Washington Post Lies That It Is a ‘Myth’ That the 2nd Amendment Was to Protect Americans from Government
Jeremy R. Hammond
December 29, 2012
The Washington Post often has “Five myths…” articles that are really obnoxious because if you are going to say that something is a “myth”, you need to prove that it is false, but what these articles mostly do is to just express opinions – and, occasionally, to state outright lies. Take the recent example of “ Five myths about gun control“, and look at the fifth “myth”:
- 5. The Second Amendment was intended to protect the right of
Americans to rise up against a tyrannical government.
- This canard is repeated with disturbing frequency. The Constitution, in Article I, allows armed citizens in militias to “suppress Insurrections,” not cause them. The Constitution defines treason as “levying War” against the government in Article III, and the states can ask the federal government for assistance “against domestic Violence” under Article IV.
- Our system provides peaceful means for citizens to air grievances and change policy, from the ballot box to the jury box to the right to peaceably assemble. If violence against an oppressive government were somehow countenanced in the Second Amendment, then Timothy McVeigh and Lee Harvey Oswald would have been vindicated for their heinous actions.
- This canard is repeated with disturbing frequency. The Constitution, in Article I, allows armed citizens in militias to “suppress Insurrections,” not cause them. The Constitution defines treason as “levying War” against the government in Article III, and the states can ask the federal government for assistance “against domestic Violence” under Article IV.
1) The first argument:
- The Constitution, in Article I, allows armed citizens in militias to
“suppress Insurrections,” not cause them.
- The Congress shall have Power … To provide for calling forth the
Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and
repel Invasions;
- The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution,
nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States
respectively, or to the people.
In fact, even this clause from Article I, Section 8, granting authority to Congress to call up the militia, was intended to protect the people from a tyrannical federal government! At the Virginia Ratifying Convention on June 14, 1788, James Madison advised that the best way to prevent and protect the people from the “evil” of a standing army (that is, a permanent military force, as we have in the USA today) was to have a well-armed militia:
- The most effectual way to guard against a standing army, is to render
it unnecessary. The most effectual way to render it unnecessary, is to
give the general government full power to call forth the militia, and
exert the whole natural strength of the Union, when necessary. Thus you
will furnish the people with sure and certain protection, without
recurring to this evil…
- The militia, sir, is our ultimate safety. We can have no security
without it…. The great object is, that every man be armed.
- We are told, we are afraid to trust ourselves; that our own
representatives Congress will not exercise their powers oppressively;
that we shall not enslave ourselves; that the militia cannot enslave
themselves, &c. Who has enslaved France, Spain, Germany, Turkey, and
other countries which groan under tyranny? They have been enslaved by the
hands of their own people. If it will be so in America, it will be only
as it has been every where else.
So much for the Post’s first argument.
2) Let’s look at its next supposed proof: Article III, Section 3. This, the Post tells us, “defines treason as ‘levying War’ against the government“. From that, we are supposed to draw the conclusion that taking up arms against “the government” even if in self-defense against tyrannical abuses would constitute an act of “treason”. Just intuitively, as an elementary moral principle, that interpretation cannot be right. Such an interpretation is irreconcilable with the principles espoused in the Declaration of Independence:
- We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created
equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable
Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of
Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among
Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That
whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is
the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new
Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its
powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their
Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments
long established should not be changed for light and transient causes;
and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed
to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by
abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train
of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a
design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is
their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for
their future security.
- Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War
against them…
- Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War
against them…
So much for the Post’s second argument.
3) Turning to the Post’s third supposed proof, it next cites Article IV, Section 4, stating that “the states can ask the federal government for assistance ‘against domestic Violence’ under Article IV.” Yes, it does. But notice that no argument is actually presented here. Let’s turn again to what the clause actually says, in full:
- The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a
Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against
Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive
(when the Legislature cannot be convened), against domestic
Violence.
4) Finally, the Post suggests the following syllogism: (a) if the purpose of the 2nd Amendment was to guarantee the right of the people to bear arms to defend their Liberty from tyrannical government, (b) then that would mean that acts of terrorism like the bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City or assassinations like the killing of John F. Kennedy would be legitimate acts of violence; but (c) since we do not accept such acts of violence as legitimate but recognize them as crimes, (d) therefore that cannot have been the purpose of the 2nd Amendment. Does the Post actually expect its readers to take this buffoonery seriously? Do we actually have to point out that (b) does not follow from (a), and therefore (d) does not follow from (c)? This is just idiocy.
