proved to be inflationary. They found the bickering Articles Congress to be ineffective in foriegn and domestic affairs. But the concern about assemblies were that the were too liberal and destablizing, not that they were tyrannical.

This is why Madison had to coin the phrase the tyranny of the majority to explain how the Many could be just as oppressive as the Few--a radical notion in 1787.

But the Antifederalists, like the underrated Elbridge Gerry and George Mason (who started out a pro-Washington man and became an Anti during the Convention) feared centralized control from an American Caesar far more than the chaos from a majority in Congress.


4- The Bill of Rights... was thought to not be needed (by the federalists) because the federalists were of the opinion that unless a power over something was specifically written into the Constitution then no such power existed. In this the Anti-federalist's fears were justified because the government has historically overstepped what is actually delegated to it in the Constitution.

Madison in the Virginia ratification convention of 1788 specifically stated that the Constitution was not given a BoR because the states already guaranteed those rights and because no finite menu of what those rights actually are could ever have been made. Of course two years later he was the one who went ahead and actually wrote that finite list of rights. But to him, he really believed that the federal government would lack the power to interfere in the rights of individuals.

He was, as you state, wrong in this. But he also was quite sure that the states' guarantees of rights would be effective in securing the peoples' rights. He later added the legalistic argument that if you enumerated the Bill of Rights, you would empower the government to go ahead and do what ever is not forbidden by them.

Dont forget that both the Federalists and the Anti-Federalists held the idea that 'We the People' ordained the Constitution and the government created by that document, in other words they both believed that power sprung from the people, not the document, most certainly not the government(s).

Actually, the Antis vigorously disputed this turn of phrase. Patrick Henry demanded "By what right did they speak of 'We the People'?" The claiming of a popular mandate was controversial among Constutition opponents in all the 1788 conventions. It was actually Guve Morris's "We the People" phrase in the Preamble that tried to avoid the fact that the Congress had not quite authorized the total overhaul of the Articles that the Convention.

[hijinks]

18. Founders' naive fear of a standing army

hahahahahahaha