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.
The Second Amendment could be rephrased as follows in modern language:
An effective and competent militia is required in order to have security in a free country; therefore, the right of the people to own and carry military arms can’t be violated.
Militia duty (required) -> secure, free country -> therefore rights must be inviolable
What is first listed? The duty and responsibility. Then comes the reason why, and then the rights are listed last. Why then do gun rights organizations shy away from open carry and the duty to have a militia? How can anyone say they support the rights to arms, but shirk the responsibility and criticize those who do embrace it?
The answers, of course, are simple. Humans often tend to want to avoid responsibility and accountability. We like to have our cake and eat it too – to enjoy the rewards without the work. That’s human nature, and we all share it to varying extents. We can enjoy the easy times, but easy times without vigilance lead to hard times.
Strong men create good times, good times create weak men, weak men create hard times, and hard times create strong men. And on it goes. In some ways we seem to be in the “hard times” phase. There is looming debt in our unconstitutional “Federal Reserve” system – a direction violation of Article 1, Section 8, Clause 5 and Article 1, Section 10, Clause 1 of our Constitution which both require our official government money to be gold and silver coin only. That is black-and-white supreme law – plain meaning and easy to understand no different than the 2nd Amendment. Government has grown in size and scope, elections are done by mail and against state laws, there is a two-tiered weaponized justice system, not only the 2nd but now the 1st Amendment is also being actively violated and openly attacked, we haven’t a border, and the list goes on and on.
A central bank and a standing army are the 1st and 2nd biggest threats to liberty. The framers of our system of governance and founders of this country held this opinion. Today in America we have both: private central bankers who hold the keys to our money system and profit greatly from it, and an army of police who often stand around and harass the public over petty things and violate rights instead of protecting them.
The militia was intended to be an armed force that could be used to fight internal conflicts, apprehend criminals, ward off tyrants, and help be prepared for common defense so that a standing army is not needed. Standing armies are not only expensive, but they quickly lord over the people on behalf of the political class who gives them money and orders. Standing armies always attempt to control and manage people – as a sheepdog would manage a herd. They are sold as an effective means to provide security, but what they actually accomplish is slave-handling the masses for a small political elite. If this seems exaggerated, you need to watch more videos of people being accosted, harassed, tased, questioned, tackled, beat, and if not shot then prosecuted, simply for exercising the 2nd Amendment.
The militia is DeSec – decentralized security. Too-centralized systems suffer from bloating, communication problems, and being out-of-touch with the needs and unique culture of different regions. This out-of-touch too-centralized approach was the approach King George III had when his colonies finally revolted. He thought he knew better than everyone else, and that he could successfully use violence and intimidation – terrorism – to bend the colonists’ will. What he did not account for, however, was a well-armed populace fed up with his shenanigans.
The colonists had not only “military-style” weapons – they had better-than-military arms. Their rifles outperformed the redcoats’ brown bess muskets considerably. Private citizens also take better care of their arms, in general, than military personnel in armories. We care better for things that we had to work for and we own…
It has always been about open carry. Concealed carry was frowned-upon long ago – thought as something assassins and cowards do in hiding for secret advantage. Today we embrace concealed carry for its deterrent effect against criminals. But street criminals is not the reason the right to keep and bear arms was codified in our Constitution. It was the more common and more dangerous tyrant political rulers for which the Second Amendment was ratified.
It is the practice of openly carrying arms in public – especially military battle arms – that signifies where political power lies. It shows who “owns the streets.” Usually only the standing army can carry such weapons in public. This is the general rule: an elite political class pays an army and gives it orders and it may openly carry weapons to show the plebs who is in charge. It is the rare exception to this rule where freedom exists. In such cases the people make up the militia and may peacefully carry arms at their pleasure. They may not, of course, go around threatening and scaring people with unreasonable behavior. But the act of carrying a pistol or long gun safely is not in and of itself unreasonable nor should it be scary to a reasonable person.
The Second Amendment was not about hunting, target shooting, sport shooting, or even self-defense against common street criminals. While its basis is in the universal human right to self-defense, which includes against common street crime, it is truly more about widely distributing power to as many people as possible so that psychopathic tyrants cannot wreak havoc in society. As we have seen just in recent history with the likes of Zedong, Stalin, Hitler, Tojo, Pot, and countless others, bad leaders often kill 10s of thousands to 10s of millions of people with the help of willing loyalist soldiers. The standing army was all too willing to carry out the despicable orders. The documentary “Ordinary Men” shows how bakers, tradesmen, and ordinary people carried out mass murder for Nazi Germany – seeing is as an undesirable but “necessary” “duty” for the survival of their country.
Society must safeguard itself against psychopath rulers and and their misguided, reluctant but “dutiful” order-following soldiers. Utter fools would follow the siren-song of tyrants and disarm themselves under the guise of being safe from mass shootings and street crime. Doing so will not only increase mass shootings and street crime, but it will also lead to the systematic murder of countless. Not to mention worse than murder – slavery. A slave is one who doesn’t have the means to enforce it when they say no.
The mainstream conversation in America regarding the 2nd Amendment should not just be about the rights. You don’t get to enjoy freedom without vigilant responsibility and duty. Let us not only discuss this responsibility, but live up to it. Practice open carry. Do so safely and responsibly in a dignified manner. But also do so defiantly – it is not only a right but a duty to preserve the security in a free society. Do so alone, do so in groups, and this way the militia will be born again as it was intended. We can have both freedom and security, but only by embracing this responsibility and duty.
They were right when they said it is necessary.
