It’s entitled How Alexander Hamilton Solved America’s Gun Problem – 228 Years Ago. I’ll only paste his conclusion. You can read the rest for yourself.
The result of compulsory militia membership for gun owners is actual reform whose design originates directly from the framers of the Constitution. This reform adds oversight, training, and state regulation while keeping the federal government out (militias existing specifically as a check on federal power); preserving the right to keep firearms; contributing perhaps to the security of the United States in some presently unimaginable future conflict at home that involves enemy divisions and open warfare; and has a better chance of seeing law than does confiscation or a repeal of the right to bear arms.
There is the gist of it. As I said, read the rest for the full argument.
But the argument fails the test of history and suffers from the obvious attempt to make a case where there is there none. Remember that we’ve discussed this before, but just to rehearse, firearms ownership and use was ubiquitous in the colonies.
In the colonies, availability of hunting and need for defense led to armament statues comparable to those of the early Saxon times. In 1623, Virginia forbade its colonists to travel unless they were “well armed”; in 1631 it required colonists to engage in target practice on Sunday and to “bring their peeces to church.” In 1658 it required every householder to have a functioning firearm within his house and in 1673 its laws provided that a citizen who claimed he was too poor to purchase a firearm would have one purchased for him by the government, which would then require him to pay a reasonable price when able to do so. In Massachusetts, the first session of the legislature ordered that not only freemen, but also indentured servants own firearms and in 1644 it imposed a stern 6 shilling fine upon any citizen who was not armed.
When the British government began to increase its military presence in the colonies in the mid-eighteenth century, Massachusetts responded by calling upon its citizens to arm themselves in defense. One colonial newspaper argued that it was impossible to complain that this act was illegal since they were “British subjects, to whom the privilege of possessing arms is expressly recognized by the Bill of Rights” while another argued that this “is a natural right which the people have reserved to themselves, confirmed by the Bill of Rights, to keep arms for their own defense”. The newspaper cited Blackstone’s commentaries on the laws of England, which had listed the “having and using arms for self preservation and defense” among the “absolute rights of individuals.” The colonists felt they had an absolute right at common law to own firearms.
The notion that the rights to firearms ownership was granted by any government would have been considered ridiculous and dismissed in colonial times. God grants rights – the state merely recognizes them, and if it doesn’t, the people have a right and duty under God to take action to ensure that the right is recognized. There is so much more.
“1. John Adams John Adams, as a 9-or-10-year-old schoolboy, carried a gun daily so that he could go hunting after class. 3 DIARY AND AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF JOHN ADAMS 257-59 (1961). 2. Patrick Henry Patrick Henry would “walk to court, his musket slung over his shoulder to pick off small game.” Harlow Giles Unger, LION OF LIBERTY: PATRICK HENRY AND THE CALL TO A NEW NATION 30 (2010). 3. Daniel Boone “When Daniel was almost thirteen he was given his first firearm, a ‘short rifle gun, with which he roamed the nearby Flying Hills, the Oley Hills, and the Neversink Mountains.’ ” Robert Morgan, BOONE 14 (2007). 4. Meriwether Lewis Meriwether Lewis’s neighbor Thomas Jefferson observed that young Lewis “when only eight years of age . . . habitually went out, in the dead of night, alone with his dogs, into the forest to hunt the raccoon & opossum.” 8 WRITINGS OF THOMAS JEFFERSON, at 482. 5. Thomas Jefferson Thomas Jefferson himself carried as a lad. “When he was ten he was given a gun by his father and sent into the forest alone in order to develop self-reliance.” 1 Dumas Malone, JEFFERSON AND HIS TIME: JEFFERSON THE VIRGINIAN 46 (1948). As an adult, Jefferson wrote about a holster he made for one of his Turkish pistols, “having used it daily while I had a horse who would stand fire,” and he noted another holster he made “to hang them [the Turkish pistols] at the side of my carriage for road use.” 10 THE PAPERS OF THOMAS JEFFERSON, RETIREMENT SERIES 320-21 (2004). Jefferson advised his fifteen-yearold nephew to “[l]et your gun therefore be the constant companion of your walks.” 8 THE PAPERS OF THOMAS JEFFERSON 407 (2004). 6. James Monroe Every day, “[w]ell before dawn, James left for school, carrying his books under one arm with his powder horn under the other and his musket slung across his back.” Tim McGrath, JAMES MONROE: A LIFE 9 (2020). 7. Ira and Ethan Allen Ira and Ethan Allen regularly carried multiple arms at once. For example, in 1772 Ira, Ethan, and a cousin went to purchase land near New York’s border “armed with holsters and pistols, a good case [pair] of pistols each in our pockets, with each a good hanger [sword].”
We could continue but won’t for the sake of brevity. The point is that firearms ownership is the presupposition to understanding the constitution, not the outcome, product or pronouncement.
The men who wrote it had just gotten finished with a war against their former king, using firearms they personally owned, and so the idea that they wouldn’t have understood the God-given right to oppose tyranny is absurd. Moreover, their real concern within the context of the covenant they were producing in the constitution was that their newly formed federal government would become just like king George.
In order to prevent that possibility, they recognized the right of the states to be free of intervention by the federal government within the context of their men and armaments. They only needed one reason to write those protections into the constitution, and this was it. To them, it was the most important.
The constitution was not and is not a treatise on the entirety of the history of mankind and his rights. It is a covenant between the states and the federal government, and between government and the people.
The author at The Week, David Brown, is correct to highlight the noted militia clause in the second amendment. I wish more people would become aware of their history and heritage. The militia needs to exist today, and for the very same reasons it did in the 1700s.
But David’s presuppositions led him astray. He believes that a different rendering of the second amendment changes the well-documented, well-rehearsed, and well-established history upon which America was built. So in conclusion, let’s pose two questions David could have asked, and give the correct answers to those questions.
First, “Is it important for men to own firearms to be able to answer the call to oppose tyranny, or in other words, does the militia have a valid role in today’s society?” We may answer, yes, and in the superlative in today’s society.
Second, “Should compulsory militia membership be required as a precondition for firearms ownership?” To which we may answer, the mere asking of the question betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of the source of our rights, the history of colonial America, God’s expectations for us, and the reasons for the Bill of Rights.
The question isn’t just answered with a ‘no’, it is completely irrelevant and immaterial. It has nothing whatsoever to do with rights granted by the Almighty, or for that matter, the second amendment.