And that is it. That is the best the Post could do to support its assertion that it is a “myth” that the 2nd Amendment was intended to protect the people from tyrannical government. Okay, so the Post hasn’t proven that it is a “myth”. But can we prove that it is not a myth? Certainly! And so could have Robert J. Spitzer, the author of this “5 myths…” article, or the Post editors, had they spent 10 or 15 minutes Googling the matter to educate themselves about what the Founding Fathers actually had to say about the purpose of the Amendment they had drafted.
First, let’s look at the 2nd Amendment:
- 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.
- Who are the militia? They consist now of the whole people…
- [R]egular troops, and select corps, ought not to be kept up without
evident necessity…. A militia, when properly formed, are in fact the
people themselves, and render regular troops in a great measure
unnecessary…. [T]o preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body
of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when
young, how to use them….
- Who are the militia? Are they not ourselves? Is it feared, then, that
we shall turn our arms each man gainst his own bosom. Congress have no
power to disarm the militia. Their swords, and every other terrible
implement of the soldier, are the birthright of an American…. [T]he
unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or
state governments, but, where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the
hands of the people.
At the Virginia Ratifying Convention on June 14, 1788, George Mason warned against the threat to Liberty of the government disarming the people, stating:
- Forty years ago, when the resolution of enslaving America was formed
in Great Britain, the British Parliament was advised by an artful man,
who was governor of Pennsylvania, to disarm the people; that it was the
best and most effectual way to enslave them; but that they should not do
it openly, but weaken them, and let them sink gradually, by totally
disusing and neglecting the militia.
- The Constitution shall never be construed…to prevent the people of
the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own
arms.
- [T]he ultimate authority, wherever the derivative may be found,
resides in the people alone….
- [S]hould an unwarrantable measure of the federal government be unpopular in particular States, … the means of opposition to it are powerful and at hand. The disquietude of the people; their repugnance and, perhaps, refusal to co-operate with the officers of the Union; … and where the sentiments of several adjoining States happened to be in unison, would present obstructions which the federal government would hardly be willing to encounter.
- But ambitious encroachments of the federal government, on the authority of the State governments, would not excite the opposition of a single State, or of a few States only. They would be signals of general alarm. Every government would espouse the common cause. A correspondence would be opened. Plans of resistance would be concerted. One spirit would animate and conduct the whole. The same combinations, in short, would result from an apprehension of the federal, as was produced by the dread of a foreign, yoke….
- The only refuge left for those who prophesy the downfall of the State governments is the visionary supposition that the federal government may previously accumulate a military force for the projects of ambition…. The highest number to which, according to the best computation, a standing army can be carried in any country, does not exceed one hundredth part of the whole number of souls; or one twenty-fifth part of the number able to bear arms. This proportion would not yield, in the United States, an army of more than twenty-five or thirty thousand men. To these would be opposed a militia amounting to near half a million of citizens with arms in their hands, officered by men chosen from among themselves, fighting for their common liberties, and united and conducted by governments possessing their affections and confidence. It may well be doubted, whether a militia thus circumstanced could ever be conquered by such a proportion of regular troops…. Besides the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation, the existence of subordinate governments, to which the people are attached and by which the militia officers are appointed, forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition, more insurmountable than any which a simple government of any form can admit of. Notwithstanding the military establishments in the several kingdoms of Europe, which are carried as far as the public resources will bear, the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms. And it is not certain that with this aid alone they would not be able to shake off their yokes. But were the people to posses the additional advantages of local governments chosen by themselves, who could collect the national will, and direct the national force; and of officers appointed out of the militia, by these governments and attached both to them and to the militia, it may be affirmed with the greatest assurance, that the throne of every tyranny in Europe would be speedily overturned, in spite of the legions which surround it.
- [S]hould an unwarrantable measure of the federal government be unpopular in particular States, … the means of opposition to it are powerful and at hand. The disquietude of the people; their repugnance and, perhaps, refusal to co-operate with the officers of the Union; … and where the sentiments of several adjoining States happened to be in unison, would present obstructions which the federal government would hardly be willing to encounter.
