The Right to Bear Arms

The Second Amendment gives all Americans the "right to bear Arms."  This phrase is hotly contested among those fighting over gun control.  Gun control activists claim that this Second Amendment right applies only to militias, because that is something else mentioned in this amendment.  They also claims that this right only applies to small, trivial weapons, not weapons that might be considered military grade (note that they then use the ambiguity they have introduced into the subject to impose their own definition of "military grade").  The other side claims that this right is more broad than just militias and that the lack of any mention of scope implies that there is no limitation to the class of weapon.  This might seem like a fruitless argument, but it is not.  It turns out that there is plenty of information that can be used to eliminate most of the ambiguity.

The Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution says this, "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."  In my estimation, what it means is "The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed, because a well regulated militia is necessary to the security of a free State."  I does not say that only the militia may bear arms.  This was a common way of phrasing a "because" relationship back when this was written and passed, and everyone would have understood it to mean exactly what I translated it to mean.  In more modern English, it might have been written, "The right to bear arms is protected, because an event may occur where an armed militia may be needed, and the fastest way to raise such a militia is to draft people who are already well armed."  The Second Amendment may actually mean more than this though.  It mentioned that the militia is necessary for the security of a free State.  It could be talking about security from internal threat, like violent individuals or uprisings and rebellions, as well as external threats, like attacks from other countries.  It might, however, have been intended to mean that a free state needs a militia to protect its freedom from any other  entity, including, perhaps, the Federal government, if necessary.  This interpretation is not as strongly supported, however given the general attitude of the time period in which the amendment was written, it is entirely possible.  The fact here, is that the right to bear arms is not for the militia alone, but for the entire pubic, in case a militia needs to be formed.  If you don't believe this, then maybe it is time to look at the history of the period.

One major part of the right to bear arms was how the colonists had been treated by the British.  In Britain (and most other feudal nations), it was traditional for the right to bear arms to be exclusively limited to the military, nobility and royalty.  The U.S. Constitution abolished the aristocracy within the boundaries of the United States.  In doing this, it extended most of the privileges traditionally reserved for the aristocracy to the entire population (actually, initially only to men...).  Things like the right to own property were traditionally reserved for the nobility.  As mentioned, one of these traditionally noble rights was the right to bear arms.  Extending this right to the general population was an essential part of completing the abolition of the aristocracy.  Limiting the right to bears arms to only the militia would have accomplished the opposite, making militia members a sort of de facto aristocracy.  As such, it is almost certain that limiting the bearing of arms to the militia was never the intent.

The second argument, that the right to bear arms was only intended to apply to mundane, non-military weapons may seem a bit stronger.  Even knowing the language of the day, it is not entirely clear whether the Second Amendment was intended to apply to any weapon, or just to traditional civilian weapons.  It merely states that the right to bears arms shall not be infringed.  I does not qualify what arms this applies to.  By default, it should probably be assumed that the lack of a qualifier means that no limitation should be applied.  Of course, back then, they had cannons, rockets, guns, and hand to hand weapons.  If they had had nukes, it might have been worded rather differently.  It turns out that an appeal to history will easily provide and answer though.

As mentioned before, part of the intent of this amendment was to extend traditionally noble rights to the general populace.  Another part of the intent was to produce an armed populace capable for forming a militia to defend themselves.  Just knowing this, the answer should be obvious: The Second Amendment is referring specifically to military weapons.  In Britain and the colonies at the time, owning kitchen knives, hunting knives, bows and arrows, and other non-military weapons was completely legal.  In fact, many of these things were essential for daily life.  Even in the most oppressive regimes, these weapons are generally allowed for the lowest of classes.  To put this into writing as an amendment to the Constitution would have been considered absurd.  Why protect a right that is so basic and essential that it would do far more harm to the one taking it away than it would do good?  You cannot oppress a people who have died of starvation, because they don't have basic tools for hunting, harvesting, and food preparation.  The Second Amendment was explicitly granting the right to bear military weapons, the same weapons that the British aristocracy had exclusive rights to bear.  At the time, this included rockets, cannons, guns, and swords.  Of course, the first two were so expensive that they were generally owned and employed only by the military and the occasional very rich person.  If you look at the application of this right historically though, you will find that it was immediately taken to mean that civilians could own and carry swords and rifles, including rifles that were used almost exclusively for fighting, not for hunting (keep in mind that some types of ammo will leave the target seriously damaged, making much of the meat not suitable for eating).  Again, history provides ample evidence, in both reasoning and in application, that the  right to bear arms was intended to apply very specifically to military grade weapons.

