My Sword Collection

Posted By admin on July 14, 2010

The Ak-47 — an American Right?

There has been much discussion regarding the Second Amendment and as to what the Amendment specifically protects. Do the people have the right to own weapons just for sport? Just for hunting? Just for self-defense? What has the Supreme Court ruled on it? The truth will probably shock most Americans — the original intent of the Second Amendment was so that Americans can individually own at least the same weapons that the military had, along with all other weapons.

Legal historian William Rawle summarized the issue when he wrote, “The prohibition is general. No clause in the Constitution could by any rule of construction be conceived to give to Congress a power to disarm the people.”

But what led Rawle to believe that NO weapon could be banned? Two simple facts: the intent and the wording of the Second Amendment. We’ll first analyze what the founders thought at the time of the Amendment, and then analyze exactly what the text explicitely and implicitely verifies.

Remember what had just happened to the founding fathers before they framed the Second. They had just recently used their individually owned arms to overthrow the tyrannical British regime. If it had not been for the existence of those arms, the American people would have never gained their sacred independence. The American Revolution was still fresh on the minds of the founders.

Remember that the American Revolution was initiated out of pure defiance against arms control. The framers wanted to protect the right of the people to have the means of resistance against standing armies. Zachariah Johnson proclaimed this simple message during the constitutional debates when he said, “The people are not to be disarmed of their weapons. They are left in full possession of them.”[1]

It was almost completely unanimous among the founding fathers, with one of the notable exceptions being Alexander Hamilton, that an armed population could always defeat a standing army. Alexander Hamilton didn’t believe this was always the case – though he explained in the Federalist Papers that a well organized body of people most certainly could defeat a standing army. However, his beliefs regarding the right to keep and bear arms were still verified when he wrote that, “If the representatives of the people betray their constituents, there is then no resource left but in the exertion of that original right of self-defence.” [2]

He also later wrote, “[I]f circumstances should at any time oblige the government to form an army of any magnitude, that army can never be formidable to the liberties of the people, while there is a large body of citizens little if at all inferior to them in terms of discipline and the use of arms, who stand ready to defend their rights and those of their fellow citizens.”[3]

Tench Coxe, commenting on the introduction of the Bill of Rights and what would later become the Second Amendment, explicitly proves the fact that the Second protects private arms: “As civil rulers, not having their duty to the people duly before them, may attempt to tyrannize, and as the military forces which must be occasionally raised to defend our country, might pervert their power to the injury of their fellow-citizens, the people are confirmed by the next article in their right to keep and bear their private arms.”[4] [Emphasis mine]

Patrick Henry, that great voice of reason and a ceaseless source of a passion for liberty, explained his thoughts when he called for amendments to the document. An amendment to do what? He argued that there ought to be a provision to protect the right of the people to keep and bear arms. For what purpose? To crush tyrants. He sneered, “O sir, we should have fine times, indeed, if, to punish tyrants, it were only sufficient to assemble the people! Your arms, wherewith you could defend yourselves, are gone… Did you ever read of any revolution in a nation… inflicted by those who had no power at all?”

The sentiments of the founding fathers are still clear – they wished the Second Amendment to protect the right of the American people to wage war against a tyrannical standing army. That means that, if anything is protected at all in the Second Amendment, it is the right of the people to keep and bear militaristic arms.

Thus, the idea that the founding fathers would be against the American people owning militaristic weapons such as AK-47s is outrageously ignorant of both the history and sentiments of time period and of the framers specifically. The amendment protects the right to keep and bear assault weapons.

But what arms can be banned by the government? What arms are not prohibited to be banned by the Second Amendment? The answer is fairly obvious given both the textual and historical context. No infantry weapon can be constitutionally restricted for law-abiding citizens.

Even on a purely textual basis, if something is an “arm” then the people have a right to “keep and bear” it. This is simply presupposed in the wording of “the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” The right is not even established – simply referred to. The founding fathers believed that the right was so obvious that it didn’t even need to be specifically stated – it could simply be assumed that the people would recognize the right.

Considering this, let’s analyze the Second Amendment using logic of substitution. Is an “assault weapon” an arm? Of course, therefore, the word “arms” in the Second Amendment inclusively means “assault weapons.” This means that one of the meanings of the Second Amendment is inclusively thus: “The right to keep and bear [assault weapons] shall not be infringed.”

The same idea applies for every style of infantry weapons. Handguns, rifles, machine guns, flame-throwers – all are protected by the Second Amendment. That great American framer, Trench Coxe, vehemently argued this point, when he wrote, “Congress have no power to disarm the militia. Their swords, and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birthright of an American… The unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or state government, but, where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the people.” [Emphasis mine] [5]

Pro-government individuals are not comfortable with this obvious and historical reading of the Second Amendment. Because of this, they attempt to subvert the constitution to their liking, rather than to read it holistically. They wish to destroy the Constitution for their own political gains. Not only is this sickening, it also has drastic impacts in other constitutional issues. What if we applied the same horrific interpretation technique to the First Amendment? When we ignore the meaning of the constitution for the purpose of our own immediate political means, we put the entire Constitution at stake.

___________________________________

[1] Zachariah Johnson, 3 Elliot, Debates at 646

[2] Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay, The Federalist Papers, ed. Garry Wills (New York: Bantam Books, 1982), 136.

[3] Ibid, 140-141.

[4] Tench Coxe, Pennsylvania Gazette, Feb. 20, 1788

[5] Patrick Henry, At the Ratification Convention for the Virginia Constitution, 1788

[6] Tench Coxe, Pennsylvania Gazette, Feb. 20, 1788

About the Author

Shaun Connell is one of the Internet’s foremost experts on the issue of gun control, and has participated in literally hundreds of public, online and private debates on the issue, winning various awards for his arguments and persuasiveness.

Shaun is also the president of the Rebirth of Freedom Foundation and the online journal, “Reason and Capitalism”.

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