Last month, I blogged about this odd Naomi Wolf moment:
Few young Americans understand that the Second Amendment keeps their homes safe from the kind of government intrusion that other citizens suffer around the world; few realize that "due process" means that they can't be locked up in a dungeon by the state and left to languish indefinitely.
Now she's posted a defense:
Many writers have asked whether I intended to refer to the Second Amendment when I mentioned that we have been free of intimidation by the government that other citizens experience around the world. I did indeed intend to refer to the Second Amendment, though not in the sense that most of the email about this assumed. I was referring to militias -- "a well regulated Militia" --not to private gun ownsership.Often today, the Second Amendment is associated in our minds with the private right to bear arms, which is the subject of a case--District of Columbia v. Heller--at the US Supreme Court this year. Rather, I was referring to the historical origin of the Second Amendment, as the protector of local militias that would be more closely accountable to the people than a federal army. Many in the founding period were distrustful of a large standing army: they - and their wives and children - had experienced abuse at the hands of unaccountable soldiers in their midst.
They wanted to make sure that local governments retained their own protection against foreign invaders and ALSO against the potential for domestic tyranny. An abusive military, secret police force, or network of paramilitary militias,directed to intimidate or oppress citizens to whom they are not accountable, are one of the ten key tools of those who seek a crackdown against democracies or democratic movements -- see Italy in the 1910s, Germany in the 1930's, East Germany in the 1950's or Russia, Egypt, Myanmar, Pakistan, or pretty much any closing or closed society today. The Second Amendment protects U.S. citizens by protecting local militias that are closely accountable to the people. The states are still allowed to have their own militias, which are referred to as State Guards or State Defense Forces (as opposed to the National Guard, which is part of the federal army). Twenty-five states have such guards, which are under the direction and control of the governor of the state.
I could have done better than this on a freshman composition, spotting Ms. Wolf three beers and an entire day wasted on Law & Order marathons. The most charitable interpretation was that Ms Wolf was a stealth second-amendment absolutist coming out of the closet to announce, in an ill-phrased and opaque way, that she thought that our third and fourth amendment rights were ultimately protected by the right of the public to keep and bear arms, and to rise up against a government that did not abide by the constitution. The second most charitable interpretation was that Ms. Wolf was a closet second-amendment supporter of a slightly hysterical bent, kept awake nights by the worry that without the second amendment, the United States government would long ago have instituted house-to-house searches to seize our guns. The third most charitable explanation, and the one that struck me as the most likely, is that Ms Wolf had made a typo. Since op-eds are generally given more leeway than straight articles, no one caught it.
But rather than offer any of these explanations, Ms. Wolf has tried to argue that the approximately 12,000 members of the state defense forces are the main thing standing between you and the 1.5 million members of the active duty military, 1.3 million members of the active reserve, and the million or so police officers and federal agents in the United States. Without those brave 12,000 souls, you see, the Federal Government would even now be roaming freely through your living room, rustling through the Precious Moments collectibles, raiding the fridge and probably hogging the remote. The next time you get up to fetch another beer, and return to your couch without tripping over a DEA agent, or the long dark night of fascism gripping our nation's soul, how about taking a moment to give silent thanks to those brave militiamen? And of course, the founding fathers who had the foresight to write their courageous service right there into our constitution, instead of doing something stupid, like giving you your own gun to shoot the federales when they showed up at your door demanding a place to sleep and a few warrantless searches to keep them entertained while you cook.
Please note that the most charitable interpretation was supported in the comments section that was retrieved within 30 seconds of research using google. So the claim that "Ms Wolf was a stealth second-amendment absolutist coming out of the closet" doesn't make much sense, because her views on the Second Amendment could be found in published places online, and, of course, though a perusal of her best selling and recently published book.
Ummm, except that the most charitable explanation has now been publicly rejected by Naomi Wolf.
Megan-
Strangely enough, I can easily believe your "most charitable interpretation".
It's much like when "progressives" try to make an issue of Republican 'authoritarianism'...
"Authoritarianism is bad!" -- (Unless it's S.S., Medicare, mandated health insurance, public schools, smoking bans, etc.)...
Thus, I'm quite sure Ms. Wolf really meant, "Guns are bad!" -- (Unless they're being used by the Nat'l Guard to defend our 3rd/4th Amendment rights...)
Maybe she's one step ahead of us! She comes out for the 2nd Amendment, and when challenged, she talks about the importance of local and state militias. Then we fall right into her trap by pointing out that local militias don't exist and state militias are militarily trivial. Naomi rounds on us, and says "the 2nd Amendment is now null and void, because its premise no longer exists--game, set, match!"
First they came for the militias.....
Yikey crikey, mate -- I think Rickm has the schoolyard hots for Naomi Wolfe!
