What Did The FOUNDERS Say About The 2nd Amendment? (Pt. 1)

With Joe Biden’s agenda to dismantle the Constitution well underway, it seems like an opportune time to go back over what the 2nd Amendment says. What was meant by the writers of it? What do the proposals from the Biden camp mean about those words?

The actual text of the 2nd amendment will be familiar to most: “A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the Security of the free State, the Right of the People to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed”, is emblazoned on yard signs, T-shirts, bumper stickers, and tattoos all across the nation. Being only 27 words long, it’s curious that the debate over the meaning of those words, down to the placement of a comma, has raged for decades. Is it really that cryptic? If we go back to the source materials and read the writings of the men who ratified the Constitution and fought to establish American freedom from British rule, it becomes much clearer that all of the tongue-wagging done over their motivations is in total vain.

Some might argue: “Guns were meant only for militias, which was the precursor to a standing army. That means only the army and police force should have guns”. George Mason answers this in 1788 saying, “I ask who are the militia? They consist now of the whole people, except a few public officers”, as well as Richard Henry Lee writing in the same year, “A militia when properly formed are in fact the people themselves… and include, according to the past and general usage of the states, all men capable of bearing arms… To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them“. It doesn’t seem like there’s much of a requirement for military or LE service unless we start including the teaching of a child on how to shoot a .22 into modern boot camps.

Others might say, “Guns should be permitted only for hunting. No one needs an AR-15 to shoot a deer” Alexander Hamilton destroys this argument beautifully, writing in Federalist No. 28, “If the representatives of the people betray their constituents, there is then no resource left but in the exertion of that original right of self-defense which is paramount to all positive forms of government, and which against the usurpations of the national rulers, may be exerted with infinitely better prospect of success than against those of the rulers of an individual state. In a single state, if the persons entrusted with supreme power become usurpers, the different parcels, subdivisions, or districts of which it consists, having no distinct government in each, can take no regular measures for defense. The citizens must rush tumultuously to arms, without concert, without system, without resource; except in their courage and despair”.

If that isn’t clear enough Thomas Jefferson wrote to William Stephens Smith in 1787 saying, “…what 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… The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is it’s natural manure”. It becomes glaringly obvious that the 2nd Amendment had nothing whatsoever to do with hunting, unless you include dictators and tyrants as wild game.

Join us in the next installment of this essay for more insight into the Founders motivations into the 2nd Amendment…

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