Freedom's Insurance Policy

The Second Amendment

A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.
 ____ Amendment II Bill of Rights, The Constitution of the United States of America

For those who would argue that the Second Amendment is subject to interpretation as to it's intent; who or what constitutes the Militia of the United States of America, evidence is cited herein of the true intent of the Second Amendment by those who were most intimately involved in drafting our Nation's Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Studied interpretive decisions based upon Constitutional Law by those most qualified to make such judgments are also cited. Some well-meaning souls naively propose that the Second Amendment applies only to National Guard militia type units; the National Guard was not organized in the United States until 112 years after the Second Amendment was written!
For those who would argue that it only relates to the protection of recreational shooters' and hunters' rights,... please read on!

"On the question of construction [of the Constitution] let us carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates...in which it was passed." _____ Thomas Jefferson … June 12, 1823

WHO AND WHAT IS THE MILITIA?

WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF THE MILITIA?

These questions are answered by those who wrote the Constitution and Bill of Rights! Their statements are clear and concise .... "modern-day" interpretation of the Second Amendment is a false premise argument. Our Founding Fathers' clearly defined intents are written in plain English. These statements are not hard to understand!

"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms... The strongest reason for people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government." _____ Thomas Jefferson … Proposal of the Virginia Constitution, June 1776

"I ask, sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people, except for a few public officials." _____ George Mason United States Congress 1779 during Ratification of Bill of Rights

"The right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed. A well-regulated Militia, composed of the people trained to arms, is the best and most natural defense of a free country."_____ James Madison … June 8, 1789 … From his essay, Thoughts on Defensive War, 1775

"A militia, when properly formed, are in fact the people themselves...and include all men capable of bearing arms."_____ Richard Henry Lee … Letters from the Federal Farmer to the Republic, 1788

"What, Sir, is the use of a militia? It is to prevent the establishment of a standing army, the bane of liberty. Whenever Governments mean to invade the rights and liberties of the people, they always attempt to destroy the militia, in order to raise an army upon their ruins." ___ Rep. Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts, spoken during floor debate during States ratification of the Second Amendment.

"The power of the sword is in the hands of Congress? My friends and countrymen, it is not so; for the powers of the sword are in the hands of the yeomanry of America from sixteen to sixty. The Militia of these free commonwealths, entitled and accustomed to their arms, when compared with any possible army, must be tremendous and irresistible. Who are the Militia? They are not ourselves as politicians and lawmakers. They are those who have elected us into our positions and entrusted us with the power of preserving and carrying out their wishes. Congress has no power to disarm the Militia. Their swords, and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birth-right of an American. The unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the Federal or State governments, but, where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the people." __ Tench Coxe's Letter to James Madison During Adoption of the Bill of Rights in United States Congress. 1779

"No free government was ever founded, or ever preserved its liberty, without uniting the characters of citizen and soldier in those destined for the defense of the State. Such are a well regulated Militia, composed of the freeholders, citizen, and husbandman; who take up arms to preserve their property, as individuals, and their rights as freemen."____James Madison … United States Congress, 1779 Bill of Rights Ratification

"To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of people always possess arms, and be taught alike especially when young, how to use them." _____ Richard Henry Lee … Initiator of the Declaration of Independence, and member of the first Senate, which passed the Bill of Rights.

"...if raised, whether they could subdue a Nation of Freemen, who know how to prize liberty, and who have arms in their hands?" _____ Delegate Sedgwick … during the Massachusetts Convention, 1779 rhetorically asking if an oppressive standing army could prevail over a citizens' Militia

"Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. When you give up that force, you are eventually ruined."____ Patrick Henry … 1779

"Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom of 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 bands of regular troops that can be, on any pretense, raised in the United States"  
_____ Noah Webster

"And that the said Constitution be never construed to authorize Congress to prevent the people of the United States, who are peaceable citizens, from keeping their own arms....."
___ Samuel Adams, United States Congress, 1779

"Besides the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation. ... Notwithstanding the military establishments in the several kingdoms of Europe, which are carried as far as the public resources will bear, the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms."
_____James Madison, co-author of the original Bill of Rights

"The great object is that every man be armed and everyone who is able may have a gun."
___ Patrick Henry, Virginia Convention on the ratification of the Constitution.

