"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."
Which was developed from the initial proposal of :
"A well regulated militia, composed of the body of the People, being the best security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed, but no one religiously scrupulous of bearing arms, shall be compelled to render military service in person. "
It at no point made any mention of overthrowing the government or being a check on the power, which would be odd seeing as a significant point of every other part of the constitution is about addressing how powers check other powers.
Lots of the founders talked about private firearm ownership and advocated for it, but that's not what was voted on and ratified!. What was actually ratified was the above text. Some of them even advocated for using violence as a way to fix disagreements with your government, but that is clearly laid out in the constitution as treason.
Now sure you can do all sorts of stupid wrangling about punctuation to make the 2nd amendment say whatever you want but that's dumb and a dumb way to run a country.
The revolution was not fought with private firearms. The war of 1812 was not fought with private firearms. Washington himself raised up a militia to put down the whiskey rebellion, so it seems early US considered the 2nd amendment to be utilized by the state.
As well, there are no provisions in the constitution to leave the US. There are no provisions to overthrow the US. If something needs to fundamentally change, you amend the constitution or run a constitutional convention. These are steps that take huge consensus to change things, as was always intentional about the constitution. The constitution was not written to allow a small band of angry people to take up arms and overthrow their government. The founders knew this when they signed the Declaration of Independence, and knew they would hang if they lost. The constitution is clear that it has the same terms. Overthrowing the state is treason and is punished with execution and is not something that was designed in.
Which makes sense if you understand the context of the 13 colonies and the primary threat they faced apart from Britain: Native Americans.
The previous several decades of US history and some later ones involved a great deal of state governors pressing citizens into militias with the express purpose of going out and murdering Native Americans (usually because those Native Americans came and murdered a bunch of citizens, in a great big circle of violence). There was not a standing army to do that. So instead, the government could press citizens into militias and make them use their own weapons. The 2nd amendment establishes the precursor to the national guard.
Sure, the current Supreme Court would vehemently disagree with my interpretation, but I think it's long past time we acknowledge that they are just making it up as they go along and will warp the text to match. There's no consistency to their rulings anyway. The very fact that you can overturn a previous ruling by the court should be enough to demonstrate that even the court doesn't believe their own hype about deciding constitutionality.
I find this whole line of thought to be very similar to the claim that the constitution intended the federal government to be extremely weak, a loose federation of states. Which is funny, because the constitution was created (with zero authority by the way) explicitly to supersede the existing loose federation of states, because within just a couple decades it had proven entirely unworkable, fragile, feckless, and nearly killed our country in its crib. Granted, the constitution DID establish a weak federal government.
The actual text is :
"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."
Which was developed from the initial proposal of :
"A well regulated militia, composed of the body of the People, being the best security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed, but no one religiously scrupulous of bearing arms, shall be compelled to render military service in person. "
It at no point made any mention of overthrowing the government or being a check on the power, which would be odd seeing as a significant point of every other part of the constitution is about addressing how powers check other powers.
Lots of the founders talked about private firearm ownership and advocated for it, but that's not what was voted on and ratified!. What was actually ratified was the above text. Some of them even advocated for using violence as a way to fix disagreements with your government, but that is clearly laid out in the constitution as treason.
Now sure you can do all sorts of stupid wrangling about punctuation to make the 2nd amendment say whatever you want but that's dumb and a dumb way to run a country.
The revolution was not fought with private firearms. The war of 1812 was not fought with private firearms. Washington himself raised up a militia to put down the whiskey rebellion, so it seems early US considered the 2nd amendment to be utilized by the state.
As well, there are no provisions in the constitution to leave the US. There are no provisions to overthrow the US. If something needs to fundamentally change, you amend the constitution or run a constitutional convention. These are steps that take huge consensus to change things, as was always intentional about the constitution. The constitution was not written to allow a small band of angry people to take up arms and overthrow their government. The founders knew this when they signed the Declaration of Independence, and knew they would hang if they lost. The constitution is clear that it has the same terms. Overthrowing the state is treason and is punished with execution and is not something that was designed in.
Which makes sense if you understand the context of the 13 colonies and the primary threat they faced apart from Britain: Native Americans.
The previous several decades of US history and some later ones involved a great deal of state governors pressing citizens into militias with the express purpose of going out and murdering Native Americans (usually because those Native Americans came and murdered a bunch of citizens, in a great big circle of violence). There was not a standing army to do that. So instead, the government could press citizens into militias and make them use their own weapons. The 2nd amendment establishes the precursor to the national guard.
Sure, the current Supreme Court would vehemently disagree with my interpretation, but I think it's long past time we acknowledge that they are just making it up as they go along and will warp the text to match. There's no consistency to their rulings anyway. The very fact that you can overturn a previous ruling by the court should be enough to demonstrate that even the court doesn't believe their own hype about deciding constitutionality.
I find this whole line of thought to be very similar to the claim that the constitution intended the federal government to be extremely weak, a loose federation of states. Which is funny, because the constitution was created (with zero authority by the way) explicitly to supersede the existing loose federation of states, because within just a couple decades it had proven entirely unworkable, fragile, feckless, and nearly killed our country in its crib. Granted, the constitution DID establish a weak federal government.
Weaker than a Monarchy.