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xiphiasSo, reading this post on ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
bradhicks's LJ, especially the comment from the Aussie, got me thinking about the Constitution. And I figured I'd post my thoughts on the Second Amendment, one of those parts of American law, government, and culture which is most baffling and maybe disturbing to non-Americans. This is really just my rambling, and not going to resolve anything or answer any questions about it. . .
So, the Second Amendment of the Constitution of the United States is one of the first ten amendments which form the Bill of Rights, which were attached to the Constitution before it was even ratified, and was, in fact, a condition of ratification for many of the States.
It's really short, and would therefore appear to be easy to understand. It reads, in its entirety,
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.
You'd think that was easy to understand. But, see, as I see it, a heck of a lot of the important words in it have changed meaning over the years.
Okay. A grammatical note. I personally think that the last comma in the amendment is superfluous, but it's a legitimate placement of a comma for the time period. Commas in the Eighteenth Century were used both for the semantic purpose of setting off subordinate clauses, and as breathing marks for oratory. The final comma is the second kind of comma, and has no semantic meaning. It's just where you'd pause for effect if you were reading the thing out loud.
"A well regulated militia"
In our minds, "well regulated" suggests "with proper oversight from a responsible body, such as a government, which can administer and enforce reasonable standards."
I suspect that, in the minds of the framers, "well regulated" meant "reasonably skilled."
While the denotative meaning of "militia" hasn't particularly changed over the years, the connotative meaning certainly has.
It means, basically, "the adult civilian population of a society who are available to do dangerous work." If you're infirm enough that you can't really do anything strenuous, you're not part of the militia. If you're under the age of majority in you're culture, you're not part of the militia. If you're part of a class of people who don't fight in your culture, such as some clergy, or, in some societies societies, women, you're not part of the militia. If you're part of a professional fighting force, you're not part of the militia. If you're anyone else, you are.
Most of you reading this are.
So, "A well regulated militia" means, I think, "an adult civilian population which is reasonably skilled at, and able to participate in, fighting or other dangerous pursuits necessary to the well-being of the society as a whole."
"being necessary to the security of a free state"
Security against what? Well, during the time the Constitution was written, there was still the possibility of foreign troops attacking again. But I suspect that wasn't the only thing they were thinking about. I think that the threat of foreign invasion makes a "well regulated militia" "necessary to the security of a state" -- with "free" meaning "not controlled by another country." But I suspect that it was designed to also mean "a state that protects and respects the freedom of its own people."
You know, like that quote from V for Vendetta -- "People should not be afraid of their governments -- governments should be afraid of their people."
I rather suspect that Thomas Jefferson, at least, would have nodded in agreement with that sentiment. I'm far from certain that all the other folks whose influenced the writing of the Bill of Rights would have, though. . .
"keep and bear arms"
"Keeping" arms is owning them. "Bearing" arms, to my mind, is more than just using them -- it's using them in formation, in concert with other people in a military context. So the right to "keep and bear arms" means the right to set up groups that would practice using force in as a unit, with tactics and things like that.
So what we have, I think, is an idea of a steely-eyed citizenry, ever vigilant to protect themselves and their neighbors, forming noble groups of fighters, always ready to fight for Truth, Justice, and the American Way.
Very Heinlein, don't you think?
As a founding myth, I really like this. Myths create who we are, and I like the kind of person that this myth is trying to create. It's like the founding myths of Switzerland -- noble fighters such as William Tell, fiercely independent, whom no foreign invader nor tyrannical prince dare cross.
It's only when it goes into practice that it falls apart.
I don't think that this ideal of local areas forming "well regulated militias" ever really happened in the United States. Up until the mid-nineteenth century, towns and villages would have a "Militia Day" once a year, maybe a couple times a year, when all the adult males would get together to practice formation marching, firing in volleys, and small unit tactics.
In theory.
