Correction: until 2008 in Heller, the Supreme Court had never clearly and definitively ruled the 2A is an individual right. It had previously referred to the 2A as an individual right in dicta (non binding opinions) that date back to the 19th century, and many courts and legislators back to the 19th century had also done so.
The interpretation of the 2A as a “collective” right associated with membership in the national guard/militia is largely a creation of 20th century lawyers.
That said, I personally believe the 2A as intended by the founders is likely no longer suited for the modern world and some amendment to limit its scope would be reasonable.
I personally believe the 2A as intended by the founders was to protect against an orwellian government which is why it’s more important now than ever. Most recent example: Ministry of Truth. Who’s truth? Well whoever happens to be in power. This is called the rule of man not the rule of law.
> I personally believe the 2A as intended by the founders was to protect against an orwellian government...
Orwellian is an anachronism here.
It was probably meant to protect to right of the people to engage in a violent revolution when required, and enacted by people who had literally done so to create the United States.
> It was probably meant to protect to right of the people to engage in a violent revolution when required, and enacted by people who had literally done so to create the United States.
This is how I learned 2A. More or less, no government can last forever and at some point governments will need to be overthrown and set anew. Sound familiar?
> We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
They even provided some basic criteria for when might be a good time:
> Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
I was taught that 2A was the tool that ensures that this section of the Declaration of Independence would still be relevant to their new government.
If you believe this, does the 2A give people individual rights to own tanks, missiles, nukes, chemical weapons?
If not, why? Where are the limits in the constitution on the types of arms a person can own?
This is especially relevant if the goal of the 2S is to be able to stand up to the US armed forces.
Or is it your view that the goal of the 2A is for a poorly armed mob to be able to rise up in collective suicide against better armed better trained government forces?
> Or is it your view that the goal of the 2A is for a poorly armed mob to be able to rise up in collective suicide against better armed better trained government forces?
You need to define the hypothetical 'sides' here a little better. Is this armed mob fighting for principles that many members of the 'government forces' agree with? Would this government force be willing to kill large numbers of their neighbors and fellow countrymen?
A surprisingly effective resistance can be made by an outnumbered/outgunned 'mob', assuming they have some basic weapons. Home field advantage and guerrilla warfare go pretty far. See: Vietnam, Afghanistan, Ukraine.
As a follow up - If Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Ukraine are related to the 2nd Amendment necessary rebellion theory, then the implication is that the insurgent weapons in those wars are covered by the 2A.
Very interesting.
A personal right to fully automatic weapons, SAMs, tanks, anti-tank, etc.
Yeah, I don't think so.
Militia is used 6 times in the Constitution and collected amendments. I tend to think that it means the same thing in the 2A as in the 5 places.
You and I actually believe the same thing, I just believe 2A is linked to early militias, and in the event that there were infighting in the US that early component would be needed again. I also believe 2A reinforces state power with respect to federal power, and balancing them is important.
You on the other hand are an egotistical ass with 220 karma and behavior to boot.
> If you believe this, does the 2A give people individual rights to own tanks, missiles, nukes, chemical weapons?
Yawn.
But I suppose you want an answer, so how about this: infantry weapons that a regular citizen can reasonably afford and practice with (i.e. shoot on a regular basis).
So military-style automatic rifles, machine guns, etc.
> If you believe this, does the 2A give people individual rights to own tanks, missiles, nukes, chemical weapons?
This question seems loaded, especially after how you started it with "if you believe this" when I already stated the foundational belief I have, but I'll take your question in good faith.
Citizens can already own rockets and missiles? Yes, they can, which is why there's private space companies. That has very little to do with 2A. As far as I'm aware an FFL (Federal Firearms License) would not give you access to chemical weapons. It's also not that hard for citizens to produce chemical weapons with household cleaners, but that also is beside the point.
2A, and pretty much anything below an FFL, is mainly the subject of my discussion. With an FFL a citizen can purchase pretty much any weapon, including a tank, or explosive.
> Where are the limits in the constitution on the types of arms a person can own?
Various states have attempted to circumvent the federal governments monopoly on this law, but I guess you could start to form some specific criteria by looking here: https://www.atf.gov/firearms/apply-license You'd have to cross these with state laws; some are very permissive, others not.
> This is especially relevant if the goal of the 2S is to be able to stand up to the US armed forces.
I mean, it's not that hard. The Taliban did it and they mostly had assault rifles, REX, grenades, and rockets (the anti-tank kind, not the artillery kind). I'll also address this in the next answer.
> Or is it your view that the goal of the 2A is for a poorly armed mob to be able to rise up in collective suicide against better armed better trained government forces?
There are several types of militias, two predominately in the US [2]. The first is a private militia [3]; to my knowledge in current day most of these are just extremists, but in a scenario that necessitated separating from the federal government I would assume people would start forming their own legitimate militias. How effective a militia would be would likely depend on their knowledge of tactics that the US military would employ. The second type is the state national guard [1]. State guards are trained by federal military but serve the states and are under the states command. National guard numbers, when fighting a federal power, would not be sufficient though. Supply lines would likely be disrupted and choked as well, so citizens and their weapons would be needed.
