General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: The 2nd Amendment was not put in place to protect against tyrannical gov't. [View all]fingusernames
(4 posts)Regarding "free country" being replaced by "free State" -- that plays right into my view that we conflate modern language and concepts with that of the past. When I studied history in university (double major), I was warned against the danger of "presentism." That was in ancient history classes, but it applies equally to the more recent period.
My viewpoint has always been that the "State" referred to in the 2nd Amendment is not a reference to a particular government, but rather to the larger concept of a free State, comprised of free and sovereign people. The 2nd Amendment secures to free people their right to secure their State, in which they can form the government of their choosing. Keep in mind that the amendments were proposed to secure the votes from those wavering, who did not want a strong central government.
This is like the term "well regulated" -- think of a clock, not a bureaucrat.
Keep in mind the times. These were men who revolted against their legal government and sovereign, and waged war against his troops. Their militias, which were considered to consist of all free men, predated the revolution, and the states. The Lexington militia fired on the British before we issued the Declaration of Independence. The possession of arms by the people at large would have been a fairly uncontroversial concept. The concept that the people should retain the right to their arms, lest their experiment in self-government go wrong, would seem to likewise be uncontroversial. The 2nd Amendment, part of a collection propose to assuage the wavering states that feared yet another overbearing central government, was clearly written to assure the people that their right to those arms would not be subject to any restriction by the federal government.
I think it is fine to oppose recognition of the right of free people to have arms. However, it is a bit Orwellian to try to claim that the 2nd Amendment, a product of our revolutionary period, written by people who had engaged in armed illegal revolution, was intended to limit arms to only government run militias. In particular because prior to the 14th amendment, the 1st, 2nd, and the rest of the Bill of Rights was not considered to be applicable to the state governments.