Amendment Text: 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.
A couple of years ago I stumbled on a discussion of the English Bill of Rights of 1689. And I was struck by what it implied about the origins of the American 2nd Amendment and the right of militias to bear arms.
In many current debates about the amendment's nature, a public figure such as President Obama might argue that regulation of arms would in no way result in the loss of firearms suitable for small game hunting. Whether this is simply disingenuous or the result of widespread unawareness of 1689's Bill of Rights, I have to wonder. After all, the President once taught Constitutional law. But consider this summary:
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Laws should not be dispensed with or suspended without the
consent of Parliament;
No taxes should be levied without the authority of
Parliament;
The right to petition the monarch should be without fear of
retribution;
No standing army may be maintained during peacetime without
the consent of Parliament;[nb 2]
Subjects who are Protestants may bear arms for their defence
as permitted by law;
the election of members of Parliament should be free;
the freedom of speech and debates or proceedings in
Parliament should not to be impeached or questioned in any court or place out
of Parliament;
excessive bail should not be required, nor excessive fines
imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishment inflicted;
jurors should be duly impannelled and returned and jurors in
high treason trials should be freeholders;
promises of fines or forfeitures before conviction are void;
Parliaments should be held frequently.
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Did you notice that provision above about Protestants in particular having the right to bear arms? This was in reaction to the monarchial century and a half tug of war between Catholic and Protestant affiliations. Other features of the American Bill of Rights are there in embryonic form, but the right to bear arms is a check and balance measure against the possible religious backsliding of royal family members - and their standing armies.
In other words, although Federalists Papers and other background sources have little to say on this matter, those that drafted the American Constitution would surely have been aware of the English BOR context.
But the document does not take away with one hand what it gives with another: no established churches and religious liberty.
I argue that the founders intended to arm the individual citizens as much as the situation might require: muskets., cannons, pikes or whatever technology allowed - and that they were not thinking about provisioning them with passenger pigeon or buffalo carcasses. They were thinking about defense against central governments. And I can imagine that Justice Antonin Scalia would pick up on this, even though you might say that the gun was originally pointed at people of his own religious persuasion. Others, of a different philosophical bend would be quite the contrary: "The amendment has to be taken into a 21st century context rather than 17th."
In practice, I see evidence that mass murder and mayhem is as much a result of mental state. Our assassins seem to have no rational agendas. The shooting from the U of Texas clock tower back in 1966 could serve as an illustration. A military veteran with a severe brain tumor shot people at random in the quadrangle below.
On the other hand ( an economist's argument?) were it not for gun shows in the United States, where would Mexican drug cartels get their weaponry? Or are these examples of well armed militias in another country?
