Tuesday, July 21, 2020

The Uniqueness Of Our Second Amendment

An excellent article on some of the thinking behind the Second Amendment can be found at, of all places,The Hill by John M. DeMaggio entitled Our Second Amendment: A Rejection Of Nobility. DeMaggio is particularly qualified to expound on such topics by his background as a Navy Captain and a Special Agent In Charge for the U. S. Postal Service Inspector General. He points out that while the Second Amendment today is usually about guns, historically bearable arms were bladed weapons, and in particular, the sword.  Swords were usually worn and wielded by those of noble birth, and were also typically denied to the common man. For the first time, our Second Amendment acknowledged that everyone had the right to bear arms for their personal defense, and defense of the state.

Of course, it is not just the lofty goal of "all men are created equal," that the Second Amendment radically affirms, but also the notion that there are no religious restrictions on the right to bear arms. 
Under the Second Amendment, while “keep… arms” bolsters the First Amendment’s guaranteed religious freedom, the right to “bear arms” solidified the Constitutional rejection of “Titles of Nobility” and reaffirmed that “all men are created equal” with an “equal station” as stated in the Declaration of Independence.
I wonder if opposition to the Second Amendment’s right of people to “bear arms” might also be — at some level — a rejection of the “equal station” of all people, a reaffirmation of a sort of “Nobility,” a sense of privilege by an established “professional political class?”

No comments:

Post a Comment