It seems that people today do not understand that altering and narrowing definitions does not allow you to radically change what something previously meant. You cannot rewrite history, no matter how hard you try. Yet many try to when it comes to the Second Amendment.
In particular, people want to say that “well-regulated” refers to our current notion of government regulations instead of “regularized,” i.e. made to be uniform in some nature. They also use this bad interpretation to misunderstand a line that clearly reads that people need to own their own guns to prepare in case they are needed to serve in a militia.
Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story, the premiere expert on the Constitution, explained these very points in his Commentaries on the Constitution, written during the 19th century but remaining one of the most cited texts by our current Supreme Court.
In it, he writes:
§ 1889. The next amendment is: “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.”
§ 1890. The importance of this article will scarcely be doubted by any persons, who have duly reflected upon the subject. The militia is the natural defence of a free country against sudden foreign invasions, domestic insurrections, and domestic usurpations of power by rulers.
Already, Story makes it clear that the 2nd amendment is a right of the people to protect the nation from internal and external threats, and there can be no democracy if the people are not armed. Then, he continues:
It is against sound policy for a free people to keep up large military establishments and standing armies in time of peace, both from the enormous expenses, with which they are attended, and the facile means, which they afford to ambitious and unprincipled rulers, to subvert the government, or trample upon the rights of the people.
Not only is Story pointing out that there should not be a standing military nor a “National Guard” at all, but that such should only exist when directly needed because of the threat to the armed populace of their very existence. The whole attempt to claim the “National Guard,” which is a reserve force of the military, is a militia ignores the definition of militia and the purpose of the militia.
The irony of this all is that the whole reason for the 2nd amendment, according to Story, is that the military and police forces are a great threat, both things that liberals pretend to believe. Yet disarming the people only empowers the police and military.
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. And yet, though this truth would seem so clear, and the importance of a well regulated militia would seem so undeniable, it cannot be disguised, that among the American people there is a growing indifference to any system of militia discipline, and a strong disposition, from a sense of its burthens, to be rid of all regulations. How it is practicable to keep the people duly armed without some organization, it is difficult to see. There is certainly no small danger, that indifference may lead to disgust, and disgust to contempt; and thus gradually undermine all the protection intended by this clause of our national bill of rights.
The use of “regulation” is connected to “organization,” aka people need to be able to have some basic standards so that they could fight. But looking at the liberal talking point, you can see just how illogical it is – if the idea was to have a militia to protect the people, then having “regulations” that limit their ability to use weapons would go against the whole purpose. It is like saying that the to have “free speech” you need to limit everything people can say, which, not surprising, is what liberals are also saying.
It is strange that liberals are so open with how ignorant they are, and they aren’t even pretending to have any understanding of basic logic or the English language. However, liberalism has always been mocked for this very reason, so it shouldn’t surprise anyone.
