As happens frequently and with increasing fervency, those who wish to violate the rights of the American people to keep and bear arms are hitting the media to spread their propaganda. On the whole, I have found that these fascists throw any semblance of integrity out the window and have no issue uttering absurdities about clear textual language, clear historical record, and whipping their echo chambers into a paranoid frenzy without regard to statistical reality. In short, their position is complete fascist bullshit.
Let me try to support and defend the Constitution against domestic enemies. First, the textual argument. The Second Amendment states:
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.
The rights-deniers' argument, if it can be called that, is that the 2A grammatically acknowledges rights not of individual people, but rather of officials in a government sanctioned and controlled army. Not only do they assume that definition of "militia," but they also assume that those not in that government controlled organization are not privy to any right to keep and bear arms without infringement. These assumptions are absurd and contrary to the text of the amendment itself.
The 2A gives a preface to explain the reasoning behind the law and then it proceeds to lay down the law after it was debated and discussed. The reasoning of the final amendment considers that the security of a free State is protected by a well regulated militia, and in order to have a well regulated militia, it was necessary to make it law that the right of the people to keep and bear arms will not be infringed.
But somebody who has not taken grade school history might ask, if the reasoning was to have a militia that could bolster the security of a free State, why did the anti-federalist Founders give the legal right to keep and bear arms to the people? Well, the obvious answer from the text itself is that they viewed the militia and the people to be the same. The people were the militia. If that were not the case, then they would have written that the right of the militia to keep and bear arms would not be infringed. But they did not do that.
Second, history supports this readily apparent textual reality. George Mason and Patrick Henry were two of the most influential anti-federalists behind the Bill of Rights. Anti-federalists did not want States to ratify the Constitution (this may shock some of the fascists who also share a disdain for the Constitution). Unlike our domestic enemies today, the anti-federalists did not want the Constitution ratified because they believed it created a government that was far too powerful and which would destroy the rights of States and the people. So in a compromise to get States to ratify the Constitution, it was agreed that some amendments would be voted on. The anti-federalists offered up several amendments and ultimately only twelve were brought by James Madison to the floor and only ten were eventually adopted. The Bill of Rights. It is beyond insane to think that these anti-federalists would orchestrate ten amendments that all secured rights of individuals against the government (free speech, press, worship, assembly, quartered soldiers, due process, self incrimination, unreasonable searches and seizures, jury trial, etc), excepting for one amendment to secure the right of government to have armed militias. Rather, just as the law they wrote makes clear with its text, their purpose was to secure the right of the people to be armed. Not only did they say so in the Second Amendment itself, but George Mason addressed the Constitutional Convention in 1788 stating:
Mr. Chairman — A worthy member has asked, who are the militia, if they be not the people, of this country, and if we are not to be protected from the fate of the Germans, Prussians, &c. by our representation? I ask who are the militia? They consist now of the whole people, except a few public officers. But I cannot say who will be the militia of the future day. If that paper on the table gets no alteration, the militia of the future day may not consist of all classes, high and low, and rich and poor; but may be confined to the lower and middle classes of the people, granting exclusion to the higher classes of the people. If we should ever see that day, the most ignominious punishments and heavy fines may be expected. Under the present government all ranks of people are subject to militia duty.
His concerns that some people of means would actually avoid their duty as militia, were addressed in 1791 when the Second Amendment was finally ratified. Patrick Henry, of "give me liberty or give me death" fame, also offered the following in a debate at a state convention:
Are we at last brought to such humiliating and debasing degradation, that we cannot be trusted with arms for our defense? Where is the difference between having our arms in possession and under our direction, and having them under the management of Congress? If our defense be the real object of having those arms, in whose hands can they be trusted with more propriety, or equal safety to us, as in our own hands?
The Second Amendment means what it says. Now, to be fair, there are some gun control goons who acknowledge the Second Amendment means what it says, and they propose that our Constitution should be amended again to remove the right to keep and bear arms. These individuals believe themselves to have superior reasoning ability and a superior understanding of history and human nature than the Founders and, very often, have little to no respect for those individuals from hundreds of years ago. After all, some of them owned slaves.
Regardless, they they are correct that our Constitution would have to be amended to get rid of the legal right to keep and bear arms. The problem, however, is that not even a government amendment removes the right of the people to the means of self defense, as rights come from our Creator and not from any government. Just as an amendment today overturning the 13th Amendment and making it legal for black Americans to be thrown again in shackles would destroy a right made legal through our Constitution. Still such a tyrannical move would not change the fact that all Americans, to include those of color, have the inalienable right to be free people and to be unmolested by a tyrannical majority. Even the Constitution itself, in the same anti-federalist Bill of Rights, says as much. The Ninth Amendment states:
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
The reality is that the vocal domestic enemies of our nation today do not care about the Constitution or the rule of law. They do not share the concern for rights that many Americans in the 1960s had and demonstrated with courageous action. They certainly do not care to live and let live, or to respect the choices of others and they do not value a diversity of people with different lifestyles making various decisions. Rather, they simply and ironically want to use government violence through the barrel of a government gun (as all laws are enforced with) to force individuals to behave or act or think or express themselves or own property in a way that they personally approve of. After all the Constitution, in their minds, was written by conservatives who they have been taught are evil people and they have eagerly ingested the hatred of that group of their neighbors.
These people are the tyrants that early Americans tried to defend us from with their supreme law. These people attempt to utilize the machinery of armed government to infringe on the rights of the people as tyrants from history typically do. This is the tyranny of the majority that the anti-federalists went to work to secure our rights against to include that most fundamental right; the right of self defense. Patrick Henry stated, "The great object is that every man be armed. Everyone who is able may have a gun." This was a great object indeed because it is essential to liberty and freedom. Few if any oppressed people have ever escaped the evils of tyrannical government power without the tools of defense against violence.
Those afraid of tyranny of government, or tyranny of a lunatic in a public place, all have the same remedy. Arm yourself and protect yourself! It is ludicrous that all Americans can't agree on the value of this right. As Thomas Jefferson stated, "Every citizen should be a soldier. This was the case with the Greeks and Romans, and must be that of every free state." If you want to be free, arm yourself! If you want to remain free, arm yourself. Every person benefits from the tools of self defense, regardless of religion or color or gender or politics or sexuality except for those who wish to violate the rights of others with whom they differ. But this common sense value has been programmed out of a large portion of our lemming-like American population and people who may have potentially had good intentions have turned themselves into domestic enemies of America who, like Senator Joe McCarthy, wish to use the machinery of public government to violate the rights of their innocent countrymen.
Samuel Bryan noted, "the men of the greatest purity of intention may be made instruments of despotism in the hands of the artful and designing." The domestic enemies today may have had some purity of intention, but they have been filled with hatred for those they have been told to fear, a conservative bogeyman. And because they have ingested and swallowed down this hateful nonsense, in pure divide and conquer fashion, these fascists have given up their integrity, concern for our rule of law, and they rely exclusively on arguments comprised of complete un-American bullshit.
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