"Firearms are second only to the Constitution in importance; they are the people's liberty teeth."_____ George Washington

"...as the military forces which must be occasionally raised...might pervert their power to injury of their fellow citizens, the people are confirmed by the article in their right to keep and bear their private arms."_____ Tench Coxe, Editorial on the Second Amendment Philadelphia Federal Gazette, 1789

"...but if circumstances should at any time oblige the government to form an army of any magnitude, that army can never be formidable to the liberties of the people, while there is a large body of citizens, little if at all inferior to them in discipline and use of arms, who stand ready to defend their rights..."_____ Alexander Hamilton, Federalist Paper No. 29

"...to disarm the people - that is the best and most effective way to enslave them." __ George Mason , United States Congress 1779 During Ratification of Bill of Rights

"Are we at last brought to such humiliating and debasing degradation, that we cannot be trusted with arms for our own defense? Where is the difference between having our arms in our own possession and under our direction, and having them under the management of Congress? If our defense be the real object of having those arms, in whose hands can they be trusted with more propriety, or equal safety to us, as in our own hands?"_____ Patrick Henry

"The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that they be properly armed."__ Alexander Hamilton

"And what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time that the people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms....The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants"___ Thomas Jefferson, from his letter to William S. Smith, 1787

"the ultimate authority ... resides in the people alone,"__ James Madison, co-author of the Bill of Rights Federalist Paper No. 46

"The Constitution of most of our states, and of the United 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

"A free people ought to be armed. When firearms go, all goes - we need them every hour."___ George Washington

"As civil rulers, not having their duty to the people duly before them, may attempt to tyrannize... the people are confirmed by the article in their right to keep and bear their private arms."___ Tench Coxe, Editorial on the Second Amendment, Philadelphia Federal Gazette, June 18, 1788

"The militia is the natural defense of a free country against sudden foreign invasions, domestic insurrections, and domestic usurpations of power by rulers. It is against sound policy for a free people to keep up large military establishments and standing armies in time of peace, both from the enormous expenses with which they are attended, and the facile means which they afford to ambitious and unprincipled rulers, to subvert the government, or trample upon the rights of the people. The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered, as the palladium of the liberties of the republic, since it offers a strong moral check against usurpation and arbitrary power of the rulers; and will generally, even if these are successful in the first instance, enable the people to resist and triumph over them."___ Justice Joseph Story, United States Supreme Court, 1811 - 1845

The right of a citizen to bear arms, in lawful defense of himself or the State, is absolute. He does not derive it from the State government. It is one of the 'High Powers' delegated directly to the citizen by the United States Constitution, Amendment II, and "is excepted out of the general powers of government". A law cannot be passed to infringe upon it or impair it, because it is above the law, and independent of the law-making power. ___ Texas Supreme Court Decision, Cockrum vs State of Texas, 1859

"The right of self-defense is the first law of nature. In most governments it has been the study of rulers to confine this right within the narrowest limits possible. Whenever standing armies are kept up, and the right of the people to keep and bear arms is, under any color or pretext whatsoever, prohibited; liberty, if not already annihilated, is on the brink of destruction." _____ Justice George Tucker, Virginia Supreme Court, 1803

How can any reasonably intelligent person doubt the original intent of the Second Amendment was to ensure the individual right of citizens of these United States of America to keep and bear arms?

The freedom to own and carry the weapon of your choice is a natural, fundamental, and unalienable human, individual, civil, and Constitutional right guaranteed under the Second Amendment. It is a fundamental liberty which even precedes the Constitution and Bill of Rights. It is subject neither to the democratic process nor to arguments grounded in social utility. No government, no democratic process may change that Right. Any attempt to do so is an attempt to over-throw the Constitution of the United States. Any government, any organization, any public official or individual engaged in such attempts must have a purposeful agenda to destroy the freedoms upon which this Nation was founded; therefore must be considered enemies of the United States of America.

Those who would oppose these principals and argue that persons in support of them are "radical gun nuts" or "extremist", etc., are either naively ignorant of the history of governmental abuse against the common populace of nations, or they hold a political philosophy directly opposed to the principles of the United States Constitution. Those who are simply naive or ignorant of the potential power of abuse by governments can hopefully be educated. Those who are well educated but remain opposed to the principles of the United States Constitution and the Bill of Rights are clearly enemies of the United States of America.

No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
__ Amendment XIV, The Constitution of the United States of America

SOME NOTABLE OPPOSING VIEWS

"This year will go down in history! For the first time, a civilized nation has full gun registration! Our streets will be safer, our police more efficient and the world will follow our lead into the future!" _____ Adolf Hitler, 1935

"I don't care about crime, I just want to get the guns."__ Senator Howard Metzenbaum, 1994

"[the United States] can't be so fixed on our desire to preserve the rights of ordinary Americans......"___ President William J. Clinton, March 1, 1993, speaking for gun control during a press conference in Piscataway, NJ …source: Boston Globe, 3/2/93, page 3

"Ordinary citizens don't need guns, as their having guns doesn't serve the State." __ Heinrich Himmler, 1935

"The most foolish mistake we could possibly make would be to allow the subjected people to carry arms." __ Adolf Hitler, German Dictator

NOTABLE QUOTES ON THE PHILOSOPHY OF FREEDOM TO BEAR ARMS AND INDIVIDUALS' RIGHTS OF SELF-PROTECTION AGAINST GOVERNMENTAL ABUSE AND CRIMINAL ASSAULT

"As nightfall does not come at once, neither does oppression. In both instances, there is a twilight when everything remains unchanged. And it is in that twilight that we must be most aware of the change in the air - however slight; lest we become unwitting victims of the darkness."__ Justice William O. Douglas

"...the second amendment is not for killing little ducks and leaving Huey and Dewey and Louie without an aunt and uncle. It is for hunting politicians, like [in] Grozny, [and in] 1776, when they take your independence away."__ Representative Bob Dornan, US House of Representatives, January 25, 1995

"People who object to weapons aren't abolishing violence, they're begging for rule by brute force, where the biggest, strongest animals among men were always automatically 'right.' Guns ended that, and social democracy is a hollow farce without an armed populace to make it work." _____ L. Neil Smith, The Probability Broach

"This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it."_____ Abraham Lincoln

"We, the people are the rightful masters of both congress and the courts - not to overthrow the constitution, but to overthrow men who pervert the constitution."_____ Abraham Lincoln

"If you want to have a large population and to provide it with arms so as to establish a great empire, you will have made your population such that you cannot handle it as you please." __ Machiavelli, The Discourses

"Gun bans don't disarm criminals, gun bans attract them."___ Walter Mondale, U.S. Ambassador to Japan, April 20, 1994

"Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the government's purposes are beneficent . . . the greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well meaning but without understanding."___ Justice Louis Brandeis, Olmstead vs. United States, United States Supreme Court, 1928

"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."_____ Benjamin Franklin, 1759

"What kind of Government are we giving you? A Republic, madam ... if you can keep it."__ Benjamin Franklin, spoken on the steps of Independence Hall … Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1776

"Good intentions will always be pleaded for every assumption of authority. It is hardly too strong to say that the Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions. There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters."__ Daniel Webster

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."_ Edmund Burke, (1729-1797)

"You may think your actions are meaningless and that they won't help, but that is no excuse, you must still act."_____ Gandhi

"Non-cooperation with evil is as much a duty as cooperation with good."___ Gandhi

"Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the act of depriving a whole nation of arms, as the blackest."_ Mahatma Gandhi "Gandhi, An Autobiography", M. K. Gandhi, page 446

"Today's liberals wish to disarm us so they can run their evil and oppressive agenda on us. The fight against crime is just a convenient excuse to further their agenda. I don't know about you, but if you hear that Williams' guns have been taken, you'll know Williams is dead." Walter Williams, Professor of Economics, George Mason University.

