It is ironic that in a nation founded on the principles of individual liberty, we have been subjected for years to the wailings of those on the side of tyranny proclaiming that what the second amendment ensures is not a protection of the God given right of the individual to own and to carry arms , but instead it is a protection of the right of the government to arm itself through the implementation of state militias. Why our government or any government would need their right to arm themselves protected is beyond perplexing . We have to ask ourselves why the founders thought this was necessary considering that never once in recorded history is there an example of a government denying itself the right to arm. In order to truly understand the second amendment, I believe that it is important to understand the history and the mindset of the men who framed it.
The civil war period of the mid seventeenth century England was a time marked by competing factions gaining the upper hand both in warfare and in political power and using that power to disarm the other side. At the end of this period, William and Mary were seated as king and queen. It was also during this period that a bill of rights was adopted that acknowledged an individual right to keep arms. English commentator, William Blackstone argued that the individual’s right to keep and bear arms was in fact an absolute right and did not bear on an individual’s position in society. He also argued that standing armies were the greatest threat to the liberties of the people.
Among those who shaped and wrote our Constitution, it was a commonly held belief that the greatest danger to liberty was a standing army which in the past was used by the government to oppress the people. Because of this distrust of government, the founders only allowed the Congress to raise an army for the period of two years. Even then it was expected the majority of the army would be made up of the various militias of the States. Since the officers of these militias would be appointed by the States, it was expected that their loyalties would also lie with the States. It was hoped that this ultimate allegiance to the states and not the federal government would provide the people with a small buffer of protection from a over-reaching federal government that might use that standing army to subjugate the people During the ratification process of the Constitution, one of my fellow Virginians, Patrick Henry, argued against ratification. His opposition was based on the fact that the Constitution allowed standing armies and that there was no specific language that prohibited the government from confiscating arms. According to Henry, “the great object is that every man be armed …. Everyone who is able may have a gun.” Because of arguments such as these by Patrick Henry in Virginia and by Samuel Adams in Massachusetts, the Constitution was finally ratified but only with the promise that the first order of business of the new government would be the introduction of a Bill of Rights by the first Congress.
The first draft of the second amendment was as follows:
A well regulated Militia, composed of the body of the people, being the best security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed; but no person religiously scrupulous shall be compelled to bear arms.
As you can see a few lines were removed in the editing process. The point here is that the militia was considered the whole body of the people, not just a select few National Guardsmen. In the language of the Constitution there are only three entities recognized; the United States i.e. the Federal Government, the States, and the People. When the second amendment says the right of the people, it should be clear who the founders were talking about. What I find most interesting in the language of the second amendment and the overall intent of the founders is who exactly it is that is not allowed to infringe upon this right?
According to the tenth amendment of the Constitution, if the Constitution doesn’t say that the United States can do it, then they may not. But the States are allowed to do anything they want as long as it is not prohibited to them. The second amendment in my opinion is in fact a prohibition not only to the United States but also to the States as well. Therefore according to the second amendment not only is the United States prohibited from restricting the ownership and use of arms, that same prohibition extends to the States also.
In conclusion, here is what we know as fact with respect to the second amendment: The founders feared standing armies, and determined that the best protection against them was a well armed populace. Since the United States was going to be allowed to have standing armies, it was only logical that the whole of the people be allowed to remain armed. The founders also believed that the right to keep and bear arms was in fact an individual right and could not be taken away by the government, federal or state. Some of those reading this today may reject my conclusions out of hand because of my lack of legal training. But I would argue that our founders wrote the Constitution and the Bill of Rights so that all men; farmers and merchants, soldiers and sailors and even airline pilots could understand it. That is the beauty of our founding documents. For those of you who question this conclusion, I would like to leave you with this thought to ponder. In 2008 nine Supreme Court justices read the following, “the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed,” in Heller vs. the District of Columbia. Four of these legally trained jurists concluded that people did not mean people. Sometimes a high priced law degree is worthless. I think Patrick Henry and James Madison would agree with me. I rest my case.
Michael Mcpadden
www.mcpaddenforcongress.com
Not one of the 7 will put the 2nd amendment in jeopardy- it’s silly to suggest otherwise, VCDL is just another group that is trying to do something the NRA has done a better job of for decades.
I think the 2nd amendment is important but in this race all the candidates seem to be big supporters and many are hunters. In fact several also have conceal carry permits.
It would be wrong to suggest that anyone of them would be better than the others on this one issue. Of course many here would argue that constantly reminding you of what one has said many times before is evidence of something- I’m just not sure of what.
Mike McPadden lays out an originalist position on the constitutional right to keep and bear arms and at the same time demonstrates both a proper methodology for constitutional interpretation and an ability to apply the methodology to a specific constitutional question.
This shows much more effort and ability than merely checking a few boxes on a “just so” survey.
Originalism requires contextualism as well as textualism. The historical context was 1791 and the recent memory of the colonists break with England, the English Crown’s attempt to steal the colonial weapons and gunpowder stored at Concord, as well as the English Civil War.
The text is a plain reading of the 2nd Amendment informed by the historical context, and thus Mike McPadden arrives at an originalist position on the meaning and extent of the liberty protected by the 2nd Amendment.
