The right to bear (fire)arms
by David Atkins
The 2nd Amendment to the Constitution of the United States:
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.
These few words have been parsed ad nauseam by both conservatives and liberals alike, with most progressives focusing on the words “well regulated Militia” and conservatives focusing on the “right of the people to keep and bear arms.”
What has not been sufficiently parsed is the word “Arms.” There has been much discussion, of course, of the dramatic difference between ballistics technology of the 18th century compared with today. But few have concentrated on the nature of the arms involved.
Keeping an armed citizen militia to preserve the security of a free State is a fairly antiquated concept. Doing so while maintaining the world’s most expensive standing army seems illogical. But even granting the questionable wisdom of such an approach in the 21st century, it would seem clear that the militia would be intent on guarding the “free State” against both foreign invasion and a tyrannical domestic government. The conservative movement tends to concentrate on the latter, though it’s fairly clear that the Founders were more concerned about the former.
But if an armed citizen militia is to protect against outside invasion or internal tyranny, it should theoretically be equipped to do so. Yet few conservatives or NRA members would argue that random civilians should be allowed to own anti-tank weaponry, anti-aircraft missiles or military-grade explosives, much less chemical weapons.
Simply put, traditional firearms are utterly helpless in the face of the might of modern state arms. Which means that either the 2nd Amendment is hopelessly outdated for the modern era, or we need to take the discussion of “Arms” out of the realm of firearms and into the realm of much more potent technology.
The NRA and its allies slide comfortably on occupying an untenable middle ground. In reality, it’s one or the other. The NRA should be encouraged to get off the fence and decide whether it truly wants to fulfill the purpose of the 2nd Amendment in the modern era, or whether it truly has much more disturbing ulterior motives related to urban cowboy and suburban castle dweller fantasies of murder without accountability.
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