“And
we must be clear – the Second Amendment is not about assault weapons,
hunting or sport shooting. It is about something more fundamental. It
reaches to the heart of constitutional principles – it reaches to first
principles. A favorite refrain of thoughtful political writers during
America’s founding era held that a frequent recurrence to first
principles was an indispensable means of preserving free government –
and so it is.
The
Second Amendment reads as follows: “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.” The immediate impetus for
the amendment has never been in dispute.
Many
of the revolutionary generation believed standing armies were dangerous
to liberty. Militias made up of citizen-soldiers, they reasoned, were
more suitable to the character of republican government.
Expressing
a widely held view, Elbridge Gerry remarked in the debate over the
first militia bill in 1789 that “whenever Governments mean to invade the
rights and liberties of the people, they always attempt to destroy the
militia.”
For
Progressives….the welfare of the people – not liberty – is the primary
object of government, and government should always be in the hands of
experts. This is the real origin of today’s gun control hysteria – the
idea that professional police forces and the military have rendered the
armed citizen superfluous; that no individual should be responsible for
the defense of himself and his family, but should leave it to the
experts.”
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