A Well-Regulated Militia

Why does our Constitution include “the right to bear arms” when no other country’s does?

“That’s because we had to tame the wilderness. You can’t fight off cougars, wolves, and buffalo with a slingshot.” South America, Canada, and Australia were pretty much wilderness as well and their Constitutions don’t specifically allow firearms.

“Law-abiding citizens with guns are all that protect us from dictatorship! The first thing that a dictator does is take away the peoples’ weapons.” Most of Europe and Asia, Canada, and Australia have fairly restrictive gun controls and none of them are dictatorships.

Actually, the second amendment was necessary to get the southern states to approve the Constitution. Ron DeSantis would forbid bruising our children’ sensitive ears with Critical Race Theory, but racism is deeply embedded in the Constitution as originally written. That whole “slaves count as 3/5 of a citizen” deal kept the House of Representatives full of white southerners.

More subtly, southerners feared that a federal government would eliminate their state militias in favor of a national Army like the one that won the Revolution. State militias pretty much rolled over when facing the British (Cornwallis never lost a battle as he rolled through SC, NC, and VA), but they were really good at eliminating slave uprisings.

Hence, the second amendment reads, “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.” What it means is, “If our slaves revolt, we Southern states are not going to wait for Congress to dilly-dally about getting the US Army here. Our white people will have guns and enough training to take care of things.”

Students in Florida will never learn this. It would hurt their feelings.

By Ed Dufton