It’s Time To Recognize And Regulate The Militia
It’s Time To Recognize And Regulate The Militia
Let’s discuss the Second Amendment for a moment, and let us do so as though we are adults. We can acknowledge that the text is ambiguous enough to justify good faith arguments as to whether it supports individual liberty or collective security. More than 230 mass shootings this year, including the recent slaughter of 19 children in Uvalde, suggests that if the point of the amendment is to protect collective security, then it is failing to do that. However, I argue that there is a way to interpret the Second Amendment to ensure that it protects both individual liberty and collective security. Let’s go to the text:
“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.”
If we leap directly to “right of the people,” then it appears to support the right of people to keep and bear arms free from interference by the State. However, we must consider the amendment in its entirety, which includes what it deems “necessary to the security of a free State.” That would be a “well-regulated Militia.”
States don’t have militias today, at least, not in the form they did when the framers wrote those words; however, the concept remains. In 1787, militias consisted of a population of loosely affiliated men, who understood they could be called upon to defend the state by bearing arms. Today, each state contains a segment of mostly unaffiliated men and women, who take it upon themselves to keep and bear arms in defense of their homes, their families, and their persons. Although there is little modern precedent for the State to call upon this class of firearm owners, preferring instead to use the National Guard; in theory, the State could still call all those who keep and bear arms to its collective defense.
This firearm-owning segment, which, according to a PEW Research study conducted in July of 2021, comprises approximately 32% of the population, and 44% of households, could be seen as the militia that is “necessary to the security of a free State.” After all, many of them view themselves this way. They purchase and own firearms to defend themselves, and presumably the rest of us, against what they fear.
Their fears are not uniform, but individual. Some fear others of different races, religions and political persuasions. Some fear the State itself and keep arms specifically to check state power. But whether they believe they need to defend themselves against felons, foreigners, FEMA, or federal agents, the fact is that many are prepared to do so. This is the modern day militia, and we should classify them as such.
Our founders were very clear, when they worded the Second Amendment, that for this militia to provide defense in a way that is necessary for the security of the free state, they must be well regulated.
When Texas Governor, Greg Abbott, declares that by removing regulations he is protecting the Second Amendment his actions are not supported in the text.
The second amendment REQUIRES regulation.
What should these regulations be? It’s fair for different states and municipalities to regulate differently based on the demographics, density, and historical data of their populations. But there are a few regulations I think we can all agree on, which should be instituted at the federal level.
First, children should not have unsupervised access to firearms. How should we define “children”? Given that we recognize, through our laws, that the brain of an eighteen year old is not yet mature enough, not yet formed enough, to introduce its host to most controlled substances, we can agree that they are not yet mature enough to bear the solemn responsibility of owning a firearm.
Having once been an eighteen year old boy, surrounded by other eighteen year old boys, I can attest that, as a population, they are likely to be emotionally immature, reckless in their behavior, narcissistic in their thoughts, and slow to comprehend the consequences of their actions. Other than those who have joined the military, which in and of itself puts them under adult supervision, we should require a minimum age of twenty one, bare minimum, to take membership in the unaffiliated militia with the right to keep and bear arms.
Second, we should reinstate the ban, for ten years, on the domestic sale and distribution of high capacity magazines. We can’t ban possession of these magazines because they are already within the militia, and any attempt to ban possession – of magazines or firearms – would be seen as a provocative act confirming the worst fears of some that the government is coming for their guns. The ten year ban on domestic sales and distribution of these magazines will reduce the number within the population, encourage anyone who possesses them to lock them away in their homes, and give law enforcement an additional tool to reduce their prevalence in the civilian population.
Third, we need to treat these mass shootings as the public health crisis they are, unique to the United States, which means we need to study the phenomenon. To study it we need data. By law, we should require all sellers, in addition to conducting background checks, to collect certain demographic and geographic data about the buyer, as well as data about the firearm. This data should be gathered, submitted, and stored in disparate databases distributed across separate federal agencies, which can be accessed, on an anonymized basis, to protect the privacy of the militia, through a permissions-based process, by social scientists and policy experts, so they can discern patterns, model scenarios, and make policy recommendations to reduce these mass casualty events.
The perfect shouldn’t be the enemy of the good.
While we may not be able to eliminate mass shootings, we can reduce them. Let us recognize firearm owners as a special class and accept them as the modern day militia. If we trust the wisdom of the founding fathers, if we have the integrity to interpret the full text of the second amendment, and the courage to ensure that the militia is well regulated, then we can build a future that includes individual liberty and collective security for all.
One of our country’s most important freedoms is that of free speech.
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I am going to go out on a limb here and guess that author Ben Rolly does not own any firearms.
The second amendment is perfectly clear. In order to maintain a well regulated militia, the state may regulate but not infringe an individual’s God given right to keep and bear arms. State regulation extends ONLY up to the point of infringement – meaning it MAY require arms to be in good working order and that owners are well trained in their use – but that is the extent of the state’s interest in personal firearms.
It would be within the intent of the amendment to provide that all children of ANY age are trained in safe use of firearms if they choose to be. The age of childhood ownership is NOT in the state’s control, neither is maximum age of ownership.
When police/law enforcement officers fail to do their job because on the scene officers dither and come up with excuses. The loss of life in school shooting is due to incompetence of those whose job, like the principal is to keep children and teachers safe. They have failed miserably and so the political solution is to make the law abiding, responsible gun owners pay the price. We are led by idiots and our children are at risk because of these idiots at the local, state, and federal levels. When seconds count, the police are minutes away. We are on our own.
There are some points on which I agree. However, please check your facts. Mass shootings are not unique to the US and in fact we are 11th on the list of nations with mass shooting incidents. Guns do not shoot themselves and anyone who would commit such an act is seriously mentally ill. Almost all of these shooters exhibited warning signs before they committed their crimes. Let’s focus on the real problem and not the symptom.
The GREATEST misnomer here is the PUBLIC HEALTH EMERGENCY BS & I will explain why:
Sleepy Joe has already begun the executive process of transferring EMERGENCY PUBLIC HEALTH POWERS to the W.H.O. under the guise of global response to the next global pandemic (which is a division of the UN) so . . . . If we take the easy way to a compromise & declare gun violence a public health emergency you have just given Obama exactly what he wanted when he had John Kerry introduce the UN Small Weapons Treaty (which luckily failed) but under the classification as health emergency that very treated can be forced into place not by our elected representatives but the unelected globalists who have been seething over taking America’s guns for decades. It is time that the people of this great REPUBLIC remember that before this social engineering ushered covertly down our throats w/ the evolution of social media into our everyday lives we could always have public discourse w/out the vitriolic spasms & through this dialog we were able to challenge one another’s positions AND question our own based on the contrarian views maybe heard for the 1st time ever. But w/out respecting your fellow citizens we only hear the same mantras over & over w/out noticing we are being steered into echo chambers that only make each one of us more unstable & emotional as designed. People please stop trying to rationalize & compromise to avoid a scarlet letter being assigned to you in the gauntlet of social media, wake up & realize you are a rat in a maze that keeps trapping you right where they intend you to be trapped. SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED MEANS JUST THAT