The Right To Bear Arms

My older post about the Constitution combined with the personal knowledge that I am a gun owner spurred the following question: What is my take on the constitutional right to bear arms? The argument goes like this: If we are supposed to interpret the Constitution's words as they were meant back when they were penned, wouldn't the Constitution only allow members of a well-formed militia to keep firearms? There is another thought that the militia members stored their weapons in a militia armory and not in private homes. In this post, I'm going to attempt to explain the Second Amendment.

The ratification of the Constitution was not entirely smooth as there were several states that felt that the rights of individuals were not properly spelled out.  Many states passed legislation which tied their adoption of the Constitution to the later creation of the Bill of Rights that would more completely detail individual protections from the government.  Virginia passed its own bill of rights in 1776 called the Virginia Declaration of Rights with the following right:

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; that standing armies, in time of peace, should be avoided as dangerous to liberty; and that in all cases the military should be under strict subordination to, and governed by, the civil power.

~Virginia Declaration of Rights

The first federal mention of the people's right to bear arms was by James Madison in a speech to congress in 1789 (before he was elected president in 1809).  In Madison's speech, which the following phrase was heavily influenced by the Virginia Declaration of Rights, he proposed:

The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed; a well armed, and well regulated militia being the best security of a free country: but no person religiously scrupulous of bearing arms, shall be compelled to render military service in person.

~James Madison

For those of you that don't know, James Madison was the key architect behind both the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.  In this statement, he justifies the right of the people to bear arms because he sees a well formed militia as being the best defense of a free country - not a requisite of keeping arms.  It was

Lots of people focus on the well formed militia statement as indicating that only members of an organized military should have the right to keep and bear arms.  It is true that the militias fought off the British in America's fight for independence and it wasn't until the Civil War that drafts were the primary source of warfighters (the Vietnam War saw the last draft end in 1973 and today the US armed services is currently all volunteer service members).  However the key reason behind the bill of rights in the first place was to protect individual rights from infringement by the government.

The constitution was designed so that the people possessed more power than the government.  At the time of the ratification of the Constitution, standing armies were not popular because Europe had seen many armies rise up to rule over the people.  Additionally, people that lived on the frontier commonly had to protect themselves against Native Americans.  Many state constitutions included rights to bear arms for the purpose of self defense specifically (including Massachusetts).  Noah Webster (of the Merriam-Webster Dictionary) had this to say with regards to the people's right to bear arms:

Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom 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 that can be, on any pretence, raised in the United States.

~Noah Webster

 Another argument in this debate is that the second amendment was intended to be a state right rather than an individual right to bear arms for protection... the state has the right to have well regulated militias (all arms and ammunition would be stored in a common location for the use by the militia).  During Madison's speech to Congress, he thought these amendments should actually alter the wording of the Constitution itself and not added as a list to the end as they are now.  During his speech he suggested that the right to bear arms be inserted in Article 1 Section 9 between clauses 3 and 4.  Section 9 deals specifically with individual rights, where Section 8 deals with state rights, indicating that Madison had intended that the right to bear arms is specifically and individual right.  Additionally, in the Supreme Court case District of Columbia v. Heller, the Supreme Court ruled that the right to bear arms is an individual right.

The US Constitution is meant to protect the people against their government.  It is recognized that the ability of the government to enforce unjust laws by force can not work if the people are able to defend themselves.  If I have missed or misrepresented anything, drop me a line in the comments!