One particular addition to the United States Constitution  is the second amendment.  It 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.”

There appears to be the popular meaning, the intent and call to action, that appears at the surface for reading those words.  Then there is a deeper dig into the understanding of the meaning as the words have vastly changed in today’s political environment.

Let us first dissect this amendment by breaking it up into segments if we can.  You will soon discover that there was an original meaning, why this amendment was included to the Constitution and then over time circumstances have vastly changed making this amendment a problem resulting in death towards thousands of citizens.

• “A well regulated Militia”.   What is meant by militia?
  

  “The militia of the United States, as defined by the U.S. Congress, has changed over time.^[1] During colonial America, all able-bodied men of a certain age range were members of the militia, depending on the respective state’s rule.^[2] Individual towns formed local independent militias for their own defense.^[3] The year before the US Constitution was ratified, The Federalist Papers detailed the founders‘ paramount vision of the militia in 1787.^[4][5] The new Constitution empowered Congress to “organize, arm, and discipline” this national military force, leaving significant control in the hands of each state government.”  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Militia_(United_States)

• “necessary to the security”.  Security from what?  We understand later in the sentence that our country highly values that our form of government is free and stays his way.
• “a free State”.  What constitutes a free state?  You should answer this question.
• “right of the people”.  This part of the amendment seem to move toward a second part of the amendment and somewhat separate idea.  The wording  implies individual citizens and not people within the military have the right to bear arms.  Military naturally have the right to have weapons to guard the country from foreign forces.  Individuals normally are not allowed to possess weapons unless authorized for purposes of policing.
• “keep and bear Arms”.   This part of the amendment holds the most dire meaning.  All of a sudden, every citizen of the country is allowed to possess a weapon.  But, it was stated in the prior part of the amendment that the weapon could ONLY be used to overturn some awful national government.  Who decides when such action against the government should take place and when?
• “shall not be infringed”. This means that this is an absolute right, of every citizen, to have weapons but only for the purpose of woking toward removing a tyrannical federal government.

What is rather odd is realizing this amendment raised the  possibility that the United States might be ruled by some dictator.  That would come about if the citizens of this county really got the voting process wrong or the plutocracy group of individuals was able to do a snow job on the election process (The Republican Party is now doing this with their Jim Crow efforts to disqualify minority voters and Democratic district voters.)

Looking at the second amendment wording one could easily think that there are two separate commands and segments:

#1:  “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State”.    This may mean to form a military force to help protect the country.  Note that this part of the amendment points to a specific group of people called the Militia.

#2:  “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”  This statement obviously means that every citizen has the right to have weapons.  But it is stated that the citizens having weapons must only use them for protecting the county from a “tyrannical federal government”.  Note that this part of the amendment points to the rights of individuals.  But that this right can only be used to overturn an authoritarian government.  Note that this part of the amendment warn of a future danger for the United States because it would only take an unknown number of individuals that think the county is under control of some awful government to use that rational to attack our government and this country.  We have already seen how a group of misinformed, if not stupid, individuals invaded Congress, January 6, 2021, after being lied to by a national leader. 

So why was this amendment written?

“ the amendment was originally created to give citizens the opportunity to fight back against a tyrannical federal government.”

Note that the intent for this amendment was for citizens to possess weapons to act against a really bad government. Weapons, as defined in this amendment, are not to be used against any citizen or commit suicide.  But, so far, this amendment has resulted in, not acts against a tyrannical government, but against other citizens so guns can be sold for profit.  

This amendment seems to be unnecessary and dangerous when this country has a system of government where the citizens are expected to rule.

 

 

 

Posted:  March 25, 2021