If you read further in Webster's work as a Federalist editor, you will see his support for the 2nd amendment was support for armed citizen (militias) in lieu of a standing army. Webster like most Americans in the late 18th century had seen the injustice of armies in the colonies and were well aware of the horrors they brought to Europe. The feeling was so strong that North Carolina and several other colonies passed laws that outlawed any standing army within it's boarders.
The underpinnings of the second amendment, armed citizens in lieu of a standing army simple does not exist today. How could any one in their right mind believe we need armed citizens in lieu of our armed forces. The inevitable conclusion is the 2nd amendment is a just relic of the 18th century which has prevented government from acting on real gun legislation. The result has has been the deaths of 1.2 million people in the US between 1968 and 2011, exceeding that of all foreign wars fought by the US. However, I have come to the sad conclusion that America is not ready to repeal the second amendment. Someday it will happen but not now.
Unless you're a hermit living totally independent of others, you should care what happens in other countries because influence over Americans’ lives is no longer centralized in America. Nearly half of our national debt is held by foreigners. Farmland equal to size of Tennessee is owned abroad. Hundreds of our largest American business are owned by foreign corporations such as Budweiser, General Electric, Lucky Strike, Ben & Jerrys, Burger King, American Apparel, 7-Eleven, and Holiday Inn.
With more than 95 percent of the world's population and 80 percent of the world's purchasing power outside of the United States, future American economic growth and job creation depend on open markets abroad. However, it not just our economic future that depends on our ability to be successful in international commerce, but our current economic well being. Today, over 41 million jobs depend on our international trade.
You may not care a rip about what they do in other countries but what they do certainly has a major effect on our lives in America.
I'm going to pick this apart for you, Flopper and then you can rest a bit easier:
1) You pretend that support for militias means that you had to be in some kind of organization that was separate and apart from being a citizen. Let us get this straight, once and for all:
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The constitution expressly declares, that the right of acquiring, possessing, and protecting property is natural, inherent, and unalienable. It is a right not ex gratia from the legislature, but ex debito from the constitution. . . Where is the security, where the inviolability of property, if the legislature, by a private act, affecting particular persons ONLY, can take land from one citizen, who acquired it legally, and vest it in another?"
VANHORNE'S LESSEE v. DORRANCE, 2 U.S. 304 (1795)
Can you understand that? Here, the United States Supreme Court is ruling that you have an
unalienable Right to protect your private property. That decision came down only six years after the ratification of the Constitution. You cannot get any closer to the original intent.
Now let me quote from yet another article so that you understand how far this Right goes:
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The presupposition was that, by nature, the fundamental defense of a state should work from the inside-out. While every state Bill of Rights asserted this in some form, four of them explicitly stated that the militia (a citizen-army) was the natural defense of the state.81 Virginia’s Constitution said 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.”82 The state militias included every male between the ages of 17 and 45;83 that is, everyone except for a few public officials.84 Every citizen was required to be armed and prepared to fight.85
The three constitutions which did not mention the militia by name stated that every individual had the right to own firearms either for his own defense or for the common defense.86 Pennsylvania’s Constitution, for example, stated both: “The people have a right to bear arms for the defense of themselves and the state.”87 Weapons were considered to be a necessary means for self-defense. If individuals were denied this means, then the very backbone of self-defense would have been crippled."
2nd Amendment: Self-Defense Constitutional Provisions - LONANG Institute
2) "
Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are ruined.... The great object is that every man be armed. Everyone who is able might have a gun."
- Patrick Henry, Speech to the Virginia Ratifying Convention, June 5, 1778
3) In biblical times, the people were admonished:
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When a strong man armed keeps his palace, his goods are in peace:" Luke 11: 21
And how was that put into practice?
In that same book of the Bible, Jesus ordered his apostles to carry a sword. He told them if they had to hock their robes in order to get swords, they would have to do so. (See the 22nd chapter of Luke)
4) The evidence has been repeated to you many times. The Second Amendment protects an
individual Right to keep and bear Arms AND that the
whole body of the people constitute the militia.
