The Second Amendment

I just had a breakthrough about how the second amendment is meant to be interpreted.

"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 see, what the second amendment is trying to say is that, in order to regulate the militia, the people of the united states shall have the right to keep and bear arms. The second amendment was written right after a two year war with an oppressive army - one which spent a lot of effort upon removing the weapons of the citizens and rebels. When the war was over, the founding fathers knew that a similar battle could be fought in the future. They wanted the people - US - to be able to fight back against an oppressive government militia (which is what they called an army back then).

So, a more modern version of the same wording would read:

"In order to keep the power of the army and government in check, when it is necessary to ensure freedom and liberty, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed".


This doesn't mean that people only get weapons during war - during war, people will get weapons quickly enough if they ally themselves with countries who would like to see the oppressing nation fall (thus our collusion with the French during the revolutionary war). Arms deals are pretty easily done in cases of rebellion. No, this amendment preserves the right of the people to hold onto their weapons so that they'll have them when the fighting starts. After all, this is what the founding fathers would have liked for their war at the beginning.

Furthermore, the founding fathers didn't like the idea of a standing, professional army. Professional armies lead to continual fighting, because the people of a country with a standing army wants to see its tax money used for fighting, not for slacking. Also, a professional army tends to lead to more ambivalence about war, because the army is made of volunteers who know that they are getting into the business of war. If the army was a draft army, it would take a much larger deal to get us to go to war, because the average civilian doesn't want to fight.

Therefore, the founding fathers wanted the average citizen armed so that they could defend the country against both outside forces and corruption within. It's really quite simple.