We Must Have Access to Every Personal Weapon the Soldier Musters Out With Today and in the Future

 David Codrea, writing at Firearm News in an article entitled Next Generation Army Rifle Highlights Danger of 'Common Use' Argument to Defend 2nd Amendment. Codrea makes the point that the true meaning of the Second Amendment is that civilians, being ultimately the militia, should have access to the same or better weapons as the military. And it makes sense if you think about the Second Amendment for a few minutes. If civilians are to be called up as the militia, when they muster out with their own weapons and ammunition, you want them to be compatible with the military's such that they can share ammunition with their military counterparts.

If the Bruen standard, of text, history, and tradition is to guide the law, what was in common use at that time was equal or superior (like the more accurate and longer-ranged Pennsylvania/ Kentucky rifles) to the Crown’s standard-issue Brown Bess musket. Citizens mustered with the intent to match and to best a professional military threat. Arms “in common use at the time” by everyone meant arms in common use by infantries, who would otherwise prevail if not matched (and surpassed) in capability.

Rather than deter tyranny, a dictated inferiority would invite it. To argue otherwise is to argue the Founders thought sending an outmatched yeomanry to their slaughter was “necessary to the security of a free State.” That’s insane.

And the prohibitionists are aided in citizen disarmament when “gun rights leaders” not only accept – but argue for an invented “in common use at the time” qualifier that limits permitted firearms to what is commercially popular, as opposed to what soldiers and police carry (with the latter somehow magically transmuting their “assault rifles” and “weapons of war” into the more benign “patrol rifles”).

But Codrea's other point is that using the 'common use' argument of Heller is a trap that ensures the government can ban future weaponry because it is not currently in common use.

If “the people” of the Second Amendment can be denied arms based on them not being “in common use” for sport and for limited “self-defense” situations, what chance would they have resisting tyranny equipped with future weaponry that today would be considered the stuff of science fiction? Who knows what those imposing their demands will have at their disposal, along with the power to withhold from citizens 50 years from now, or 100, or beyond?

Since no innovation ever begins “in common use,” a government with the power to do so can ban all new weapon developments from those they would rule, retaining them exclusively for itself. It’s what I warned about when I wrote “Things to Come” back in 2002 for Guns and Ammo:

“It’s been said that a battle isn’t won until a man with a rifle occupies the ground. We must keep in mind that someone probably once said the same thing about spears.”

I urge gentle readers to read all of Codrea's article. It is important to understand exactly where we stand with regard to the right to keep and bear arms. We have made great progress over the last several decades clawing back our birthright from the jaws of the gun grabbers. But we must always keep our eyes on the prize. Biden claims that even cannon were not owned by private citizens when the Second Amendment was ratified. But he is wrong. Wealthy people did own cannon and sometimes armed local militia with cannons and other arms as well. If the Second Amendment means what it says it means, we should have access to every personal weapon that the soldier musters out with today and in the future to be able to deter tyranny.