Actually, all the adult males got together to carry their guns around, drink beer, hang out, have family picnics and show off how cool they looked carrying guns to all the women. I mean, if you were a twenty-year-old guy, it was a FANTASTIC opportunity to show off to that cute woman that you'd been trying to work up the courage to flirt with.
Oh, you'd have the occasional old Indian fighter or crusty veteran who tried to actually teach discipline and tactics and all that, but it was basically a lost cause.
And this tradition pretty much ended with the American Civil War. The militia units thus "trained" and thrown into battle were massacred. The North needed to institute training on a national level to give its soldiers any real chance of survival and success.
After the Civil War, most examples I can think of of this ideal of "bands of neighbors forming armed units to protect each other and The American Way" are not the kinds of things you'd want to take as role models.
The first one that comes to mind is the Ku Klux Klan. They appear to be an example, in form if not in function, of what I imagine the framers of the Constitution had in mind with the Second Amendment. And they weren't the only unit of that stamp.
In the modern world, I look at Iraq, which has "militias" both in the sense which I believe the framers were thinking, and in the sense of what they tend to become when actual PEOPLE get ahold of the idea. Some neighborhoods started making "neighborhood watch groups", in which all the men, Shiite, Sunni, Kurd, Christian, whatever, would get together, arm themselves, and, for instance, walk the children to school, guard the storefronts of their neighbors, and make sure that their immediate neighborhood, at least, was safe. And that, I think, is what it looks like when a "well regulated militia" works.
When your militia decides to get together to kill everyone different than you, like the Ku Klux Klan, or like far, far too many of the militias in Iraq, though. . .
'Cause, see, I like the idea of a "well regulated militia". Until I start thinking that, besides me,vonbeck, undauntra, lagaz, bikergeek, and the rest of you, the "well regulated militia" also includes that guy down at the diner who blames illegal immigrants for the fact that he's unemployed, despite the fact that a) there are almost no illegal immigrants in Melrose, and b) he was fired from his last three jobs for drinking on the job. (This person does not, in fact, exist to my knowledge. But, you get the point.)
bradhicks's LJ, especially the comment from the Aussie, got me thinking about the Constitution. And I figured I'd post my thoughts on the Second Amendment, one of those parts of American law, government, and culture which is most baffling and maybe disturbing to non-Americans. This is really just my rambling, and not going to resolve anything or answer any questions about it. . . So, the Second Amendment of the Constitution of the United States is one of the first ten amendments which form the Bill of Rights, which were attached to the Constitution before it was even ratified, and was, in fact, a condition of ratification for many of the States.
It's really short, and would therefore appear to be easy to understand. It reads, in its entirety,
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.
You'd think that was easy to understand. But, see, as I see it, a heck of a lot of the important words in it have changed meaning over the years.
Okay. A grammatical note. I personally think that the last comma in the amendment is superfluous, but it's a legitimate placement of a comma for the time period. Commas in the Eighteenth Century were used both for the semantic purpose of setting off subordinate clauses, and as breathing marks for oratory. The final comma is the second kind of comma, and has no semantic meaning. It's just where you'd pause for effect if you were reading the thing out loud.
"A well regulated militia"
In our minds, "well regulated" suggests "with proper oversight from a responsible body, such as a government, which can administer and enforce reasonable standards."
I suspect that, in the minds of the framers, "well regulated" meant "reasonably skilled."
While the denotative meaning of "militia" hasn't particularly changed over the years, the connotative meaning certainly has.
It means, basically, "the adult civilian population of a society who are available to do dangerous work." If you're infirm enough that you can't really do anything strenuous, you're not part of the militia. If you're under the age of majority in you're culture, you're not part of the militia. If you're part of a class of people who don't fight in your culture, such as some clergy, or, in some societies societies, women, you're not part of the militia. If you're part of a professional fighting force, you're not part of the militia. If you're anyone else, you are.
Most of you reading this are.
So, "A well regulated militia" means, I think, "an adult civilian population which is reasonably skilled at, and able to participate in, fighting or other dangerous pursuits necessary to the well-being of the society as a whole."
