The 2nd Amendment and military hardware

One of the specious arguments of anti-liberty gun grabbers is that AK-47s didn’t exist when the Bill of Rights was written, so the Founding Fathers never intended them for civilians to bear as arms. There are at least two outstanding arguments against that line of idiocy.

First, for example, if we apply that reasoning to other Amendments in the Bill of Rights, the anti-liberty crowd stops liking that argument so much. For example, computers, the Internet, iStuff, etc., didn’t exist when the 1st Amendment the founders penned it. So, the only protected speech must be verbal or written with a quill on paper or parchment. Blogs, emails, Facebook, typewritten, computer printed, Twitter, etc., speech is not protected by that reasoning. Profanity certainly wouldn’t be protected, as the founders took a very dim view of that kind of language. Pornography would be wiped out. Michael Moore would be out of business.

On the second part of the 1st Amendment, Atheism, the official religion of progressives, would not be protected as it was anathema to the founders and respectable citizens at the time. Islam would not be protected, nor Hinduism, Buddhism, etc. The founders demonstrably only had in mind Christianity and perhaps Judaism. They were the only faiths in view by America’s founders in the 18th century. Is that what the gun grabbers have in mind?

I could go through most of the Amendments, especially the 9th and 10th which have been eviscerated by the liberals and progressives, but you get the idea. What’s good for the 1st Amendment is good for all of them.

Second, the Founding Fathers indeed had modern military arms in mind when they penned the 2nd Amendment. Justice Joseph Story’s definitive commentary on the Constitution clearly explains the purpose of the 2nd Amendment, and it wasn’t for hunting ducks. He wrote in his commentary:

The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered, as the palladium of the liberties of a republic; since it offers a strong moral check against the usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers; and will generally, even if these are successful in the first instance, enable the people to resist and triumph over them.

Clearly, there was no limit placed on the types of arms needed to resist and triumph over the tyranny of oppressive rulers.

Alo Konsen wrote a well-researched paper on this subject in 2003 called The Right to Keep and Bear…What? The paper is long, but very illuminating. The bottom line is that the founders definitely protected the right of individuals to keep and bear the cutting-edge weaponry of the day. After all, the American colonists defeated the British with military grade muskets, cannons, etc. That’s exactly what the founders had in view when they wrote the Bill of Rights.

Michael LeMieux wrote a similar piece over at News With Views called The Second Amendment and Military Grade Firearms. LeMieux adds to the argument by covering the history of relevant laws and court decisions as well as the founders’ intent. He concludes:

The military grade weapon is the exact weapon the Second Amendment guarantees. Not to hunt deer and pheasant but to hunt those that would threaten liberty. The Supreme Court has acknowledged that fact in Miller and of late in the Heller case that it is an individual right. That means every law abiding citizen has not only the right but the duty to be armed with military grade weapons and proficient in the use and deployment of those weapons.

Shaun Connell made a similar argument over at the Washington Times in a piece called Is there a constitutional right to own assault rifles? Keeping in mind that an AR-15 or semi-automatic AK-47 is not an assault rifle by definition, his answer is an obvious and emphatic ‘yes’ to the question. Like Konsen, Connell appeals to the original writings of our nation’s wise founders. He concludes:

The Second Amendment still covers modern guns for the same reason the First Amendment covers the Internet and blogs. The Second Amendment protects all guns from being banned for the same reason the First Amendment protects all religions from being banned.

Sound familiar? The problem is partly that we don’t teach civics anymore, just a bunch of PC nonsense in public schools. Most high school students don’t know anything about the Declaration of Independence or Constitution, much less the history behind them.

Further, the lineage of modern firearms is such that what starts as a military firearm becomes the next generation of hunting firearm. Three Days to Anarchy has a nice post pointing this out. Indeed, AR-15s in multiple calibers are used for hunting today contrary to the anti-liberty crowd.

Don’t believe the mainstream media talking heads on TV or the anti-liberty crowd at the New York Times. Read the original documents for yourself. Inform yourself. Then arm yourself, train, stay proficient, and stay safe. Take responsibility for your freedom and for your family’s safety. Be a citizen, not a subject. Your Constitution not only recognizes that right, it depends on your exercising that right to preserve that very document throughout all generations against all enemies, foreign and domestic. Make it so.