I write a lot of Answers on the social media website, “Quora”. My primary area of interest is firearms and the Second Amendment. I have done an extensive essay on the Second Amendment, but the Questions just keep coming. There are many people with their own interpretation, but even among strong, Second Amendment supporters, there is often an incomplete understanding. This article is not definitive, and I do not so much interpret it, but give you the information you need to interpret for yourself. It covers at least one point I don’t think I have heard anyone mention. If there is an interest, I may sometime post the long form essay here, as well. Anyway, the Question which prompted this answer was…
- What is the correct interpretation of the 2nd amendment?
Many of the rights included in the Constitutional Bill of Rights codified into the Constitution the rights guaranteed the English, in the in the English, Declaration of Right, of 1689.
King James II had stripped Protestants of virtually all rights. In 1689, so before they ascended the Throne, Parliament presented to King William and Queen Mary, the Declaration of Right. One of the causes of action was …
”By causing several good subjects, being Protestants, to be disarmed, at the same time when papists were both armed and employed contrary to law.”
So, the King had disarmed Protestants, and used armed, Catholic subjects to persecute them. The remedy to this was…
“That the subjects which are Protestants may have arms for their defence suitable to their conditions and as allowed by law”.
This right to keep and bear arms was was seen as a natural right, an extension to the right to life; the means of protecting life. This document preceded the Constitution by 100 years, and was the law of the land before the Revolution. When Madison proposed the Second Amendment, he submitted the text of the Massachusetts proposal, without change…
“The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed; a well armed and well regulated militia being the best security of a free country; but no person religiously scrupulous of bearing arms shall be compelled to render military service in person.” [Debates and Proceedings in the Convention of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Charles Hale, (1856), p. 86]
As you can see, the intent of this proposal was, clearly, to guarantee the rights of citizens to own and carry arms. In addition to the English Common Law of self-defense, they recognized this as essential because, a well armed and well regulated militia being the best security of a free country. This was recognizing the role of militias in liberating Massachusetts from the British. Perhaps you may note, the people of Massachusetts granted the militias the character of, “well regulated”.
Understand, it was not “The Kings Militia” who rebelled against King George, it was the armed citizens of the colonies who formed ad hoc militias (such as The Sons of Liberty) to oppose what they perceived as tyrannical government, facing the troops of the King. With the exception of Boston, Massachusetts was essentially liberated before the Revolution began. In many communities around Massachusetts, militias had already repelled British soldiers who came to confiscate their powder, with the threat of arms, before the Battle of Concord.
These militias were not controlled by the Colonial Government in any way. Originally, many were formed in communities throughout the colonies, especially in New England, primarily for community protection and policing (analogous to today’s Neighborhood Watch), who joined with militias like The Sons of Liberty. Even after the Continental Army was formed, the militias were not “controlled” by the Army, but often coordinated with it. The Founders were guaranteeing, not just the right to own and carry firearms, but the right of the people to form militias, too.
Since the proposal was rather wordy, and the concept of conscientious objection was hotly debated, that clause was dropped from the proposal, the amendment was reworded and shortened, including the prohibition from government infringing upon those rights. The result was the Second Amendment we know today.
One reply on “Interpreting the Second Amendment”
Militias were also used by the British.
I am not sure if your analysis of the 1689 laws is complete. Notably, the use of the terms “contrary to law” and “allowed by law” are, I believe, not references to natural law but to British laws. Specifically, the reference to Catholics being armed “contrary to law” is because Catholics were prohibited by law from owning guns and property, and subject to extra taxes and punishments. King James tried to reverse these laws and free the Catholics. The Protestants weren’t having it, so they deposed the King and reimposed the various Test Acts, some with even more punishments than before. This back and forth and punishment had been going on since Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries to get his hands on their property.
All of this persecution, which became increasingly explicitly vindictive over time, and which by the eighteenth century became only arbitrarily enforced as most people in positions of power increasingly refused to enforce them, led directly to the provision in our Constitution specifically forbidding a “religious test” for public office, a provision which has been blatantly violated recently in the Senate by leftists targeting Catholic judicial nominees.
Leaving aside the Catholic question, not all individuals were permitted to own firearms in Britain at that time. It was considered a privilege of those who owned land. Arguably it was considered a natural right of landowners, but not of individuals. Rights and privileges in Britain were closely tied to owning land, whether it was the right to vote or the right to bear arms. So our Founders really were radical in extending rights to everyone as natural rights.
I’ve been mulling over an essay for some time about how and why the Founders were considered by history to be such radical geniuses.