"being necessary to the security of a free state"
Security against what? Well, during the time the Constitution was written, there was still the possibility of foreign troops attacking again. But I suspect that wasn't the only thing they were thinking about. I think that the threat of foreign invasion makes a "well regulated militia" "necessary to the security of a state" -- with "free" meaning "not controlled by another country." But I suspect that it was designed to also mean "a state that protects and respects the freedom of its own people."
You know, like that quote from V for Vendetta -- "People should not be afraid of their governments -- governments should be afraid of their people."
I rather suspect that Thomas Jefferson, at least, would have nodded in agreement with that sentiment. I'm far from certain that all the other folks whose influenced the writing of the Bill of Rights would have, though. . .
"keep and bear arms"
"Keeping" arms is owning them. "Bearing" arms, to my mind, is more than just using them -- it's using them in formation, in concert with other people in a military context. So the right to "keep and bear arms" means the right to set up groups that would practice using force in as a unit, with tactics and things like that.
So what we have, I think, is an idea of a steely-eyed citizenry, ever vigilant to protect themselves and their neighbors, forming noble groups of fighters, always ready to fight for Truth, Justice, and the American Way.
Very Heinlein, don't you think?
As a founding myth, I really like this. Myths create who we are, and I like the kind of person that this myth is trying to create. It's like the founding myths of Switzerland -- noble fighters such as William Tell, fiercely independent, whom no foreign invader nor tyrannical prince dare cross.
It's only when it goes into practice that it falls apart.
I don't think that this ideal of local areas forming "well regulated militias" ever really happened in the United States. Up until the mid-nineteenth century, towns and villages would have a "Militia Day" once a year, maybe a couple times a year, when all the adult males would get together to practice formation marching, firing in volleys, and small unit tactics.
In theory.
Actually, all the adult males got together to carry their guns around, drink beer, hang out, have family picnics and show off how cool they looked carrying guns to all the women. I mean, if you were a twenty-year-old guy, it was a FANTASTIC opportunity to show off to that cute woman that you'd been trying to work up the courage to flirt with.
Oh, you'd have the occasional old Indian fighter or crusty veteran who tried to actually teach discipline and tactics and all that, but it was basically a lost cause.
And this tradition pretty much ended with the American Civil War. The militia units thus "trained" and thrown into battle were massacred. The North needed to institute training on a national level to give its soldiers any real chance of survival and success.
After the Civil War, most examples I can think of of this ideal of "bands of neighbors forming armed units to protect each other and The American Way" are not the kinds of things you'd want to take as role models.
The first one that comes to mind is the Ku Klux Klan. They appear to be an example, in form if not in function, of what I imagine the framers of the Constitution had in mind with the Second Amendment. And they weren't the only unit of that stamp.
In the modern world, I look at Iraq, which has "militias" both in the sense which I believe the framers were thinking, and in the sense of what they tend to become when actual PEOPLE get ahold of the idea. Some neighborhoods started making "neighborhood watch groups", in which all the men, Shiite, Sunni, Kurd, Christian, whatever, would get together, arm themselves, and, for instance, walk the children to school, guard the storefronts of their neighbors, and make sure that their immediate neighborhood, at least, was safe. And that, I think, is what it looks like when a "well regulated militia" works.
When your militia decides to get together to kill everyone different than you, like the Ku Klux Klan, or like far, far too many of the militias in Iraq, though. . .
'Cause, see, I like the idea of a "well regulated militia". Until I start thinking that, besides me,
vonbeck, undauntra, lagaz, bikergeek, and the rest of you, the "well regulated militia" also includes that guy down at the diner who blames illegal immigrants for the fact that he's unemployed, despite the fact that a) there are almost no illegal immigrants in Melrose, and b) he was fired from his last three jobs for drinking on the job. (This person does not, in fact, exist to my knowledge. But, you get the point.)