Posted on 12/07/2007 5:16:39 PM PST by neverdem
Soon the U.S. Supreme Court will consider whether the District of Columbia’s bans on possession of handguns, even in the home, and on having long guns functional for self defense violate the Constitution. As the Court sees it in D.C. v. Heller, the issue is whether those bans “violate the Second Amendment rights of individuals who are not affiliated with any state-regulated militia, but who wish to keep handguns and other firearms for private use in their homes.” The federal appeals court for D.C. held that it did.
After ignoring the Amendment since its ambiguous U.S. v. Miller decision in 1939, the Court will decide whether the phrase “the right of the people” in the Second Amendment refers to the same “people” as in the First and Fourth Amendments, or only to government-selected militiamen. It will also consider whether a “right” in the Bill of Rights refers to a real liberty or is only rhetoric. Is the right to keep and bear arms on a par with the rights peaceably to assemble or against unreasonable search and seizure? Or is it void where prohibited by law?
For America’s Founders, the answer was obvious. In 1768, when Redcoats landed to occupy the town, the Boston Gazette warned of British plans “more grievous” than anything before: “the Inhabitants of this Province are to be disarmed”; martial law would be declared; and patriots would be “seized and sent to Great-Britain.” Through the periods of the Boston Massacre and the Tea Party the screws were tightened, until finally British attempts to seize colonists’ arms at Lexington and Concord in 1775 led to the shot heard ‘round the world.
Just after the American victory, General Gage, commander of the King’s troops, ordered the inhabitants of Boston to surrender their firearms, supposedly for temporary safekeeping. It is recorded that Gage confiscated “1,778 fire-arms [long guns], 634 pistols, 973 bayonets, and 38 blunderbusses.” The Continental Congress cited this act of perfidy in its Declaration of Causes of Taking Up Arms.
After Independence was won, delegates from the states in 1787 framed our Constitution. Antifederalists protested that it included no declaration of rights and would allow deprivation of rights like free speech and keeping arms. James Madison responded in The Federalist that a declaration was unnecessary, in part because of “the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation,” in contrast with the European monarchies, where “the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms.”
A great compromise was reached: the Constitution would be ratified and then a bill of rights would be debated. When the first Congress met in 1789, Madison proposed what became the Bill of Rights. Federalist writer Tench Coxe explained the Second Amendment thus: “As civil rulers, not having their duty to the people duly before them, may attempt to tyrannize, and as the military forces which must be occasionally raised to defend our country, might pervert their power to the injury of their fellow-citizens, the people are confirmed...in their right to keep and bear their private arms.”
The Amendment reads: “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.” For almost two centuries, the understanding was that law-abiding individuals had a right to possess rifles, pistols, and shotguns. This would promote a militia of all able-bodied citizens, which, unlike a standing army, was seen as securing a free country.
The agenda to pass firearms prohibitions led to the invention of the “collective rights” view by the 1960s. Under this view, the Amendment protects only the power of states to have militias. A variation asserts that it guarantees a right to bear arms in the militia, nothing more. These attempts to deconstruct ignore that “the people” means you and me, not the states, and that no “right” exists to do anything in a military force—a militiaman does what is commanded.
In 1976, the District of Columbia banned pistols. It also required registered rifles and shotguns to be rendered non-functional when kept at home (but not at a business). D.C. residents were thereby rendered into second-class citizens—they had no Second Amendment rights and were not trusted to defend themselves in their own homes. The crime rate only continued to rise in what became the Murder Capital of the U.S.
The validity of the D.C. ban is now before the Supreme Court. Besides arguing that no one has any rights under the Second Amendment, D.C. alternatively contends that it can ban handguns as long as it does not ban all rifles and shotguns. One can imagine what the Bostonians who surrendered all of their firearms to the Crown in 1775 would have thought of such an argument. Hopefully the Justices will be mindful of the Founders’ intent and will recognize that the Second Amendment is every bit a part of the Bill of Rights as is the First.
And, considering the state of the world, that is what we have. Or considering what we had in the "peace" time of the 1950s. The Army was also small during the post civil war period and the 1920s and 30s. That latter deficit helped lead to WW-II. Notice I said *helped*. As a fraction of the total population, I'd have to check. ... There's a graph in this Article (pdf) that shows the fraction of the population in the military from 1790 to around 2002. We are at about 0.5% of the population. That's maybe twice that of the inter-war years (WWI to WWII) and about the level during the Mexican War. I'd argue that the inter war level was too low for safety. Today's world is at least as dangerous as that period, and we have large numbers of troops deployed to a combat theater.
Federalist 46 indicates that a large standing army would be about 1% of the population. We are half that level. And it's not exactly a time of peace. Not that we've increased that fraction much, if at all, since 911.
Also, things have changed since the 1780s. The population is much more productive, and thus able to sustain a higher fraction in the military.
Spending wise, for FY 2006 we were at around 3.1%, down from 3.4% in FY 05 (about 4.4% if you consider the war supplemental, which the Congress had not yet passed for this year) of GDP. The post WW-II low, approaching the level which existed prior to the US buildup for WW-II, was 2.9% during FY 2001, the last Clinton budget.
A lot of the increased spending is for activation of reserve forces, the closest we have to the militia of old. The rest of for bullets, boots, beans and other consumable material expended in the "non-peace" effort.
I don't think even George Washington would be overly concerned with the size of todays active duty military, all things considered.
Probably not. I spent a bit of time trying to run that one down in two different multi-volume collections of Jefferson's works. Sometimes a referance is given for it, but it appears to be a scrambled version of one of those works.
Here's one example:
Thomas Jefferson, (The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, p. 334, 1950)
It's not there.
It's often combined with ""No man shall ever be debarred the use of arms." Which Jefferson did write as part of proposed Constituition for Virginia. It was followed by "within his own lands or tenements)", the () indicating he thought that might be optional or left out, the proposal did not pass, although I think a stronger version did.
Jefferson did write: "The constitutions of most of our States assert that all power is inherent in the people; that . . . it is their right and duty to be at all times armed." Letter to John Cartwright, 1824. (The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Memorial Edition (ME), Lipscomb and Bergh, editors, 20 Vols., Washington, D.C., 1903-04, 16:45.
And
"One loves to possess arms, though they hope never to have occasion for them." -- Letter to George Washington, 1796. ME 9:341
A good source of Jefferson quotes on a number of subject is at the site of the school he founded, The University of Virginia
In particular On Militia and Military matters and The Right to (Keep and) Bear Arms
That's why they added the 2 year funding restriction. Doesn't mean they didn't think we needed at least a small core to build a real Army around. That's almost what we have, but we haven't used it as core, and built a large army around it, but rather an expeditionary Army in itself.
But the Army, and the rest of the military, is firmly under civilian control, and that was one of the main, if not the main, objections to a standing Army. An Army free of legislative control and barely in executive control. We aren't even close to that.
The two year funding restriction ties in with the requirement that all tax bills originate in the House, the members of which must stand for election every two years. And of course the House must at least concur with, when it doesn't originate, all spending bills as well.
I don't think even George Washington would be overly concerned with the size of todays active duty military, all things considered.
Dancing around my original point...America is not supposed to have a standing army in times of peace.
...the fraction of the population in the military from 1790 to around 2002. We are at about 0.5% of the population.
You're active duty? (thus the "we")
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