An “original” view of the 2nd amendment- I’m sending someone to Congress not to the Supreme Court? How is he better than the others? I don’t think that he is- no disrespect but I heard all the candidates speak on their support for the 2nd amendment and didn’t think that McPadden was better than anyone else
“An “original” view of the 2nd amendment- I’m sending someone to Congress not to the Supreme Court? How is he better than the others?”
The short, oversimplified answer is: He understands not only that the 2nd Amendment should be protected, but WHY it should be protected. The Founders didn’t protect the right to bear arms in the Constitution so that we could hunt and use firearms for pleasure or sustinence; they protected the right to bear arms so that We the People could defend ourselves from all enemies, foreign and domestic – including a tyrannical government.
Those who understand and believe the principles behind a concept will not be easily fooled into voting against those principles. Mike McPadden understands the principles and believes in them.
JP:
I do not contend McPadden has stated a position better than the others, but that he has shown he can articulate his position better than the others (the difference between “I am for 2nd Amendment rights and will protect them” versus McPadden’s historical analysis of the purpose for, and hence the extent of, the right to keep and bear arms. McPadden can and will apply the same logical reasoning to many of the other constitutional issues that will face the next Congress.
Do you not think it important to send a person to Congress who understands the Constitution? Does not a congressman swear an oath to support and defend the Constitution? How can a person support and defend that which he does not understand? McKelvey stated in January 2010 he could list NOT EVEN ONE federal program that violated the 10th Amendment concept of federalism. Do you think it important that a congressman be able to READ a bill and analyze its constitutionality BEFORE deciding to support or oppose the bill? Does not the Supreme Court, for the most part, decide the constitutionality of a law passed by Congress?
Does this not point to the need to send Mike McPadden to Washington as next representative for the 5th District, who has a firm grasp on the meaning and purpose of, and respect for, the very document that under which he will serves?
Does this not cast some light on the audacity of a person to run for the office of Congressman without even having a working knowledge of the Constitution? McKelvey cannot identify even one unconstitutional federal program?? It would be hilarious were it not so sad!
CJ,
“VCDL is just another group that is trying to do something the NRA has done a better job of for decades.”
The NRA has been riding the VCDL coat tails in VA for years. It wasn’t till Phillip Van Cleve started VCDL and worked with groups like OpenCarry.org that we saw ONE INCH of ground made in the fight for the 2A. The NRA is in Virginia and they couldn’t get it done. It wasn’t till the VCDL started citizens lobby efforts to get open carry legalized that it got done. Then the state moved from may issue to shall issue. It was not the NRA that has staff sitting in on the idiotic committee hearings. Nope it was the VCDL.
Oh but no doubt you got an email from NRA that said what a great job they did for Virginia gun owners this year.
I’m a member of NRA, GOA, and VCDL and it is only the VCDL that I would give credit to for getting the job done where others had “done a better job of for decades.”
[the Framers believed] the greatest danger to liberty was a standing army … used by the government to oppress the people. [Thus they] … allowed the Congress to raise an army for the period of two years. [I]t was expected the … army would be made up of the various [States militias]. . . It was hoped that this ultimate allegiance to the states and not the federal government would provide the people with a … buffer of protection from a over-reaching federal government that might use that standing army to subjugate the people.
This is a good historical overview, but completely irrelevant. If we’re to take this originalist arguement to the fullest degree:
a) We should get rid of the Department of Defense, because standing armies are “bad.” I’m not completely against that, it would help the budget.
b) Adams and Henry Lee believed that the right to “bear arms” meant only that all men had a right to “fight against an enemy”, NOT a right to carry guns at all time. This is not a reference to “how” men were armed, but from what group of people the State would raise their Militia, i.e., the “whole body”, not a select “class” or “technicians”, as they were in Europe. Thus, Adams and Lee advocated central armouries in which citizens could report to to train in the arms they had a “right to bear.”
Further, DC vs. Heller only dealt with a Federal District (controlled by Congressional {federal] oversight], not a State. According to the line of logic you propose, and the Supreme Court has implied:
c) States get to determine the rules of armed state Militias. Just like insurance requirements on vehicles; If Virginia says “to CARRY arms on Virginia public thoroughfares [i.e., anywhere outside the home], one must be registered with the State, purchase insurance and attend a 4 week firearms safety course”, then that is a State right implied in the Second and Enumerated in the 10th. In that way, they have not prevented anyone’s right to own a gun, merely set forth rules on carrying a gun outside your house.
d) States can remove your right to carry once you move to another State.
Regardless, as I said earlier, this line of logic is completely irrelevant because our society resembles nothing that the Framers knew. In the 18th century, one could not destroy an entire company of men with a portable firearm operated by a single man, as one can now. Also, in the 18th Century, one had to “enroll” in the militia; it was not understood that one was “in the militia” by default. Most leaders in the militia were well-off landowners who were proficient in firearms [because of the high cost of ownership of a firearms and ammunition] and horsemanship [ditto for horses] who expressed complete frustration over the poor quality of guns owned by their “lesser” troops. Poor farmers did not normally join the militia because militia members were expected to supply their own guns, which were expensive and unnecessary to the farming profession. It was only when gun manufacture became cheap due to interchangeable parts, AFTER the Constitution was adopted (again, thank Eli Whitney, 1801), that gun ownership became affordable to the “poorer” classes.