An additional point for those who think the BOR “gives” us our rights. The Founders were quite clear that the BOR “grants” nothing. It enumerates certain rights we have by virtue of being humans.
They’re inherent rights which cannot be taken away, only abrogated by a tyrannical government.
L
A well balanced breakfast being necessary to the nutrition of a good day, the right of the people to keep and eat food shall not be infringed”
Now, to whom does this right apply, the people or the breakfast?
Fairly on target.
But one addition: in 1770s America, men were routinely required to participate in formal drills as part of the militia district they lived in. The militia district map was usually coincident with county lines but not always; counties might have more then one militia district.
So “well regulated” also referred to that.
One quibble here...
"A free state" may have been an 18th century term of art, but in the Second Amendment it literally meant the several states of the United States. The "security" of a "free state" meant not just protection from a tyrant but also from the other states.
Alexander Hamilton wrote of this in Federalist #8:
The institutions chiefly alluded to are STANDING ARMIES and the correspondent appendages of military establishments. Standing armies, it is said, are not provided against in the new Constitution; and it is therefore inferred that they may exist under it. Their existence, however, from the very terms of the proposition, is, at most, problematical and uncertain...Hamilton foresaw that a militia of the people-at-large would be enough to stop a move by small states to form standing armies, which would stop large states from retaliating with their own, essentially preventing an arms race.The weaker States or confederacies would first have recourse to them, to put themselves upon an equality with their more potent neighbors. They would endeavor to supply the inferiority of population and resources by a more regular and effective system of defense, by disciplined troops, and by fortifications. They would, at the same time, be necessitated to strengthen the executive arm of government...
The expedients which have been mentioned would soon give the States or confederacies that made use of them a superiority over their neighbors. Small states, or states of less natural strength, under vigorous governments, and with the assistance of disciplined armies, have often triumphed over large states, or states of greater natural strength, which have been destitute of these advantages.
Neither the pride nor the safety of the more important States or confederacies would permit them long to submit to this mortifying and adventitious superiority. They would quickly resort to means similar to those by which it had been effected, to reinstate themselves in their lost pre-eminence. Thus, we should, in a little time, see established in every part of this country the same engines of despotism which have been the scourge of the Old World.
The peoples' right to keep and bear arms was necessary to the security of a free state, because it stopped the states from wanting to form their own armies standing in opposition to each other.
-PJ
That’s a great article.
p
Good 2A article bump.
No existing gun laws except ones like the local ordinance in Kennesaw Georgia is Constitutional. The 13t amd can be construed to allow the denial of arms to incarcerated prisoners and adjudged insane people but that is the only possible Constitutional restriction on the RKBA. The RKBA recognizes the right to own and carry any sort of physical arms including nuclear bombs. The markets provide the sole restriction on KBA i.e. can you afford the price?
Thanks for posting, The right to your life and the necessary corollary; the right to defend YOUR life.