Why don't we see this now days?  Simple, most rifles the average person is familiar with is designed for hunting.  Even when reading historical accounts of battles, it is assumed that their rifles were similar in function to our hunting rifles.  Because cannons and rockets were too expensive for the average civilian, there are very few accounts of civilians having or using them, so it is often assumed that The Second Amendment did not apply to those weapons.  And even those who realize that it did may still not associate them with military weapons, because they are vastly inferior to what we have today.  The fact, however, is that the typical carbine rifle used during the Civil War was not a mere hunting toy.  It was a very serious gun, designed specifically for mounted combat, and it was not very suitable for anything but killing people.  During the Civil War carbines were often too expensive for civilians to buy themselves, but many Civil War soldiers were allowed to keep their carbines as a symbol of their service, even after they went back to civilian life.  In modern terms, a carbine is comparable to an assault rifle (yes, the carbine was not automatic, and the quality was lower, but the carbine was essentially the assault rifle of the Civil War).  Taking it a bit further, the rockets used during the Revolutionary War and the Civil War could be compared to modern cruise missiles, and a cannon might be compared to a long range mortar.  The fact is, if The Second Amendment was written today, it would be referring to assault rifles, cruise missiles, and military mortars, when it says "the right to bear Arms."  In fact, it could even refer to far more powerful weapons.  The rocket was pretty high end technology at the time, and honestly, the nuke is pretty old technology now days.

So, what about weapons of mass destruction and such?  I believe that the writers of The Second Amendment might have been a bit more specific, had they had some of the massively destructive weapons available now.  I doubt they would have forbidden assault rifles or even mounted machine guns.  Modern missiles and mortars would probably also still be on the table.  It is important to realize that many of our banned weapons were banned in reaction to some event.  These events had not occurred when the amendment was written, and because it was shortly after the Revolutionary War, most of the people involved had a strong conviction that freedom was worth far more than the risk that someone might occasionally misuse a weapon intended to protect that freedom (and if you do the math, the percentage of our population lost to people abusing military weapons is hardly significant).  Nuclear weapons, however, are far more dangerous than a mounted machine gun or a truckload of grenades.  They have destroyed fairly large cities, killing enormous numbers of people.  They would probably have been appalled at these weapons, and they probably would have banned them on the same scale we have.  As far as other weapons, most of the really dangerous ones are out of civilian price range anyhow, so the danger is already minimal.  Perhaps they would have created classifications of military weapons, allowing the less dangerous class (assault rifles, mounted  machines guns, grenades, short range missiles, and mortars) to be available to civilians, but honestly, I think they would have just written the document exactly the same way they did, and then deal with weapons of mass destruction with bans that extend to everyone, not just civilians.

There are definitely weapons that civilians should not have, and those weapons were not around when The Second Amendment was written.  The fact, however, is that the equivalent weapons to what The Second Amendment was written explicitly to allow are the military weapons that are starting to be banned for civilian use.  Likewise, it is certain that The Second Amendment was never intended to limit the right to bear arms to a state militia.  The potential need for a militia was an important factor, but it was a factor in ensuring that everyone should have the right to bear arms.  And, when taken together, this makes it even more clear that the intent of The Second Amendment was to ensure that civilians would be allowed to own military grade weapons so that if a militia was ever needed, people would be available with the weapons to form a well armed militia.  Given current gun bans though, any militia formed would most likely be armed with hunting rifles and handguns, and pitting such a poorly armed group against a well armed military invasion force would be like pitting conscripts with pitchforks against musketeers.  It would be suicide.