And while you think you're shaming the gun owners by telling them they can't prevail against the world's greatest military, you're forgetting that 56 men signed the Declaration of Independence declaring the Rights of men and separating from the world's largest military.
So, basically, you're telling us that Jesus can start out with 12 apostles and change the world; our forefathers started out with 56 signatories to a piece of paper and then we look at the evil people like Adolph Hitler who sits around a table in a pub and ends up using a country about the size of Texas and damn near taking over the world. Yet we're supposed to fear this government and it has god like powers?
Your backward "
logic" does not fit into the context of reality. Americans own some 400 MILLION firearms with at least 100 MILLION armed citizens. Compare this with under 2 million people in the U.S. military.
And, in a SHTF scenario, many of those in the military would rebel if a regime came to power, ordering troops to fire on American civilians. Could that happen?
The answer is yes. Our military
has trained in mock house to house search and seizures; fighting "
enemies" that live in American suburbs and even being asked in questionnaires if they would fire on American civilians if ordered to do so.
All I can tell you is that you cannot remain ignorant and free.
"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".
Clearly, "a well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free state" is the stated reason the right to bear arms. If not, the founders would not have included it. Unless you're living in 18th century America, militias are not needed to secure the nation. Today we use our armed forces, not militias to defend the nation. This being the case there is no applicable basis stated in the constitution today for the right to bear arms. The second amendment is a relic of 18th century.
There has
never been a time in history when the militia was more necessary than right now. But, that is beside the point. The militia is the
whole body of the people.
“
Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed, as they are in almost every country in Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops” -Noah Webster,
An Examination of the Leading Principles of the Federal Constitution, October 10, 1787
Today, mostly because of people on the right, we are about to enter a period where you will thank God (even if you don't believe in him) that there is an armed populace.
Today, the right (just like you) demands a standing army. They want a standing army to protect us from so - called "
illegal aliens." So, they have no reservations about using the military to enforce domestic laws on U.S. soil. And what they don't understand is that once you open that door, then the military can be used for anything - I mean calling so - called
"illegal aliens" criminals (absent Due Process) is going to open the doors for the military to be called in when political protests are disrupting the lives of bureaucrats and / or when unpopular religious groups anger the
powers that be. It's hard to look into a crystal ball and determine what event will provide the pretext of expanding the military to enforce domestic laws, but rest assured, it is coming.
But, as Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story wrote:
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The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered, as the palladium of the liberties of a republic; since it offers a strong moral check against the usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers; and will generally, even if these are successful in the first instance, enable the people to resist and triumph over them."
- Joseph Story,
Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States, 1833 (Story was nominated by James Madison, the father of the Bill of Rights)
There will come a day, probably in your lifetime as well as mine when the government will go too far and offend all of our sensibilities. Today, you have a government that sanctions abortion; we have cops that shoot unarmed people down like dogs in the street (
NEVER to be help accountable); we've allowed the
illegally ratified 14th and 16th Amendments to be used to destroy America. Local governments (like where I live) tell me that I'm in violation of the law if my grass is over eight inches long, I can be fined $1000. They wouldn't even allow me to keep a car under my carport while I fixed it up (it was an antique Bronco.) There is a culture war to commit genocide against the posterity of the founders. On and on it goes.
Your arguments don't hold water. In Jesus time, Jesus ordered his apostles to carry a sword - the equivalent of what Caesar's SWAT Team was carrying.
BEFORE this country went to war against King George, the citizenry was equipped with personal arms (at least those who could afford them.) And it has been established that you have an
individual Right to keep and bear Arms for personal protection
AND to use in defense of your nation.
The excuse that the law is old has been tried many times in history, but the principle doesn't prove to be true. It only leads to the downfall of empires.
