The second amendment states, “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.”
American law is based on English common law. The English Bill of Rights of 1689 included the following, “”That the subjects which are Protestants may have arms for their defence suitable to their conditions and as allowed by law.”
Again this right is reinforced in Sir William Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Laws of England written during the eighteenth century:
The fifth and last auxiliary right of the subject, that I shall at present mention, is that of having arms for their defence, suitable to their condition and degree, and such as are allowed by law. Which is also declared by the same statute and is indeed a public allowance, under due restrictions, of the natural right of resistance and self-preservation, when the sanctions of society and laws are found insufficient to restrain the violence of oppression.
A pre-revolutionary newspaper editorial in 1769 Boston objecting to the British army suppression of colonial opposition to the Townshend Acts gives insight into how the founding father felt about the citizens right to bear arms:
Instances of the licentious and outrageous behavior of the military conservators of the peace still multiply upon us, some of which are of such nature, and have been carried to such lengths, as must serve fully to evince that a late vote of this town, calling upon its inhabitants to provide themselves with arms for their defense, was a measure as prudent as it was legal: such violences are always to be apprehended from military troops, when quartered in the body of a populous city; but more especially so, when they are led to believe that they are become necessary to awe a spirit of rebellion, injuriously said to be existing therein. It is a natural right which the people have reserved to themselves, confirmed by the Bill of Rights, to keep arms for their own defence; and as Mr. Blackstone observes, it is to be made use of when the sanctions of society and law are found insufficient to restrain the violence of oppression.
The Second Amendment is a right guaranteed to the citizens of the United States of America and not its government. To interpret it any other way is fallacy based on a mistaken understanding of our forefathers intentions and semantic quibbling on the meaning of the word, “militia.” The second amendment is the final bulwark against tyranny. As long as it exists we have no excuse for servitude and oppression. We must always err on the side of Liberty. We must stop the war against ourselves and stop making criminals of our countrymen.
