The Second Amendment Does Not Protect Your Right To Own Guns
I think we have grossly misinterpreted the second amendment of the U.S. constitution.
the second amendment
In the U.S., few debates spark as much passion and division as the conversation about firearms. Identifying with one side of this argument is often a matter of personal belief, and there are certainly arguments to be considered on both sides. Everything from the current state of the economy to our culture and the accessibility of fire-arms play a role in developing complex statistics for firearms that fuel a contentious debate on the legality of firearms and their role in our society.
Both sides of this argument have some solid arguments to cement them. Chief among these arguments is one of the more contentious aspects of this discussion; The Second Amendment. The Second Amendment is the second amendment to the U.S. constitution, the second of the ten bill of rights — an integral and important document which outlines the freedoms and tools to protect those freedoms endowed to each U.S. citizen.
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.
This amendment is often cited on the individual-firearm side of the argument to counter the arguments of legislation or prohibition coming from the regulation side of the argument. As a result, even courts have upheld that the ownership of firearms is one of the many endowed rights given to every American, under law, by the U.S. constitution. In my perspective, however, this is a complete misinterpretation of the second amendment. In my perspective, it is also hard to believe that more people have not pointed this out, and I have never seen this argument presented by someone else before.
a bit of grammar
I think part of the reason for my different interpretation of this amendment is that I write and read a lot; even when I was adamant that private citizens should own guns, the second amendment’s provision was not the reason for doing so — or even a supporting argument. To elaborate, we need to take things back to elementary school for a second.
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.
Consider the predicate and subject of this sentence. In my perception, A well-regulated Militia is the subject, and shall not be infringed is the predicate. being necessary to the security of a free state and the right of the people to keep and bear Arms are both apositive phrases; parts of a sentence which provide further context, or elaboration, to the subject. For example, this sentence, is centered around an apositive phrase where example is elaborated on by this sentence . In this case, we are saying A well-regulated Militia , being necessary to the security of a free state , and the right of the people to keep and bear Arms are all elaborating on the same subject.
The other interpretation of this is pretty far from correct grammar. A well-regulated Militia is the first subject, being necessary to the security of a free State is the second subject, and the right of the people to keep and bear Arms is the third subject. These all, I suppose, form a compound-subject which then uses the predicate shall not be infringed . So under this interpretation, being necessary to the security of a free state is being used as a noun, or at least — similarly to A well-regulated militia is being used as an adjective and a noun to create a subject. What exactly is being necessary to the security of a free state , if it is not an elaboration of what a well-regulated militia is?
In another interpretation, we could argue that being necessary to the security of a free state is an elaboration of a well-regulated militia , but the right of the people to keep and bear Arms is a separate noun. But joining an apositive phrase for the first subject to another subject without a coordinating conjunction like and and or does not seem like it would be done intentionally.
To my point, I doubt that in the founding document for a new country they would have included glaring grammatical errors like this. The writers of this constitution were well-versed in English; many of them being scholars, though some of them lacking formal education. Frankly, I don’t think that this amendment has ever been meant to protect firearms, I think there is just an obvious misinterpretation of it that plays to the fact 54-percent of us cannot read above a 6th grade level (The National Literacy Institute). Early court cases, like United States v. Miller (1939), recognized that the right to bear arms was tied to the militia, not necessarily to individuals owning weapons unrelated to service. This has certainly shifted over time, especially with the 1970s and 80s push by lobby groups to redefine gun ownership as an individual right.
does it even really matter?
In this article, I have conveyed exactly why I think the second amendment does not protect the ownership of firearms for individual citizens, and why I think that the other interpretation takes an extremely charitable view of the structure of the sentence — essentially manipulating the structure of the sentence to be grammatically incorrect in order to convey the meaning that one wants it to.
I think the conversation on what to do about firearms is an important one. I think that both sides have stake and reasonable arguments to be made, but I also do not think the second amendment is one of them. While I think it is important to disprove this misinformation for the sake of preserving and better understanding history, I do not think that the 2nd Amendment, ultimately, should have any relevancy or stake in our discussion of regulating firearms today. Not only is the context an entire galaxy away from the context at that time, but that is a silly way to make decisions. Should we get rid of guns, should we strengthen regulations on guns, or should we continue to let them stand as they are? I don’t know… It’s not my question to answer, that is for sure.. but what I do know is that the second amendment isn’t the thing that we should be making that decision based on. We should be making the decision using the same pragmatic logical principles we should be making all decisions with.
