Comment by sb057 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by sb057 | Hacker News Reader

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The framers were obviously varied in their opinions and intentions, but some of them were quite clear:

>"To disarm the people...[i]s the most effectual way to enslave them." - George Mason, father of the Bill of Rights

>"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." - Elbridge Gerry, contributor to the Bill of Rights

>"[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. This appears to me the only substitute that can be devised for a standing army, and the best possible security against it, if it should exist." - Alexander Hamilton

>"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." - Tench Coxe, delegate to the Continental Congress

Here's the thing: Both the Federalists and Anti-Federalists opposed a standing army and saw it as a tool of oppressors. If you want a second amendment, you need to also support defunding the military and a return to militias and mercenaries. But that's not usually the argument presented. Also there's been a federal standing army basically since the US was founded.

Now, let's go to Madison, the father of the Constitution and all that. He firmly opposed a professional (i.e. standing) army when he wrote the constitution. Tool of tyrants, yadda yadda. However, President Madison who exists 30 years in the future, comes out and says "I could never have believed so great a difference existed between regular troops and a militia force, if I not witnessed the scenes of this day." in response to 2 state militias getting demolished by the British Army.

IDK. They put the 2nd amendment in, and then immediately undermine the philosophical point of governance it's meant to make. Democracy is weird, government is hard, and coming up with 100% accurate statements about the unified sentiments of a group of dozens/hundreds of people from 250 years ago is impossible. I guess that's my point?

“If you want a second amendment, you need to also support defunding the military and a return to militias and mercenaries.”

That doesn’t follow from this:

“Both the Federalists and Anti-Federalists opposed a standing army and saw it as a tool of oppressors.”

Why not? If the 2nd amendment is in place to prevent the need for a standing army by allowing for militias to exist and serve as the defense force therefor the maintenance of a standing army is unneeded. The other option is that you support a standing army which is a tool of oppression.

Either you support the 2nd amendment as a means of national defense or your support handing the tools of oppression to the government, per the founding fathers.

Where did you get the idea that the only purpose of a “well-regulated militia” is to completely replace a standing army? Just because some of the founders were against the idea of standing armies doesn’t mean that they saw it as an “either/or” proposition.

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