One cynical interpretation of the second amendment is that it was enacted in order to let southern states crush any slave rebellion, without relying on any national army.
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I think you’re reading something into it that isn’t there. It’s the difference between saying “guns are necessary for any Militia” and “guns are only necessary for a Militia”.
The Founders may very well have been thinking about more general gun rights. A gun was probably far more important to people living in America in the 1700’s than today.
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This sentence contains no dependant clauses at all, let alone four. It contains one independent clause: “the right . . . shall not be infringed.” "being necessary . . . " is a participial phrase, modifying “well-regulated Militia.” I think that “A well regulated Militia” is serving as a kind of accusative of respect, a construction that exists in Greek but not, I think, in English.
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Some of them unquestionably were. Sam Adams addressed it directly:
“The Constitution shall never be construed to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms.”
http://www.madisonbrigade.com/s_adams.htm
He was wrong about the level of sophistry people will use to justify an end run around the constitution, though.
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It’s possible they were, but as I originally stated the Second Amendment is the only part of the Bill of Rights that has a clearly stated rationale for its inclusion so that makes it a special case.
The Founders didn’t bother explaining why you should be allowed to freely practice your religion or why you shouldn’t be forced to shelter soldiers in your house because the purpose of those rights seemed self-evident. Not so for the right to bear arms.
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They have two non-crazy opinions:
To enable armed insurrection against a tyrranical government.
To enable you to defend your family and property.
It is not exactly a split, since some people hold both views. 2008’s decision skewed more towards the latter, and the 1939 decision more towards the former.
Some people throw the entire text, context and court opinions and pretend is a guarantee that citizens be armed to the teeth with whatever weapons they want (a view unsupported by any given court decision, historical document, etc.).
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pretend is a guarantee that citizens be armed to the teeth with whatever weapons they want
If somebody thinks gun control is incompatible with the second amendment, then how do they think the current gun control laws have managed to survive challenges?
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I don’t see that happening in my life time, as the US’s rather isolationist policies went right out the window after WWII. We learned some from our mistake of just letting Europe try to recover on their own, and instead helped them rebuild with the Marshall Plan. But that and Europe’s worry about Soviet aggression meant we took a much more hands on approach to world events, We built more binding treaties with our allies, started the atomic and space race, change our policies so that we were ready to fight wars on two fronts, and overall became much more entangled in world events (coinciding with the rise of globalism).
Personally if we ramped down to just having the means to fight wars on one front vs two, it would be a step on the right direction. A strong military does have some advantages with bargaining powers, but it also comes at an expense.
I agree with that distinction and view it as the former.
One other thing to consider is the historical context of the right to bear arms and the influence of the English Bill of Rights of 1689 which included:
Protestants may have arms for their defence suitable to their conditions and as allowed by law;
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You weren’t wrong.
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That doesn’t change with presence of periodic practice in maneuvers and marksmanship. All those do is make it a more effective armed gang.
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Yeah, the entire premise of the 2nd Amendment is really obsolete. Back when it was written, the states were not all that willing to have another continental army again, and a lot of the leading minds had romantic notions of being like Cincinnatus, the fabled Roman statesman who wielded absolute power in times of crisis, but freely left office once the crisis was over. They had dreams of not needing a standing army, but that militias would answer the call when needed. They loved phrases like res publica and sic semper tyrannis and imagined themselves as bringing back a golden age where they as educated men could work together and not be ruled. Who needs an expensive army when you have well regulated militias ready to bear arms?
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The idea was that, in peacetime, the combined states’ militias, each commanded by the state governor, were, together, more powerful than the peacetime standing army. It lasted longer than most people think, though. At least until WW1, and arguably until WW2.
In 1934, during the water wars that are the backdrop for Chinatown, the governor of Arizona marched his national guard, under arms, to the California border, and set up camp there.
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Every other “right” specified in the US Constitution and Bill of Rights is a personal, individual right. Why would the 2nd Amendment be different? States have powers, and some of those powers were delegated to the Federal government.
The militia(s) are an organization created by the State. Why does the State need protection from State for raising a militia?
Because amendments aren,t the constitution (or the bill of rights)? They, you know, amend it. The 18th amendment - to pick a random example - also isn,t a personal right.
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The Bill of Rights were largely written by the same people who wrote the Constitution. As such, we can reasonably expect them to have the same definitions of words. The word “right” only appears once in the unamended US Constitution, incidentally.
The 18th amendment, doesn’t actually use the word “right” anywhere in the text. As such, I’d not expect to see it being considered a personal right. It does, however, say “Congress and the several States shall have concurrent power”. Which supports my contention that States have powers, not rights.
Except for the tiny detail that every single other use of the word regulated/regulate/regulation in the Constitution and Bill of Rights (11 other instances) refers to the execution of laws, not the alternative definition you present.
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Militias were organized by the state, not by the political interests of their members. There was a Virginia Militia, not a Frank’s Red Hot Sauce Militia and the 43rd Tabasco Dragoons.
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The state* needs protection from the federation. Protection from a president interfering with the state militias, like the British tried in 1775 (the battles of Lexington and Concord). That was the theory in the 1780s at least.
*the member state like Massachusetts, New York, Georgia, Virginia, etc.
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That was part of the theory, anyway.
The other major roles of the militia:
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Suppressing rebellious slaves.
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Continuing the genocide of Native America.
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Yeah, those are part of the reasons why states still wanted their own militias rather than one big Union government. I thought I would stick with the statement that the states wanted to keep their own militia systems in the first place, and not get sidetracked into arguing why.
