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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWhat Americas gun fanatics wont tell you.
Can we please stop pretending that the Second Amendment contains an unfettered right for everyone to buy a gun? It doesnt, and it never has. The claims made by the small number of extremists, before and after the Orlando, Fla., massacre, are based on a deliberate lie.
The Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution doesnt just say Congress shall not infringe the right to keep and bear arms. It specifically says that right exists in order to maintain a well-regulated militia. Even the late conservative Supreme Court Associate Justice Antonin Scalia admitted those words werent in there by accident. Oh, and the Constitution doesnt just say a militia. It says a well-regulated militia.
What did the Founding Fathers mean by that? We dont have to guess because they told us. In Federalist No. 29 of the Federalist Papers, Alexander Hamilton explained at great length precisely what a well-regulated militia was, why the Founding Fathers thought we needed one, and why they wanted to protect it from being disarmed by the federal government.
The Second Amendment is an instrument of government. Its not about hunting or gun collecting or carrying your pistol into the saloon.
And theres a reason absolutely no gun extremist will ever direct you to that 1788 essay because it blows their baloney into a million pieces.
A well-regulated militia didnt mean guys who read Soldier of Fortune magazine running around in the woods with AK-47s and warpaint on their faces. It basically meant what today we call the National Guard.
It should be a properly constituted, ordered and drilled (well-regulated) military force, organized state by state, explained Hamilton. Each state militia should be a select corps, well-trained and able to perform all the operations of an army. The militia needed uniformity in
organization and discipline, wrote Hamilton, so that it could operate like a proper army in camp and field, and so that it could gain the essential
degree of proficiency in military functions. And although it was organized state by state, it needed to be under the explicit control of the national government. The well-regulated militia was under the command of the president. It was the military arm of the government.
The one big difference between this militia and a professional army? It shouldnt be made up of full-time professional soldiers, said the Founding Fathers. Such soldiers could be used against the people as King George had used his mercenary Redcoats. Instead, the American republic should make up its military force from part-time volunteers drawn from regular citizens. Such men would be less likely to turn on the population.
And the creation of this well-regulated militia, aka the National Guard, would help safeguard the freedom of the new republic because it would make the creation of a professional, mercenary army unnecessary, wrote Hamilton. This appears to me the only substitute that can be devised for a standing army, and the best possible security against it, he wrote.
That was the point. And that was why they wanted to make sure it couldnt be disarmed by the federal government: So a future tyrant couldnt disarm the National Guard, and then use a mercenary army to impose martial law.
Entire article at:
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/what-americas-gun-fanatics-wont-tell-you-2016-06-14
Hoyt
(54,770 posts)spanone
(135,830 posts)kacekwl
(7,016 posts)With their sporting rifles.
tblue37
(65,340 posts)Glorfindel
(9,729 posts)magicarpet
(14,145 posts)Duppers
(28,120 posts)Thanks.
grumpyduck
(6,232 posts)many years ago. It said, "Never try to teach a pig to sing. It wastes your time and annoys the pig."
Not saying these people are pigs (I don't know them personally), but that's what it comes down to: sometimes you just can't get through to some people. They're just too entrenched to even have a conversation.
And, again, not knowing the folks in the photo, but, if history plays itself out, the moment a couple of shots ring out, that picture is going to change: it's going to look like those old cartoons where all you see is a pair of pants standing up and a cloud of dust where the character took off. I hope I'm wrong on this one.