14A037 Time to Repeal Amendment Two by Jim Davies, 8/30/2014   

That time hasn't arrived yet, not by a long way; but I do look forward to the day when it can be retired. To explain why, let's remind ourselves what it says:

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.

Notice my colors. The orange bit is the set-up, the reason for what follows; the red bit is the teeth or substance of the Amendment, the command it issues, the limit it defines.

Even if the orange bit were mistaken or obsolete, the red part remains. That's the essence and nub of the matter: the FedGov then being created was commanded not to infringe the people's right to own and carry firearms. Notice, our right to do that preceded the existence of the Federal Government. The people had it before it was founded, for the foundation followed ratification, and these words were written prior to ratification. Where did the people get it? - it's a natural right. They had it as human beings; all have the right to defend and feed ourselves, and firearms are valuable for both purposes.

And even (the orange bit) from the viewpoint of the State, it was handy to have a resource of hundreds of thousands of citizens ready to spring into action with their own guns, already familiar with how they work, should a defensive need arise. Necessary to its security.

Here then is the crux of the matter: if they hadn't been creating a government, they would not have had any reason to write Amendment Two, to set a limit on its power. This limitation was needed only because a government was being established.

Gun rights are natural, an extension of the human right of self-defense, and will remain so for ever unless tampered with by a government. Amendment Two said: Do Not Tamper.

Rather than wasting ink, and expending all that effort in the heat of summer in that meeting room in Philadelphia, the founders would have done far better not to found. Again: absence of government means, no need to remind it about gun rights. Not just no need, for that matter; no possibility of such a reminder. You can't remind a vacuum.

But, but... they had to establish a "more perfect union" so as to defend the vulnerable new states against renewed hostility from Britain, the world's most powerful empire. Right?

Wrong. The whole mindset of the founders was collectivist. They supposed that effective defense meant centralized defense, or socialized defense. Controlled by a military chief, funded by taxation, and capable of surrender on behalf of all, like France in 1940. The whole structure of the new American State was socialist.

I've shown elsewhere how a free society will probably defend itself; in essence its members will decline to work for the invader just as (to rid ourselves of the existing tyrants) we decline to work for government today. Facing the necessity of administering its conquests without help, the invader will not invade. Especially if he also knows that decentralized, armed opposition will shoot his soldiers in the back at any time, in any place. This is the "porcupine defense" and after Vietnam and Iraq it's amazing the Feds still don't get it.

So the founders did not have any need to found a new government. Indeed, the need was to disestablish the existing, State governments and create something really revolutionary; the first free society in history. But they failed in that (or rather, did not try; they were, after all, lawyers and politicians) so that truly radical reform is left to you and me.

That, then, is why I look forward to the abolition of Amendment Two; along, of course, with all the other provisions of the US and State Constitutions. On E-Day perhaps someone will burn them, or symbolic copies of them; on balance I hope not, for they (the originals, especially) form a valuable historical record of the utter folly of statism and would make valuable exhibits in some Museum of the Age of Government; a kind of warning or cautionary horror tale, lest in some dark future age any repetition is contemplated.