The 2nd Amendment Explained

Amendment II: 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. December 15, 1791


Easy enough, right? Okay you're right, apparently not... but when broken down it becomes much easier to understand and to explain to others.

When you talk about the Second Amendment most tend to get caught up in the arguments of today. Hardly anyone ever puts it into context with what was going on when it was written. There was a war just being wrapped up in which a tyrannical government had become scared of its subjects and had tried to ban the rifles that it feared. That didn't work out so well for them as I don't think they really thought the decision to go to war completely through.

After the scourge had been ousted and things were settling down the forefathers figured they had better put something into writing to keep this from ever happening again. What they came up with was this: 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.

So if we look at it in terms of what was going on those days and if we clarify the commonly misunderstood terms used it becomes much clearer and you get what I like to call the modern language second amendment.

The first term that gets people is "Regulated" and when used in today's world means something very different than it did many years ago when this was written. When the amendment was written regulated meant "outfitted or equipped." So we end up with a "well equipped militia" and that brings us to the second term that confounds folks.

A militia 220 years ago was the ONLY defensive force the young United States had. A militia is simply the civilian fighting force of the state or country. Now one must bear in mind again that this was the ONLY force we had. A military is a standing force... they never go home unlike militia that returns home after serving their duty. Think of a militia as a reserve type army that is only activated as needed. When the forefathers wrote the amendment the militia was all we had and therefore the terms militia and military are interchangeable.

The next misinterpreted part is the phrase "security of a free state" because people tend to again use the wrong definition of the word "state." People tend to think of a state... a state such as Virginia or Delaware. In this context they are talking about a "state of being", specifically a state of being free. Remember, the Constitution was a federal document, not a state document. Had they been referring to something other than a state of being, they'd have written "security of a free country."

The next one that is misunderstood is "people" because people tend to bunch everyone together in a collective group. When we talk about people today it simply means just that, but back then you had a different sets of persons. We had the Brits, the government, the militia, and the citizens. Only ONE of these groups was ever referred to as "the people" in 1791, and that was the CITIZENS which were NOT the militia, or the government, and certainly not the Brits!

Keep and bear... well, what can I say? Lots of people tend to overlook this and it is really the very heart and soul of the amendment. The right to have arms in your home and not in a government controlled armory someplace and to BEAR those same arms as needed is just that. Why would they feel it needed to write it in there that you can keep them in your home? Simple, because if the government knows where they are, and especially if they are all in one place such as an armory, it makes it rather easy to pull all the tiger's teeth.

Why write in that they have the right to bear arms? Isn't it a given? No. Remember that no one could have arms in old England except as permitted by the King. There is a reason those people were called SUBJECTS and that is it. Too, they were NOT referring to bearing arms to go hunting. Heck, everyone had to go hunting. If they didn't they would have starved! Hunting was a given, bearing arms wasn't. And you don't "bear arms" against a deer... Just sayin!

The last one is commonly misunderstood is the word "infringed" which modern folk tend to somehow interchange with "impede" but that term was well defined in 1791. It meant "not mucked with in any fashion" and while I told myself this was going to be a completely non-political post, I find it necessary to toss in one point here: Limiting magazine capacity, or the type of ammunition, or restricting sales in any way IS infringing.

Therefore...

If we replace the terms that everyone seems to get confused and put it into today's words, I think it really clears it up:

Because a well equipped military is necessary to maintain freedom from tyrannical governments that might misuse that military, the right of the citizens to also keep their own arms and to bear those arms as necessary, shall not be mucked with!


Also, if you take a second to read over the Third Amendment, you notice right away that this one ALSO deals with limiting the power of the government and the military.... The right to be free from quartering soldiers. Basically having a soldier looking over your shoulder every minute of every day while you had to feed and care for him out of your food stocks and coffers.

Last point I want to make is this: With all the liberals that are spewing that the people don't need military type arms, I feel it necessary to remind you that if push comes to shove the people will be fighting armies equipped with tanks and airplanes. Do you really want to further handicap yourself by going after guys with machine guns while you are equipped with a blunderbuss? If they really want to limit everyone to a single shot shotgun, that's fine... remove all the military's machine guns and also equip them with single shot shotguns. (Okay, cool your jets fellas... nobody in their right mind will ever disarm the military... except a conquering military, or a fully retarded government.)