The short of it is no, I don't think it'll be just some randos running around fighting and causing an insurrection. It'd be coordinated state action alongside citizen militias if things came to that. To me, though, all these things help keep the government in check because the power of the federal government is not larger than the sum of collective state action.
Edit:
I also don't really appreciate the "fantasy" comment. I'm a U.S. citizen, I don't want any of that to happen. History shows that the influence of militias and participation was key in forming the US and was key throughout the politics of staying together as a country. Private citizens having access to weapons was key to early militias and you can't really separate the two at any point in history. For a more contiguous history: https://angrystaffofficer.com/2017/03/20/a-short-history-of-... (this does leave out that states actually have laws regulating private militias, though that's the only thing I could find wrong with it)
> It was probably meant to protect to right of the people to engage in a violent revolution when required, and enacted by people who had literally done so to create the United States.
If this was the actual interpretation being promulgated legally then there's all sorts of weird follow ups to it: i.e. any ruling or law which increases the level of security and protections of government institutions against some definition of an armed citizen militia would be against the spirit of the 2nd amendment because you're reducing the ability of the citizenry to engage in a successful violent insurrection.
This is a perfectly sensible precedent: if the Second Amendment is interpreted as an intent to allow armed revolution, then for some legal definition of a "just" revolution the arms of the citizenry must allow them to fight and win, and this could be reasonably interpreted therefore as "the government may implement no security measures which make it so safe it could not be overthrown".
> If this was the actual interpretation being promulgated legally then there's all sorts of weird follow ups to it...
Not really. You can only go places like that if you use an interpretive framework were words can be stretched past the breaking point and speculations piled one on top of the other to take you anywhere where you want to go. A lot of people think that's not a reasonable way to interpret the law, and they do have a point.
> This is a perfectly sensible precedent...
If that's "perfectly sensible precedent," cite the case that established it.
The entire concept of judicial review is built on this benchmark - "if this, then why not that?"
That it is not established is because the SC has definitely not interpreted the 2nd to mean "power to overthrow the government" - but it has mostly managed to do that by completely disregarding the first half of the 2nd's wording in favor of "citizens may own small arms" - which is oddly specific given the rest of the phrasing, but that was the conclusion they drew from Heller[1]
I'm responding to the claim that the "founders" intended it for armed insurrection: did they? Because the Court does not interpret it that way, and if it did then you do in fact have to answer questions about why any limits on owning hardware sufficient to overthrow the government are allowed.
A claim about Founder's intent in the constitution isn't some idle statement: the purpose and reason for the Supreme Court is to carry through interpretation of that the intent of the constitution for law of the land, otherwise why bother saying it? If we're going to ignore law and precedent then none of this matters.
> The entire concept of judicial review is built on this benchmark - "if this, then why not that?"
Even so, your interpretation had another fatal flaw: you weren't balancing any interests.
But in any case, it's still a nonsense straw man.
>>> This is a perfectly sensible precedent...
>> If that's "perfectly sensible precedent," cite the case that established it.
> That it is not established is because...
Then it's not a precedent.
> I'm responding to the claim that the "founders" intended it for armed insurrection: did they?
The founders literally committed armed insurrection, and IIRC it's pretty well documented that the understood the necessity of armed revolution in certain circumstances. I believe there are even some direct quotes in this thread. I can also recall off the top one that spoke positively of a rebellion every 20 years:
> God forbid we should ever be 20. years without such a rebellion.... And what country can preserve it’s liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms.
I was very clearly referring to the fact that if the 2nd amendment were to be taken as an intent to allow citizens to revolt against the government then it is not clear on what grounds the seemingly absurd corollaries of that, as a legal position, would be dismissed. Which you haven't addressed at all except to say "but it's not actually precedent yet!"
It is not - because the Supreme Court has very obviously in Heller not interpreted it that way. So I don't know of what value anyone can argue this was the intent because the body defining the law of the land and the interpretation of the constitution does not agree with you.
But even if we grant the SC is not the be all and end all, you still haven't managed to actually address why that position would be absurd? What use are firearms against a Federal government which, to take an extreme example, gives itself Dune-style shields for all officers and personnel, but not civilians. Why are limits on arms, actually suitable to overthrow the government - so say, maybe a whole lot of Javelin anti-tank missiles as they are currently proving useful - not within the remit of the 2nd?
How so? It's not a word that would have been known to the founders, but neither is "2A". It makes no sense to claim that when we talk about the founders, we can't legitimately use our own language but must instead use theirs.
> How so? It's not a word that would have been known to the founders, but neither is "2A".
"Orwellian" is specifically modern ideological term with a lot of specifically modern connotations (e.g. a technological surveillance state) that are misleading when talking about people from the 18th century. My sense is it's a whole lot narrower than what the founders had in mind.
On the other hand, the Second Amendment was literally written by one of the founders.
> It makes no sense to claim that when we talk about the founders, we can't legitimately use our own language but must instead use theirs.
Use anachronisms all you want, no one's stopping you. It just that by leaning on them, you're likely spout nonsense and either confuse yourself or confuse others.
