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A Right to Bear Arms?
I would have to agree with the author here with one caveat!Switch Rich white land owners to rich wealthy Lobbyists that controls the Congress and the other two branches of the government!
serf
https://conflicteddoomer.wordpress.com/2013/01/12/a-right-to-bear-arms/
The other two strands to the arguments have to do with what the term, "well regulated Militia," refers to. One strand argues that it refers only to the Militia that Congress was empowered to "provide for organizing, arming, and discipling . and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States ." by Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution. And indeed, as far as I can find, that is the only Militia referred to in the Constitution. Part of this argument is that this Militia would serve as a stand-in for a "standing army" which the Founders abhorred and which they limited funds for to two-year increments in the Constitution, in an apparent attempt to limit the power of Congress to "raise and support armies". (And we all know how well that has worked out.)
The second of these two strands (and the one I would quibble with if I were prone to quibble) is based on the extra-Constitutional writings of the various Founding Fathers. This strand says that, because of their expressed fear of standing armies and of governments' penchant for using them to oppress the people, the Founding Fathers believed the right of the people to keep and bear arms was both a right and a duty. And, in fact, they envisioned two Militias. The first, smaller one, drawn from the pool of the entire population of arms-bearing age was to make up the formal Militia delineated in the Constitution. The second, an "informal" Militia, made up of all that population of arms-bearing age, could, if necessary, be called on to "do their duty" and throw off the chains of a tyrannical government that had gotten too uppity. This seems to be the strand a lot of doomers accept and the one I would quibble with - if I were going to spend time quibbling.
And I would quibble with it for the following reasons:
1) The (mostly) wealthy, white landowners and businessmen who fomented the rebellion against England set up a government that, if you really read the Constitution, promoted their interests and pretty much kept the election and running of that government in their hands;
2) Prevented the funding of a standing army for more than two years without a vote, to reduce the chance of them turning on the government;
3) Empowered Congress to provide for organizing, arming and disciplining a formal Militia specifically tasked with "executing the laws of the Union, suppressing insurrections (against the government) and repelling invasions;
4) They only added a Bill of Rights because they couldn't get the people to ratify the Constitution without it;
5) They gave the people only three basic ways to "change" government (and none of them included rebellion against it) - freedom of speech, freedom of peaceable assembly and freedom to petition the government for redress of grievances.
serf
https://conflicteddoomer.wordpress.com/2013/01/12/a-right-to-bear-arms/
The other two strands to the arguments have to do with what the term, "well regulated Militia," refers to. One strand argues that it refers only to the Militia that Congress was empowered to "provide for organizing, arming, and discipling . and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States ." by Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution. And indeed, as far as I can find, that is the only Militia referred to in the Constitution. Part of this argument is that this Militia would serve as a stand-in for a "standing army" which the Founders abhorred and which they limited funds for to two-year increments in the Constitution, in an apparent attempt to limit the power of Congress to "raise and support armies". (And we all know how well that has worked out.)
The second of these two strands (and the one I would quibble with if I were prone to quibble) is based on the extra-Constitutional writings of the various Founding Fathers. This strand says that, because of their expressed fear of standing armies and of governments' penchant for using them to oppress the people, the Founding Fathers believed the right of the people to keep and bear arms was both a right and a duty. And, in fact, they envisioned two Militias. The first, smaller one, drawn from the pool of the entire population of arms-bearing age was to make up the formal Militia delineated in the Constitution. The second, an "informal" Militia, made up of all that population of arms-bearing age, could, if necessary, be called on to "do their duty" and throw off the chains of a tyrannical government that had gotten too uppity. This seems to be the strand a lot of doomers accept and the one I would quibble with - if I were going to spend time quibbling.
And I would quibble with it for the following reasons:
1) The (mostly) wealthy, white landowners and businessmen who fomented the rebellion against England set up a government that, if you really read the Constitution, promoted their interests and pretty much kept the election and running of that government in their hands;
2) Prevented the funding of a standing army for more than two years without a vote, to reduce the chance of them turning on the government;
3) Empowered Congress to provide for organizing, arming and disciplining a formal Militia specifically tasked with "executing the laws of the Union, suppressing insurrections (against the government) and repelling invasions;
4) They only added a Bill of Rights because they couldn't get the people to ratify the Constitution without it;
5) They gave the people only three basic ways to "change" government (and none of them included rebellion against it) - freedom of speech, freedom of peaceable assembly and freedom to petition the government for redress of grievances.