Context of the 2nd Amendment

Washington DC

Description

The 2nd Amendment was written in 1791. The American Revolution had only ended 8 years previously and there was a question of what to do with what had been 13 individual military groups from each colony and whether they should all be folded in to one national army or allowed to continue and be governed by the individual states. The 2nd Amendment was the answer to that question. States would have the right to their own militias. We still have National Guard units in each state today that are the direct result of this amendment. The 2nd Amendment was never intended to deal with the rights of individual gun ownership as that would have been an insane thing to even question at a time when settlers were just beginning to push into the Mississippi valley and hunted food to survive and regularly had armed conflicts with the native Americans whose land they were taking. It was an absolute given at that time that gun ownership by individuals was an absolute must for survival. No one would have thought otherwise in that era. The map shows just how small the United States was in 1791. And it was very sparsely populated in most areas. Does that mean people today that don't hunt for a living and aren't regularly having armed conflicts with native tribes still need the right to have guns or that the breech load single ball firing muskets of 1791 are comparable in any way to the thousand round per minute assault rifles available today? Of course not. Things have changed in 230 years. Many laws have changed including the right to own other human beings. While I have no objection to citizens owning a breech loading musket, I'd rather not have criminals running around with assault rifles and full body armor as happened in an LA bank robbery several years ago. Reasonable people should be able to own a reasonable amount and type of weapon. Something like 2 handguns, 1 bolt action rifle, 1 shotgun, and 1 semi-automatic rifle per household seems more than adequate for hunting and home protection. Additional licensing could be issued for hunters, collectors, etc. I come from a family that had guns and hunted as a kid. I have no interest in confiscating guns. I've never felt citizens didn't have the right to own guns. I've just always known what the 2nd Amendment was written to address and it was clearly about militias. Read some history for context and it's very obvious what the discussion at the time was all about.