Point of reference, bud: she's 45. If you're going to pine dreamily after brunettes you would have no chance with in any setting this side of romantic candlelight and a delectable creme broule at Le Petite Nuclear Fallout Shelter, may I point out that you've already made it to AI, and our hostess is a decade and a half younger than Wolfe?
Well your most charitable information, which was obviously deduced from evidence only contained in Wolf's op-ed. Those that did research showed in the comments section that Wolf had rather peculiar views on the Second Amendment. You can even search through her book online at Amazon--you don't even have to leave the computer!
The second admendment is very clear. The people who wrote this admendment, who adapted it, had lived their entire lives with various sorts of government regulations on gun ownership. Some better than others and they wanted regulations to continue. So the second admendment does that and more. It says that gun owners are to be WELL regulated, which means that if the state is not going to do it I suppose the federal government can step in and provide the regulation required.
I had been inclined to take the least charitable explanation here. But if Wolf actually is pro-gun rights, then in fact that seems, weirdly, like the MOST likely explanation, and that she did in fact mean to refer to the "2nd Amendment". Pro-gun-rights liberals are few and far between; if she actually favors gun rights, and favors them strongly enough to have written about it in her book and elsewhere, then it certainly seems like those views are a prominent part of her political psyche, and easily account for her seemingly odd mention of the 2nd Amendment in an otherwise boilerplate liberal op-ed.
There's a very reasonable (not charitable) explanation you overlooked:
When the US was founded the framers decided against maintaining a standing army. They worried that a standing army would inspire tyranny. So protection was passed to the states.
Not sure if I missed something, but the charitable explanation for your confusion is that youu don't know what Klein meant by "I was referring to the historical origin of the Second Amendment."
all of this is very interesting except for the part where the idea was contained in the "English Bill of Rights 1689" : "That the subjects which are Protestants may have arms for their defence suitable to their conditions and as allowed by law;"
even though many of those rights were representative of the religious/political nature of that time, it is clear that the rights were intended to be given to individuals... it has always seemed to me that, like Wolf, some tend to concern themselves with the idea of a militia, instead of the phrase 'shall not be infringed'.
What someone should point out to Wolf is that we have been failing in our responsibility to have a well regulated militia, therefore by requirement of the constitution, a militia of all citizens should be required to form, and they should all be armed.
Can you imagine Naomi with a glock at the shooting range?
I just want to point out that in most cases, members of the state militias are also members of the National Guard or Reserve.
I knew a retired Marine Corps Gunnery Sergeant who was a Major in the New York Naval Militia.
a) Naomi Wolf did not put it in the past tense; she said "keeps their homes safe from government intrusion"
b) Naomi Wolf's interpretation of the Second Amendment is bizarre
c) Her statement that the state militias are what "keeps their homes safe" makes absolutely no sense.
d) It wouldn't make any more sense if it referred to the (partly federalized) national guard.
To paraphrase an old US Army marketing slogan. I am a "Militia of One"
I certainly don't envision citizens taking their private arms to overthrow the government anytime soon, but the idea that armed citizens would have to have greater firepower than the US military is, I think, not correct. They would only need enough firepower so that the all volunteer military would refuse to execute the necessary carnage on the citizenry.
Having served in the (peacetime) Marine Corps myself I can't see a combat infantry unit applying their art and firepower to destroying US civilians on any scale that would exist if the overthrow of the government was at hand.
As an example of the limits of discipline when it comes to attacking their own civilians (among many other things), the Civil War precipitated some half of all commissioned officers in the US Army to resign their commissions and take up arms against it.
"b)Naomi Wolf's interpretation of the Second Amendment is bizarre"
It's amazing how such a short group of words is not only interpreted so many different ways, but is the subject of so much consternation...
but the best bit I found by accident was this in the wiki:
The Second Amendment, as passed by the House and Senate, 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 original and copies distributed to the states, and then ratified by them, had different capitalization and punctuation:
“ 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.
emphisis mine... surely I don't know if it mattered to them back then that the capitalization and punctuation changes the meaning, because they may have all had a similar conception of the meaning back then...
Seems like the protagonists of the hair splitting on the idea of militia should be making more of that fact though... Using the capital would seem to formalize the idea, while the other would be people who would form up to defend their own homes just by nature...
A little detail .... the state guards are generally UNARMED and forbidden to have arms. That is the rule for the Georgia State Defense Force.
Oh, and our wonderful governors would never let his troops bust down doors and take guns and harm citizens. WRONG. Look at what happen in New Orleans. Little old ladies were thrown to the ground by police officers with the backup of the US Army. Or go back in time to 1906 during the Atlanta Race Riots. Back then the Governor's own troops raided the black section of town, evicted all the residents from their homes at the point of a bayonet, then confiscated the blacks weapons.
In Title 10, Section 311 both organized and unorganized militia are defined.
