Are you for or against the 2nd Amendment??

[jmg257]

112. I'm for the 2nd. The militia purpose is fairly obsolete, but the founders

didn't choose these amendments lightly. Though it seems even with those that were thought important enough to include, Madison felt c/would be disregarded if the situations warranted it.

Madison to Jefferson

"Wherever the real power in a Government lies, there is the danger of oppression. In our Governments the real power lies in the majority of the Community, and the invasion of private rights is cheifly to be apprehended, not from acts of Government contrary to the sense of its constituents, but from acts in which the Government is the mere instrument of the major number of the constituents.
...
Supposing a bill of rights to be proper the articles which ought to compose it, admit of much discussion. I am inclined to think that absolute restrictions in cases that are doubtful, or where emergencies may overrule them, ought to be avoided. The restrictions however strongly marked on paper will never be regarded when opposed to the decided sense of the public; and after repeated violations in extraordinary cases, they will lose even their ordinary efficacy."

Restricting the govt against infringing on the rights of the people was certainly NOT avoided.

Still - the purposes of the 2nd have been under-minded in the past, with the recreation of the Militias as the National Guard, and our keeping of a huge military. Infringes to the right to keep and bear arms has been going on for ever, and at least since the NFA 1934, even when the militia purposes were considered.


*Edit to add: and now that the militia purposes has been minimized by Scalia et. al., the way is open for all kind of restrictions being upheld. {see NY Safe Act and its challenges}