Also, there's important differences between "modern language" and "anachronism."
One person's "Orwellian" is another's "Law and order".
Civil asset forfeiture is pretty Orwellian, IMO, not to mention a direct violation of your Fourth Amendment rights, yet I haven't heard of anybody using their Second Amendment right to protect themselves from it.
Generally speaking, the word for people who try using their Second Amendment rights to protect their Fourth Amendment right against civil asset forfeiture is "corpse".
I thought my implication was fairly clear, but to be explicit: If you brandish guns against police who are attempting to seize your property through civil asset forfeiture, they will shoot you, and most likely kill you.
The founders idealized the Roman Republic and sought to create a system where the central government would never have the power to seize control as Julius Caesar did.
But I don’t think turning out to the streets with AR-15s is an appropriate response to the government forming an ineffective propaganda office (ministry of truth). We’ve seen the awful cost of civil war both here at home in 1861-65 and recently in countries such as Syria and Libya. Violent revolution should be the absolute last resort especially in a world where total war is practiced and not the relatively civilized and small-scale warfare of the American revolution or the 1688 English Revolution.
In practice, the US government has committed atrocities throughout history against citizens and the 2A did little to help (genocide of native Americans, discrimination against Germans in ww1, Japanese internment in ww2, Jim Crow and slavery, the civil war itself where armed citizens just joined whatever side they lived on, etc.)
> But I don’t think turning out to the streets with AR-15s is an appropriate response to the government forming an ineffective propaganda office (ministry of truth).
I don't think the founders envisioned that at all. Your rifle is for sitting behind your door and waiting for the tyrannical government to break down your door and realize that the first person to breech is probably going to die. It's a deterrent to ensure that law enforcement is willing to do the bidding of said corrupt government. Guns are not meant to be for menacing the public. They're for defending life and property. And yeah, property.
If "Disinformation Governance Board" bothers you more than "Department of Homeland Security" did, you may be responding to what "they" want you to more than you think you are.
I love how government is obviously incompetent, but only until something they do sounds conspiratorial.
> The interpretation of the 2A as a “collective” right associated with membership in the national guard/militia is largely a creation of 20th century lawyers.
This is Daughters of the Confederacy "states rights" levels of historical revisionism. The origins of the Second Amendment were rooted in quelling a potential slave uprising [1]:
> The Virginians were slave-owners. Jefferson had inherited 175 slaves and had purchased a few more. Henry ultimately had 76 slaves. Madison had dozens of slaves. Militia was necessary because from them, “slave patrols” were formed to keep order. Virginians also wanted to avoid what had happened during the Revolutionary War: slaves were invited to join the Continental Army and thereupon became free. Henry even feared that abolitionists would find a way to use the Constitution to manumit all slaves. “In this state,” Henry emphasized, “there are two hundred and thirty-six thousand blacks, and there are many in other states.” It, therefore, was of paramount importance that State rights to maintain militias unregulated by the federal government be included as an amendment, if Virginia were to ratify the Constitution.
> So the Second Amendment was born. Not to protect individual rights from encroachment, but to guarantee states the right to keep armed militia free from federal interference, in order to maintain control over black slaves. Not the noble motivation one might have hoped for. But the truth about the need for a state Militia and the intent of the Second Amendment.
“That it is the right of the subjects to petition the king, and all commitments and prosecutions for such petitioning are illegal;
That the raising or keeping a standing army within the kingdom in time of peace, unless it be with consent of Parliament, is against law;
That the subjects which are Protestants may have arms for their defence suitable to their conditions and as allowed by law;”
> So the Second Amendment was born. Not to protect individual rights from encroachment, but to guarantee states the right to keep armed militia free from federal interference, in order to maintain control over black slaves.
This is completely unable to explain why Free states in the north had a similar provision in their state constitutions recognizing the right to keep and bear arms. For example, was no need for slave patrols in Massachusetts, whose 1780 constitution contained this clause “The people have a right to keep and to bear arms for the common defence. And as, in time of peace, armies are dangerous to liberty, they ought not to be maintained without the consent of the legislature; and the military power shall always be held in an exact subordination to the civil authority, and be governed by it.”
True, but those who say the 2A is a “collective” right for the militia would not usually say that any male aged 17 to 45 should be able to purchase an AR-15 via their membership in the unorganized militia and Selective Service card.
The collective right concept attempts to turn the 2A right into the idea that Congress shouldn’t pass a law to take away weapons from its own soldiers and army, which makes very little sense.
> The collective right concept attempts to turn the 2A right into the idea that Congress shouldn’t pass a law to take away weapons from its own soldiers and army, which makes very little sense.
Very well said. The utter incoherence of the concept makes it clear that the interpretation is wrong. It's like interpreting the First Amendment as protecting Congress from preventing itself from assembling and not the people's right to protest it.
The interpretation of the 2A as a “collective” right associated with membership in the national guard/militia is largely a creation of 20th century lawyers.
That said, I personally believe the 2A as intended by the founders is likely no longer suited for the modern world and some amendment to limit its scope would be reasonable.