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When a strong man armed keeps his palace, his goods are in peace"
Luke 11 : 21
Clearly, the colonists hated the idea of a standing army to defend the nation which is why the founders saw the militias as the backbone of any military campaign. North Carolina and two other states passed laws forbidding any army to enter their boarders without the approval of the legislature. The success of the militias depended on having armed citizens and to that end the 2nd amendment was created.
In hindsight, supporters of the second amendment have pieced together the fanciful idea that the founders wanted an armed citizenry so they could overthrow the government if it got out of line. Most of the founders would find that idea abhorrent. The nation was founded as a republic, not a democracy. Putting language in the constitution to support an armed uprising of the people would be unthinkable.
Today, if our leaders created an amendment to guarantee the right to bear arms it would not be based on the need for militias to defend the nation.
Do you ever bother to read what the founders wrote and were quoted as having said? I just quoted what the founders thought relative to this very issue and you ignored it. Hell, let me repeat it:
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The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered, as the palladium of the liberties of a republic; since it offers a strong moral check against the usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers; and will generally, even if these are successful in the first instance, enable the people to resist and triumph over them."
- Joseph Story,
Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States, 1833 (Story was nominated by James Madison, the father of the Bill of Rights)
You claim that the Right of the people doesn't extend to protecting an individual Right in order to prevent a tyrannical government (though you're too bashful to call it what it is.) Yet, for the life of you, you cannot explain the hundreds perhaps thousands of things that were said specifically about this very issue. Let's hear what Patrick Henry had to say:
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Show me that age and country where the rights and liberties of the people were placed on the sole chance of their rulers being good men, without a consequent loss of liberty?"
Speech on the Federal Constitution, Virginia Ratifying Convention (5 June 1788).
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Are we at last brought to such an humiliating and debasing degradation, that we cannot be trusted with arms for our defense? Where is the difference between having our arms in possession and under our direction, and having them under the management of Congress? If our defense be the real object of having those arms, in whose hands can they be trusted with more propriety or equal safety to us, as in our own hands?"
Speech on the Federal Constitution, Virginia Ratifying Convention (Monday, 9 June 1788), as contained in
The Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution: Volume 3, ed. Jonathan Elliot, published by the editor (1836), pp. 168-169
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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."
George Mason Co-author of the Second Amendment
during Virginia's Convention to Ratify the Constitution, 1788
Where, in that sentiment, do you see the Second Amendment referring to a government militia? In the course of this thread I've quoted both the author of the Second Amendment, James Madison, as well as a co-author of the Second Amendment, George Mason. I've quoted a United States Supreme Court Justice, Joseph Story, nominated by the father of the Constitution on this point. Who are you trying to convince of your really weak argument, us or yourself?
I read this in a related article:
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Speaking of constitutional scholars, two of them, Thomas B. McAffee and Michael J. Quinlan, remind us that James Madison “did not invent the right to keep and bear arms when he drafted the Second Amendment; the right was pre-existing at both common law and in the early state constitutions.”
Defending innocent life is a God-given right – Orange County Register
So, let's run with that:
In Virginia's first state constitution (that's where the author of the Second Amendment was born) the constitution starts out with language that would embarrass all liberals, including you when it came down to the Right. It says:
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Seventeenth, That the people have a Right to keep and bear Arms; that a well regulated Militia composed of the body of the people trained to arms..." Constitution of Virginia ratified 27 June 1788
The people have a Right to keep and bear Arms.
America was born out of rebellion against tyranny. The founders, being mostly Christian, wrestled against the very notion of a people standing against the government. Many a heated debate was known to happen. You see, Christians in colonial days had to come to grips with this issue too. And, in Romans chapter 13 it commanded Christians to "
obey the higher powers." Yet they had that very debate and if you keep this conversation going, I will come back and tell you about how we ended up fighting those authorities and the justification from the Bible.
At the end of the day, you benefited off that, yet you now want us to believe that our forefathers would take away from us both the tools as well as the justification for
NOT becoming vulnerable to tyrannical governments. What, then, would establishing Liberty been for?
