When it comes to interpreting the Second Amendment of the United States Constitution, I find assault-weapons advocates to be ideologically selective when they proceed to bifurcate the wording: “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.”
They ignore the words “well-regulated militia.”
So let’s place their omission in context of history.
When the Second Amendment was written, the framers presumably chose their words carefully and the words “arms” (or armaments) in the 18th century meant “force equipped for war” and it’s doubtful that the framers wanted to arm an unregulated multitude.
They weren’t that trusting nor naïve enough to believe they could trust a populace to be unregulated with weapons of war - a systemic mistrust demonstrated in their unfortunate creation of an Electoral College. They didn’t even trust the populous with the vote.
It was Gen. George Washington’s opinion, during the Revolutionary War, that state militias were poorly trained and unregulated. He often found them undependable in battle and had Congress fund the Continental Army.
However, after the Treaty of Paris was signed in 1783, ending the war, most of the Continental Army was disbanded. Consequently, without a standing army, the framers must have realized that “a well-regulated militia” would be necessary for repelling an invasion and/or suppressing insurrection by those remaining loyal to the Crown and consequently the Second Amendment was proposed and ratified on Dec. 15, 1791.
The Second Amendment was followed by the First Militia Act, passed in 1792, that provided authority for the president to call out militias of the several states “whenever the United States shall be invaded or be in imminent danger of invasion from any foreign nation or Indian tribe.”
The act also authorized the president to call the militias into federal service “whenever the laws of the United States shall be opposed or the execution thereof obstructed, in any state, by combinations too powerful to be suppressed by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings or by the powers vested in the Marshalls by this act”.
The Militia Act also required a militiaman to “provide himself with a good musket or firelock, a sufficient bayonet and belt, two spare flints, and a knapsack, a pouch, with a box therein, to contain not less than twenty four cartridges, suited to the bore of his musket or firelock, each cartridge to contain a proper quantity of power and ball; or with a good rifle, knapsack, shot-pouch, and powder-horn, twenty balls suited to the bore of his rifle, and a quarter pound of powder; and shall appear so armed, accounted and provided when called by the President of the United States in case of invasion or obstruction to law enforcement.”
This act remained in effect until after the Civil War, but with the growth of industrialism and reduced inclination and time for amateur soldiering, the United States needed a workable reserve system, rather than the militia, which still operated under the Uniform Militia Act.
One rejuvenating factor for the militia during this time was the formation of the National Guard Association (NGA) in 1879.
The NGA created a reorganization plan that resulted in passing the Dick Act in 1903 that formally repealed the Uniform Militia Act of 1792 and extended federal involvement with the National Guard in peacetime. Federal funds were made available to state National Guard units and in return the state units were required to drill their troops 24 times a year, train reservists in summer encampments and submit to annual inspections by federal officers.
Another type of militia, not legally recognized by the federal or state governments, were the private militias. Private militias, like the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, Three Percenters and Texas Freedom Force et al. today, are composed of private citizens who self-train for armed combat.
The formation of these private militias became more common in the early 1990s as some political groups armed themselves to demonstrate their opposition to certain policies and practices of federal and state governments. Today, they are for the most part armed seditionists and in some individual cases terrorists.
Of course, our backward-leaning politicians and Supreme Court justices, who bifurcate the wording of the Second Amendment, are granting the unfettered possession and use of weapons of war and accessory equipment without the user being part of a well-regulated militia. That is a corruption of our founding father’s intent and purpose and every other citizen’s right to expect protections in pursuit of their life, liberty and happiness and that of their children and grandchildren without their being gunned down by members of an unregulated militia or disgruntled individuals.
I would propose that that under the claim of state’s rights, each enlightened state has the absolute right to enact laws banning possession and use of weapons of war within its borders. That these enlightened states have the absolute right and obligation to protect their citizens from violence arising from the use of weapons of war by persons who are not members of well-regulated militia.
There has to be a distinction made between weapons of war and those used by individuals for hunting, home protection and sport and are not the subject of the Second Amendment.
Jack Curtis
Sparta