A militia is an army of the people. In order to be that army, the people must be armed.
When you go back and look at everything else documented at the time of the framing of the constitution, and later the bill of rights, a huge portion of the 2nd was specifically about making sure that an unjust government could be taken down by the populace. It wasn’t the only reason, but it was a big one.
Remember, these were a bunch of British subjects overthrowing their legal ruler and claiming self governance.
There is a fundamental concept that all power is vested in the people, and anything that stands against that is subject to revolt.
That’s a core human right. It is not one to be used lightly, but it is fundamental to the whole country as it is directly enumerated in the bill of rights, second only to the three core freedoms that are/were considered big enough to list first.
There is debate about what is called the individual mandate, but if you go back to the concepts the framers discussed, and the way they overturned British rule, it kinda stops making sense to say it wasn’t an individual mandate. Most of the arguments made against it are completely misrepresenting what militia and (more importantly) “well regulated” mean.
See, a revolution isn’t an upending of human rights, it’s the ultimate expression of one of them. Access to arms (it isn’t just guns, at all) is necessary for people to express a right to self governance in the face of an established government. In theory, any arms would be allowed, but once you get beyond man portable weaponry, you run into enough resistance that trying to argue for that is pointless.
Besides, one of the first steps in any sustained revolution is seizing the arms of the rulers, so (again in theory) having arms sufficient to take police and/or national guard level armories, that’s good enough. So it isn’t worth trying to fight for things to be expanded when there’s already a fight to just keep things as they are regarding firearm access in specific.
The language has shifted over two plus centuries, in other words. Militia isn’t a big, organized thing at all, or it wasn’t then. It was a group of the people called up, or self organizing, to take action as needed. At the time, a standing army was (among some of the founders) something to be prevented. The term wel regulated would have meant more well supplied, maybe well trained or ready, depending on who you ask. Which in turn means that the 2nd is primarily about every person being armed and ready if needed, so that all that was necessary is the need being known.
There’s a meme about the idea that goes “something, something, tree of liberty needs watering”. It refers to something said by Thomas Jefferson, “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.” Which is an out of context statement that comes from a Letter he wrote, which is excerpted in that link, and which links to the full letter in turn.
The states were built on the blood of tyrants and patriots. It’s too dear to the core ethos of us, the descendants of those that shed that blood to ever be totally erased.
Well, it’s one of those things that even people that argue the matter don’t always pay attention to. The 2nd amendment advocates ignore a lot of the history too. There’s a lot of identity politics involved in it, much like any hot button issue.
So the misconceptions spread way faster than the fact based opinions (of either “side”, there are arguments for how and when the 2nd can be limited without violating the constitution). For someone outside the country, it’s a lot of mess to wade through for little benefit.
Nah, that’s a pretty common misconception.
A militia is an army of the people. In order to be that army, the people must be armed.
When you go back and look at everything else documented at the time of the framing of the constitution, and later the bill of rights, a huge portion of the 2nd was specifically about making sure that an unjust government could be taken down by the populace. It wasn’t the only reason, but it was a big one.
Remember, these were a bunch of British subjects overthrowing their legal ruler and claiming self governance.
There is a fundamental concept that all power is vested in the people, and anything that stands against that is subject to revolt.
That’s a core human right. It is not one to be used lightly, but it is fundamental to the whole country as it is directly enumerated in the bill of rights, second only to the three core freedoms that are/were considered big enough to list first.
There is debate about what is called the individual mandate, but if you go back to the concepts the framers discussed, and the way they overturned British rule, it kinda stops making sense to say it wasn’t an individual mandate. Most of the arguments made against it are completely misrepresenting what militia and (more importantly) “well regulated” mean.
See, a revolution isn’t an upending of human rights, it’s the ultimate expression of one of them. Access to arms (it isn’t just guns, at all) is necessary for people to express a right to self governance in the face of an established government. In theory, any arms would be allowed, but once you get beyond man portable weaponry, you run into enough resistance that trying to argue for that is pointless.
Besides, one of the first steps in any sustained revolution is seizing the arms of the rulers, so (again in theory) having arms sufficient to take police and/or national guard level armories, that’s good enough. So it isn’t worth trying to fight for things to be expanded when there’s already a fight to just keep things as they are regarding firearm access in specific.
The language has shifted over two plus centuries, in other words. Militia isn’t a big, organized thing at all, or it wasn’t then. It was a group of the people called up, or self organizing, to take action as needed. At the time, a standing army was (among some of the founders) something to be prevented. The term wel regulated would have meant more well supplied, maybe well trained or ready, depending on who you ask. Which in turn means that the 2nd is primarily about every person being armed and ready if needed, so that all that was necessary is the need being known.
There’s a meme about the idea that goes “something, something, tree of liberty needs watering”. It refers to something said by Thomas Jefferson, “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.” Which is an out of context statement that comes from a Letter he wrote, which is excerpted in that link, and which links to the full letter in turn.
The states were built on the blood of tyrants and patriots. It’s too dear to the core ethos of us, the descendants of those that shed that blood to ever be totally erased.
That’s quite more informative than I expected. Yeah the impression I had seems to match well the “common misconception”.
Well, it’s one of those things that even people that argue the matter don’t always pay attention to. The 2nd amendment advocates ignore a lot of the history too. There’s a lot of identity politics involved in it, much like any hot button issue.
So the misconceptions spread way faster than the fact based opinions (of either “side”, there are arguments for how and when the 2nd can be limited without violating the constitution). For someone outside the country, it’s a lot of mess to wade through for little benefit.