2nd Amendment...

Yeah, it come up a lot how the British confiscated their weapons.

When I taught government I made that point. "After the big four (religion, press, speech and assembly) the founding fathers said, "what next? Trial by jury? Nope, Cruel and unusual punishment? Nope search and seizure? Nope? Speedy Trial? Nope!"

The right to keep and bear arms was next.

It was something they all agreed was of utmost importance and the meaning is unambiguous. Clearly the "militia" and the "people" are one and the same.


"The Constitution of most of our states assert that all power is inherent in the people; that they may exercise it by themselves; that it is their right and duty to be at all times armed."
- Thomas Jefferson, 5 June 1824

"Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are ruined.... The great object is that every man be armed. Everyone who is able might have a gun."
- Patrick Henry, Speech to the Virginia Ratifying Convention, June 5, 1778

"For it is a truth, which the experience of ages has attested, that the people are always most in danger when the means of injuring their rights are in the possession of those of whom they entertain the least suspicion."
- Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 25, December 21, 1787

"Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed, as they are in almost every country in Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops."
- Noah Webster, An Examination of the Leading Principles of the Federal Constitution, October 10, 1787

"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."
- James Madison, Federalist No. 46, January 29, 1788

"A free people ought not only to be armed, but disciplined..."
- George Washington, First Annual Address, to both House of Congress, January 8, 1790

“They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
- Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759

"To disarm the people is the most effectual way to enslave them."
- George Mason, June 14, 1788

"A strong body makes the mind strong. As to the species of exercises, I advise the gun."
- Thomas Jefferson, August 19, 1785

As a female who pays attention to violence against women, I'm alarmed to see so many women calling for bans on the one thing that offers protection and levels the playing field. Someone said it's like watching chickens rooting for Colonel Sanders. Funny but true.

The 2d Amendment protects the right of "the people" to form militias for protection.

If the Framers wanted to protect guns as a matter of individual rights, they would have used the same language they used for the First. "Congress shall make no law infringing the right to bear arms." They didn't.

Article I gave Congress the power to regular militias. Some feared they could regulate them out of existence, like the TRAP laws Republicans use to obstruct health care rights for women.

The 2d was written to prevent disarming militias. That why the right is given to "the people", which was a term used throughout the Constitution to refer to people collectively, as the body politic.

Read it the right-wing way, and the language of the 2d is cumbersome and obscure. Read it the correct way, and the language becomes clear.


Made you look!

"Foolish liberals who are trying to read the Second Amendment out of the constitution by claiming it's not an individual right or that it's too much of a safety hazard don’t see the danger of the big picture. They're courting disaster by encouraging others to use this same means to eliminate portions of the Constitution they don't like."
- Alan Dershowitz

Constitutional scholars and political science professors will agree that the 2nd Amendment is poorly written and perhaps reflects the formalistic, stilted, contemporary language applied by the Founding Fathers. There was a tendency in the old days for highly educated scholars, statesmen, intelligentsia, et al, to write in a flowery, stilted format to impress readers with their intellectual power, the result often being contrary to the intention: confusion.

This fault proved an Achilles Heel for anti-firearm ownership proponents to claim that ONLY state militia have the right to own firearms.

But the Supreme Court has seen through that disingenuous sophistry.

It doesn't take an English scholar to decipher the intent of the 2nd Amendment which is basically a run-on sentence, an error of grammar taught in grade school today. This means not writing two disjointed sentences or separate thoughts into one, confusing sentence.

If written in 21st century American English, which has been pushing for brevity and clarity in the active person grammar, the 2nd Amendment would have been written as such:

1) A state militia is important in the defense of life, liberty, property rights, and individual rights of its state citizens.

2) For the states to establish and maintain an effective state militia, all citizens possess an irrevocable right of firearms ownership, whether they are serving in the state militia or not.

Another problem was that the Founding Fathers were writing the 2nd Amendment in the time period they lived. The individual states did not issue firearms to its state militias. With rare exceptions, a state militia was a voluntary force. Male citizens of the state, typically between age 16 and 60 comprised the state militia. The state expected these men to bring their personal firearms with them into the militia. This was economically and financially functional for the states, especially given the state of firearm technology at the time. A flintlock musket was a flintlock musket, no matter which gun maker was involved. The only difference would be the musket ball caliber of the individual flintlock musket. But each militia man was expected to bring a personal kit to melt bar lead and cast musket balls. Also there was a tendency for certain musket ball calibers to predominate and individual states could assist by providing a supply of the most common musket ball calibers, for example, .69 caliber was one of those.

Contrary to popular belief, life in the 13 Colonies was not rife with danger from the Native Indians. For the most part the Native Indians had long been cleared out or forced far west from the 13 Colonies. Those Indian tribes that still lived in close proximity to any of the 13 Colonies, typically in the northeast, tended to be friendly, such as the Iroquois or Mohawks, until the Revolutionary War when those tribes sided with the British. But the colonists had not forgotten when firearms were needed in the 17th century and were well aware that any colonist venturing west from the settled, coastal colonial states were very much going to need a dependable firearm.

This show shows nothing of the sort!!. This show shows nothing about American citizens walking into kindergartens with modern automatic weapons and killing kids. Nor does it display any firearms that can rapidly murder your civilians almost at will.

It shows a reasonable story of historical events.

Your 2nd amendment is an anachronism and sets you apart as the highest death toll country in the world by guns. You want to keep that prized 2nd amendment? Fine!! Let everyone have a flintlock pistol to defend themselves with. I reckon your murder rate might drop a tad.

So so sorry for America that is held betrothed to guns. Let your people really live free and safe in the knowledge they won't be murdered by a crazed gunman who had the right to buy his weapon due to something that is 240 years gone by.