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XinTX wrote:

Pawpaw wrote:There is no need to guess what the second amendment means. Most of our founding fathers were prolific writers and they wrote a great deal about it. It doesn't take much research to learn where they were coming from and what they meant.

Do yourself a favor... Get and read a copy of The Second Amendment Primer.

Not only were they prolific writers, the minutes of the Constitutional Convention are a matter of record. Those also shine a clear light on the original intent. You can see the arguments, counter arguments, and which one ruled the day.

I wrote the original post simply to highlight the use of the word State, hoping to get some interesting conversation going. It was not my intent to debate the meaning of the 2nd Amendment. If you know history, the meaning is crystal clear.

There were of course several decisions that led to the eventual revolution, but the events that sparked the first shots were all about the British and General Gage's strategy of disarming the colonists to avoid war.

The first large scale disarming happened in Sommerville, MA when a contingent of regulars raided the town powder house and confiscated a few cannon along the way. To prevent this from happening again, the colonists (who were very well organized) came up with a system called the Powder Alarm. The British were never again successful in any future raids. Paul Revere's famous ride was about warning the colonists of the British moving to seize the arms and powder stored in Concord.

After the events at Lexington and Concord, General Gage moved to seal off Boston. As part of this strategy, the British confiscated all privately owned firearms in the city. After this, they silenced the press by accusing the remaining newspaper publishers in the city of owning illegal firearms.

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
George Santayana

I you want a fascinating read that not only gives the history behind the man, but also about the politics and the society at the time these events, check out Paul Revere's ride.

I’ve pondered the second amendment for many years. Even as a child I can remember sitting in class trying to dissect this in hopes of understanding it more completely. Something that recently caught my attention was the fact that in the original hand written document, as passed by Congress and preserved in the national archives, state is capitalized.

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.

What was meant by this? We’re they referring to the individual states? In this case, I think so.

First, the idea of a central federal government was already accepted and was referred to as such. Anything having to do with central government was referred to as federal. State was reserved for referring to the individual states.

Second, the original idea was that the states would support the federal government. One way they did this was by supplying troops when asked to do so by the federal government. If you’ve ever been to a civil war battlefield, this idea is very clear. Soldiers from individual states fought beside each other and sacrificed as one. If there was a particular part of a battle with a high casualty count, chances are that all of these men would have come from the same state. The idea of a truly federalized army did not come about until after the civil war.

The authors of our constitution had different ideas on how the new United States should be governed, namely either a strong or weak federal government, but they all agreed that they never wanted to be oppressed as they were under British rule. They wanted to guarantee that they would always be free to speak out against our government (the 1st amendment), and that they would be able to oppress tyranny (the 2nd amendment).

Since each state would be expected to maintain a militia, how could they ensure that the people in each state would be able to stand up to oppression? This was especially important since the federal government was incredibly dependent on the individual states. Think of it this way:

Since a well-regulated militia is necessary to the security of a free state that is part of a centralized government, it is vital that the right of individual persons to keep and bear arms not be infringed.

When you read our constitution, it’s difficult to imagine that the authors ever meant for the federal government to have the kind of authority over the individual as is the case today. We’ve come a long way in the last 240 years, and in my opinion we’ve certainly lost our way. It happened very slowly, and most everything seemed like a good idea at the time. Bit by bit, individuals have surrendered their rights away to state government. Bit by bit, the states have surrendered their rights away to the federal government. And bit by bit, our federal government is surrendering our own rights away to justify a better world for all. What kind of world will we live in when all of our rights are gone?

In the end, all of this is mute, and I believe that our founding father knew this to be true: That these are all laws created by men, and all men are fallible.