"Arms in the hands of individual citizens may be used at individual discretion...in private self-defense."_____ John Adams, Second President of the United States, 1787-1788

"False is the idea of utility...that would take fire from men because it burns, and water because one may drown in it; that has no remedy for evils, except destruction of liberty. The laws that forbid the carrying of arms are laws of such nature. They disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes...such laws serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man."_ Thomas Jefferson, 'Commonplace Book', 1775

"...arms discourage and keep the invader and plunderer in awe, and preserve order in the world as well as property...horrid mischief would ensue were the law-abiding deprived of the use of them."__ Thomas Paine … From his essay, Thoughts on Defensive War, 1775

"If you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed; if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a small chance of survival. There may even be a worse case: you may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves." ___ Winston Churchill

"Those who have command of Arms in a county are Masters of the State." ___ Socrates

"A covenant not to defend myself from force, by force, is always void. For....no man can transfer or lay down his right to save himself from death." ___ Thomas Hobbes, 17th Century English Political Philosopher

"If you want to feel the warm breath of freedom on your neck, if you want to touch the pulse of liberty that beat in our Founding Fathers, you may do so through the majesty of the Second Amendment." ___ Charlton Heston, Actor and Political Activist

"The right of citizens to bear arms is just one more guarantee against arbitrary government, one more safeguard against the tyranny which.......Historically has proved to be the possible." ___ United States Senator Hubert Humphrey

"Rome remained free for four hundred years and Sparta eight hundred, although their citizens were armed all that time; but many other states that have been disarmed have lost their Liberties in less than Forty Years." ___ Niccolo Machiavelli, 16th Century Italian Political Theorist

"In countries under arbitrary government, the people oppressed and dispirited neither possess arms nor know how to use them. Tyrants never feel secure until they have disarmed the people." ___ Unknown Author, From the Connecticut Courant, 1788

"If our lives are endangered by plots or violence or armed robbers or enemies, any and every method of protecting ourselves is morally right." ___ Cicero, Roman Orator, 1st Century B.C.

"The Constitution preserves the advantage of being armed which Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation... where the Governments are afraid to trust the people with arms." ___ James Madison

Where, then, did anyone get the idea that the right to arms was linked only to militia duty, and not to the individual right of self defense? This mistake is a modern one. The earliest court decisions--Kentucky in 1822, Indiana in 1833, Georgia in 1837, to name only a few--recognized an individual right to arms. The Georgia Supreme Court in particular noted that the second amendment protected "the right of the whole people, old and young, men, women and boys, and not militia only, to keep and bear arms of every description." Only in 1905 did a Kansas court invent (without any historical examination) the idea that the right to bear arms was meant only to protect the organized state militia. Since there is no question that the right to arms clause was more important to the Americans who demanded a bill of rights--prior to Virginia's convention, few proposals even gave the militia a mention--this was truly a case of the tail wagging the dog! There had been framers who stressed the militia--but they were appeased by the first part of the second amendment; its right to arms clause was meant to answer entirely different critics, seeking an entirely different principle. In any event, few anti-gunners would really want to restore the militia system, which made gun ownership mandatory. Their claims actually seek to defeat both portions of the second amendment, and to circumvent George Mason's objectives as well as those of Thomas Jefferson.

LOCK & LOAD!

 

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized. __ Amendment IV, United States Constitution

Copyright © 1996 Stephen Krzanowski