Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

To: MileHi
he would be able to understand 2A as intended.

I don't disagree with what you said, but I believe that the operative phrase is "necessary to the security of a free state."

The second amendment is an individual right, the right of the people to keep and bear arms. However, the purpose of that right was foremost (according to the second amendment) to protect the sovereignty of the 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...

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.

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 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

98 posted on 11/05/2022 7:44:06 PM PDT by Political Junkie Too ( * LAAP = Left-wing Activist Agitprop Press (formerly known as the MSM))
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 96 | View Replies ]


To: Political Junkie Too

The post is well done, and well taken. But my point was for this judge, Stern, to be able to discern for himself the bounds of a citizens right to possess and carry arms by exploring the simple language of the amendment itself and it’s meaning at the time it was adopted.


100 posted on 11/05/2022 8:23:28 PM PDT by MileHi ((Liberalism is an ideology of parasites, hypocrites, grievance mongers, victims, and control freaks.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 98 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson