The True Meaning Of The Second Amendment

So, some of you may think I read an advance copy of Kurt Schlichter's piece yesterday when I wrote:

Ultimately, it must be realized that Heller was a step on the road back to achieving the fullest meaning of the Second Amendment. If we truly understand the Second Amendment, civilians would be allowed to own and posses, including training with, the personal defensive armaments carried by our soldiers at the time.

But, no, I did not read an advanced copy, and Mr. Schlichter and we do not know each other. But, I really like where he is coming from in the article entitled Don't Ban Assault Weapons-Make Them Mandatory!  Schlichter writes:

I was gravely disappointed with Judge Robert Benitez’s California federal court ruling that the Golden State’s ban on “assault weapons” like AR-15s is unconstitutional. It manifestly is unconstitutional, but the judge’s ruling does not go far enough. He should have found that our Constitution requires every healthy, law-abiding adult citizen to have a real assault rifle like an M16 – or, because diversity is important, an M4 – to defend his community and his country from all enemies both foreign and domestic.

That’s my modest proposal du jour – make our peaceful and secure society’s free riders carry their own rucks for once. We need to stop outsourcing the dirty and dangerous work of protecting society to the LEOs and soldiers who make up maybe 5 percent of the population. The other 95 percent need to get with it. It is people with guns who built and maintain a society so peaceful and prosperous that ridiculous twits can babble about “privilege” and engage in similarly frivolous nonsense without a care in the world. You can’t in most places – you’re either too busy trying not to starve, or the local tough guy would squash you like a bug for running your fool mouth. Somebody has to defend the freedom of idiots to explore the outer limits of their own idiocy, and for too long only a small percentage of citizens have picked up a rifle to do it.

As usual, Schlichter makes me feel a little too timid, but I agree with him 100%. This has already been done, by the way. Switzerland had a very similar system, in which every young man entered the army, was trained, then took his rifle home with him. The reason? So at a moments notice he could be called out to defend his country. The intent of the Second Amendment is so that each of us would be minute men, capable of being called up at a moments notice to defend out community and our country.

But there are other reasons for a return to the true meaning of the Second Amendment, which do not have to do directly with the common defense.  Rather, it has to do with our seriousness of purpose.  I fear we as a nation have become frivolous.  How else to explain President * and his incredibly light weight of a vice president?  How to explain Congressional leaders, who seem to be working very hard to destroy this country?  How to explain people like Eric Swalwell, or Adam Schiff, and there are others, even being elected?  Or that our universities no longer train young people to have the knowledge and skills necessary to be capable citizens, instead indoctrinating them in "studies" and "activism."

There are other salubrious effects of requiring every citizen to take personal responsibility for the protection of his family, his community, his state, and his Constitution. When every citizen owns a weapon, with the expectation that they will join together with other citizens in times of strife and chaos, that focuses their minds wonderfully. They are engaged, and cognizant that American citizenship is not a spectator sport. Because it shouldn’t be.

Outsourcing the tough stuff has made us weak and timid. Adults blubber that mean tweets have them literally shaking. Grown men wear masks while jogging. Grown women read Fifty Shades of Grey on purpose.

This unbefitting a great people, a warrior people.

We must demand of ourselves rigor and risk. We must demand that everyone step up. We must stop being a nation of sheep and one of, well, mostly not sheep. There will still be some sheep, but they should be shamed and scorned. Possessing your automatic weapon would be both a privilege and an obligation. We can exclude people who are physically, mentally, or emotionally unable to do it. We can bar felons. We can have conscientious objectors too, if they actually have a real religious objection as opposed to just not wanting to do their fair share. They can be medics and serve as citizens with honor. But otherwise, do your duty, fellow American.

The Founders had just fought the superpower of their day, so being serious, rigorous, and taking the biggest risks of all was recent memory. We haven't faced such a threat in 76 years, but a serious people would realize that such threats are always a possibility. An ancient Roman adage was that "If you want peace, prepare for war." It was true then, and it is true today. And the best way to prepare for war is to have every man, and woman for that matter, be armed.  But it is also true, as Heinlein said, that an armed society is a polite society.  And we could use a little politeness, couldn't we?