- 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-defense … against the usurpations of the national rulers…. The
citizens must rush tumultuously to arms….
- [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 discipline and the use of arms, who stand
ready to defend their own rights and those of their
fellow-citizens.
- As civil rulers, not having their duty to the people 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
article in their right to keep and bear their private arms.
- Another source of power in government is a military force. But this,
to be efficient, must be superior to any force that exists among the
people, or which they can command: for otherwise this force would be
annihilated, on the first exercise of acts of oppression. Before a
standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in
almost every kingdom in Europe. The supreme power in America cannot
enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people
are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops
that can be, on any pretence, raised in the United States. A military
force, at the command of Congress, can execute no laws, but such as the
people perceive to be just and constitutional; for they will possess the
power, and jealousy will instantly inspire the inclination, to resist the
execution of a law which appears to them unjust and oppressive.
- No freeman shall ever be debarred the use of arms.
- What country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not
warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of
resistance. Let them take arms.
- Laws that forbid the carrying of arms…disarm only those who are
neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes…. Such laws make things
worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather
to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be
attacked with greater confidence than an armed man.
- The supposed quietude of a good man allures the ruffian; while on the
other hand, arms like laws discourage and keep the invader and the
plunderer in awe, and preserve order in the world as well as
property.
- The thoughtful reader may wonder, why wasn’t Jefferson’s proposal of
‘No freeman shall ever be debarred the use of arms’ adopted by the
Virginia legislature? They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a
little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
- A free people ought…to be armed….
- The whole of the Bill [of Rights, including the 2nd Amendment] is a
declaration of the right of the people at large or considered as
individuals…. It establishes some rights of the individual as unalienable
and which consequently, no majority has a right to deprive them
of.
- What, Sir, is the use of a militia? It is to prevent the
establishment of a standing army, the bane of liberty…. Whenever
Governments mean to invade the rights and liberties of the people, they
always attempt to destroy the militia, in order to raise an army upon
their ruins.
- In his influential Commentaries on the Constitution, Joseph Story,
certainly no friend of Anti-Federalism, emphasized the “importance” of
the Second Amendment. He went on to describe the militia as the “natural
defence of a free country” not only “against sudden foreign invasions”
and “domestic insurrections,” with which one might well expect a
Federalist to be concerned, but also against “domestic usurpations of
power by rulers.” “The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has
justly been considered,” Story wrote, “as the palladium of the liberties
of a republic; since it offers a strong moral check against the
usurpation and arbitrary power by rulers; and will generally, even if
these are successful in the first instance, enable the people to resist
and triumph over them.”
- We also see this blending of individualist and collective accounts of the right to bear arms in remarks by Judge Thomas Cooley, one of the most influential 19th century constitutional commentators. Noting that the state might call into its official militia only “a small number” of the eligible citizenry, Cooley wrote that “if the right [to keep and bear arms] were limited to those enrolled, the purpose of this guaranty might be defeated altogether by the action or neglect to act of the government it was meant to hold in check.” Finally, it is worth noting the remarks of Theodore Schroeder, one of the most important developers of the theory of freedom of speech early in this century. “[T]he obvious import [of the constitutional guarantee to carry arms],” he argues, “is to promote a state of preparedness for self-defense even against the invasions of government, because only governments have ever disarmed any considerable class of people as a means toward their enslavement.”
- We also see this blending of individualist and collective accounts of the right to bear arms in remarks by Judge Thomas Cooley, one of the most influential 19th century constitutional commentators. Noting that the state might call into its official militia only “a small number” of the eligible citizenry, Cooley wrote that “if the right [to keep and bear arms] were limited to those enrolled, the purpose of this guaranty might be defeated altogether by the action or neglect to act of the government it was meant to hold in check.” Finally, it is worth noting the remarks of Theodore Schroeder, one of the most important developers of the theory of freedom of speech early in this century. “[T]he obvious import [of the constitutional guarantee to carry arms],” he argues, “is to promote a state of preparedness for self-defense even against the invasions of government, because only governments have ever disarmed any considerable class of people as a means toward their enslavement.”
http://www.jeremyrhammond.com/2012/12/29/washington-post-lies-that-it-is-a-myth-that-the-2nd-amendment-was-to-protect-americans-from-government/
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