What does the Second Amendment Really Say?
In any debate over gun rights, a command of the
English language is much more useful I think than a degree in political science
or history. For example, pro-gun control advocates, if they are honest, cannot
argue with the rules of grammar although they will try. The Second Amendment
reads, “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.”
The word State does not refer to the larger American nation but to the
individual states which created the union.
The first thirteen words of the Second Amendment
form a dependent clause, that is a clause that cannot stand alone. While adding
information to the sentence, making it more interesting to read, it is not a
complete thought and by itself does not constitute a sentence because it lacks a
subject and a verb, both of which are required even if the subject is assumed as
in the command “Go!”
A dependent clause being unnecessary to the sense
of a sentence, to its completeness, it can be deleted, and if we delete the
introductory dependent clause from the Second Amendment, we are left with the
complete sentence: “The right of the people to keep and bear Arms (complete
subject) shall not be infringed (verb).”
Reducing this most hotly-debated amendment down to
“bare bones,” it does not say that the president, the U.S. Congress or the
Supreme Court, because an evil man in Connecticut committed an unspeakable act,
may now infringe even a little, even with “common sense” measures or rulings
from the bench, on this precious right of the people who reside in the several
states. Federal usurpers of the power that is constitutionally reserved to these
states are fond of using those first thirteen words of the Second Amendment to
justify regulating arms. But the Bill of Rights expressly protects the states
from all three branches of the federal government, a government, as we have seen
in recent times, that is inclined to grow ever more tyrannical improperly
applying the Fourteenth Amendment or using the excuse that something must be
done “for the children.” President Obama and the Congress have no authority to
force extra-constitutional gun “safety” legislation on the states. SCOTUS has no
right to rule on state laws regarding guns. State governments may deal with the
regulation of militia, the regulation of guns, if their citizens allow these
governments to do so.
Many of us oppose the gun grab in Maryland, and we
are fighting it tooth and nail. But this fight is taking place as it should-- at
the state level (and all the shouting might be over by the time this letter is
published). If those of us who love liberty in Maryland should lose this battle
as we did the one over “marriage equality,” we can shrug our shoulders and give
up, continue to fight or vote with our feet...the latter more and more the
remedy Marylanders are seeking as carpetbaggers continue to ruin our once free
state. On the other hand, because the “red” counties in Maryland outnumber the
“blue,” another option might be secession or, more correctly, partition from
Montgomery County and the other urban areas now holding conservative,
freedom-loving Maryland hostage. It's worth thinking about at least.
