The Second Amendment is the least clear and most misunderstood of the ten amendments comprising the Bill of Rights. Likely that is because it deals with an arcane principle of self government. Be assured, it has nothing to do with guns, knives or any other weapon whether suitable for use in combat or not.
During the American Revolution, the colonists faced a professional army, that is, an army of persons who were in the army either because they wanted to be or because they were forced into it. The British army was not an army of common citizens called to arms to defend their communities. Consequently, these professionals had no reason to be particularly concerned about what they did as soldiers. Their lives and their professional success were tied to their performance as soldiers. If they were called-upon to abuse the citizens of the colonies, so be it. Following orders was the only thing that mattered because that resulted in promotions or, at least, no punishment. This was the standing army the Founders feared. Its loyalty was to itself not to the People.
To obviate the problem, the Founders wished to create a citizen army, an army of common citizens who would not abuse the rights of the People. Such an army, a militia could be trusted where a professional army could not. The Second Amendment declares for the People a right to a citizen army. In saying "keep and bear arms," it says the People may create and manage their citizen army and serve in it themselves. That phrase, widely and wildly misunderstood, is not about owning and carrying guns.
I didn't know you was over two hundred years old and was there at the convention
luckly we have the written words of the ones who where there that wrote, discussed and debated the 2nd amendement to tell us what they meant
why don't we hear from the very people who wrote discussed and debated the 2nd amendment
“Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch.
Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote!”
Benjamin Franklin
“I ask, Sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people. To disarm the people is the best and most effectual way to enslave them.” – Speech in the Virginia Ratifying Convention, June 14, 1778
“That a well-regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the proper, natural and safe defense of a free state; that standing armies, in time of peace, should be avoided as dangerous to liberty; and that, in all cases, the military should be under strict subordination to, and governed by, the civil power.” – Virginia Declaration of Rights, June 12, 1776
George Mason, co-author of the Second Amendment
“A militia when properly formed are in fact the people themselves… and include all men capable of bearing arms. . . To preserve liberty it is essential that the whole body of people always possess arms… The mind that aims at a select militia, must be influenced by a truly anti-republican principle.” – Letters From the Federal Farmer to the Republican, Letter XVIII, January 25, 1788
“No free government was ever founded, or ever preserved its liberty, without uniting the characters of the citizen and soldier in those destined for the defense of the state…such area well-regulated militia
, composed of the freeholders, citizen and husbandman, who take up arms to preserve their property, as individuals, and their rights as freemen.” – Richard Henry Lee, State Gazette (Charleston), September 8, 1788
Richard Henry Lee
“And that the said Constitution be never construed to authorize Congress to infringe the just liberty of the press, or the rights of conscience; or to prevent the people of the United States, who are peaceable citizens, from keeping their own arms; or to raise standing armies, unless necessary for the defense of the United States, or of some one or more of them; or to prevent the people from petitioning, in a peaceable and orderly manner, the federal legislature, for a redress of grievances; or to subject the people to unreasonable searches and seizures of their persons, papers or possessions.” – Debates of the Massachusetts Convention of February 6, 1788; Debates and Proceedings in the Convention of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, 1788 (Pierce & Hale, eds., Boston, 1850)
Samuel Adams
“A free people ought not only to be armed, but disciplined; to which end a uniform and well-digested plan is requisite; and their safety and interest require that they should promote such manufactories as tend to render them independent on others for essential, particularly for military, supplies.” – Speech in the United States Congress, January 8, 1790; George Washington: A Collection, compiled and edited by W.B. Allen (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1988), Chapter 11
George Washington
“[W]hat country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms.” – Letter to William Stephens Smith, November 13, 1787; The Works of Thomas Jefferson, Federal Edition (New York and London, G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1904-5) Vol. 5
“No freeman shall be debarred the use of arms [within his own lands].” – Proposed Constitution for Virginia – Fair Copy, Section IV: Rights, Private and Public, June 1776; The Works of Thomas Jefferson, Federal Edition, Editor: Paul Leicester Ford, (New York and London, G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1904-5); Vol. 2
Thomas Jefferson
“The supposed quietude of a good man allures the ruffian; while on the other hand,
arms like laws discourage and keep the invader and the plunderer in awe, and preserve order in the world as well as property. The balance of power is the scale of peace. The same balance would be preserved were all the world destitute of arms, for all would be alike; but since some will not, others dare not lay them aside. And while a single nation refuses to lay them down, it is proper that all should keep them up. Horrid mischief would ensue were one half the world deprived of the use of them.” – Thoughts on Defensive War, 1775; The Writings of Thomas Paine, Collected and Edited by Moncure Daniel Conway (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1894) Volume 1, Chapter XII
Thomas Paine
“O sir, we should have fine times, indeed, if, to punish tyrants, it were only sufficient
to assemble the people! Your arms, wherewith you could defend yourselves, are gone; and you have no longer an aristocratical, no longer a democratical spirit. Did you ever read of any revolution in a nation, brought about by the punishment of those in power, inflicted by those who had no power at all?” – Speech in the Virginia Ratifying Convention, June 5, 1778; “Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution,” Jonathan Elliot, editor, vol. 3, pp. 50-53
“The great object is, that every man be armed … Every one who is able may have a gun.”– Debates in the Several State Conventions on Adoption of the Federal Constitution, Jonathan Elliot, ed. 1836, vol. 3, p. 386
Patrick Henry
I don't know what convention you was at but it sure wasn't that one