Unorganized militia includes all males from 17 to 45, and (for us old guys) to age 65 for males with prior military service.
Now, that unfortunately leaves out women. Further, it doesn't do much in the way of regulating, which meant in the times the Founders, the ability to fire accurately and load in a timely manner.
I would suggest that Section 311 be amended to expand the definition of unorganized militia to include adult women, and to remove the prior service restriction for persons such as police officers, forest rangers, or anyone who can prove their fitness by a minimum skills exam.
Further, protected unorganized militia should be required to own a weapon suitable for firing a recent (Non-antique) service caliber round. That would perhaps be .50BMG, .30-40, .30-06, .308 Winchester, .223 Remington or 12 gauge for long arms, and .45 Colt, .45ACP, .38 special, 9mm for sidearms.
"the Civil War precipitated some half of all commissioned officers in the US Army to resign their commissions and take up arms against it."
Uh, No. Rather, the Civil War was precipitated by the southern state govermnents who formed an illegal compact, with the help of officers (to include Floyd, the Secretary of War) who engaged in a conspiracy to steal Federal property. That some of the officers later resigned does not change the illegal nature of their acts.
Darn. Guess that magnamity which was showed the Southrons after their defeat got them all confused. Should have bayoneted them all to get the point across.
Naomi Wolf believes that it makes sense to compare the Bush administration to the Nazi regime of Hitler's Germany, so why would any rational person give a moment's thought to anything she has to say? Were she less comely, we'd never have heard of her.
I know the acts of Confederate officers were treasonous, yet those officers would not have resigned their commissions had the southern states not seceded from the union.
Your pedantic observation misses my point entirely, which was that expecting the US military to direct its full firepower toward US civilians is an unwarranted foregone conclusion.
And I'm from Minnesota - so your keen insight misfires a second time. But keep trying!
Er, most likely but completely uncharitable explanation:
Naomi Wolf is rather poorly educated, but because she was poorly educated in prestigious schools she has extremely high "self-esteem" about her vapid "insights." And because she circulates among a group of similarly "gifted" manhattanocrats she is only exposed to a contrary opinion when she makes a blatant howler on the net.
I wonder if Rickm is actually Wolf mounting the Greenwalds Defence (manifest yourself as a lot of sock puppets touting your own credentials).
Brown-shirted fascism is sooo last century. Today's authoritarians wear lab coats or caps and gowns, and slice liberty away one translucent layer at a time. Citizen-owned guns, unfortunately, are to this situation what nuclear weapons are to US foreign policy.
I am an immigrant and naturalized US citizen who grew up in a third world country. Although warrants are required by law there to search a private residence, this is often violated by police and government agents who routinely and illegally search private homes without a warrant or the permission of the residents. This is so routine that it does not make the news. It's just the way things are. Complaining about it will get you into even more trouble with the Polizei, who after all know where you live.
Coincidentally, firearms ownership is tightly restricted so the odds are very great that the homeowner who is being violated is also disarmed and cannot object to the violation in any tangible manner. The police may thus enter the residence without having to weigh the possibility of bodily harm to themselves or others.
In this country, I notice that half the households are armed, and coincidentally, unlawful entrances into private residences by Police are quite rare, so much so that we hear about them in the news when they happen.
So from my experience living in two very different countries, Naomi Wolf's defense of the Second Amendment as keeping our "homes safe from the kind of government intrusion that other citizens suffer around the world" makes perfect sense to me and is factually accurate.
Of course, her latest defense of her position is incoherent. She should have stuck to her original position.
“ 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. ”
If you think the individual rights reading of the 2nd is unfortunately clunky- Wolf's reading is downright bizarre. A much clearer wording would be something along the lines of "The right of the militia (being necessary for the security of a free state) to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." Wolfs reading is beyond confusing as the militia is not the subject of the sentence, as her interpretation indicates.
Regardless, it still comes back to the phrase 'the right of the people to keep and bear arms'. If you define 'the people' collectively you have a problem with 'the people' mentioned in the 1st amendment and elsewhere.
For what it's worth:
The 12,000 state defense forces you refer to are probably the "organized militia". However, there are a few more than 12,000 residents of Wyoming alone between the ages of 17-70. Many other states have similar acts making essentially all adults members of the militia at large.It's also worth noting that most regulations that have been written pertaining to the militia at large require all members of the militia to maintain suitable weapons and ammunition, and to train in their use; not quite the sort of regulation the anti-gun faction has in mind.
Good interpretations but you missed the most likely one that explains her initial position and her change of heart.
It seems that Ms. Wolf was walking past Bible Thump University and heard the students singing the National Anthem, "Onward Christian Soldiers", and she realized that the only thing that could stop the coming theocracy is a well armed citizenry. She knew the Armed Forces couldn't help because "there are no atheists in foxholes" and that she and her fellow citizens would have to protect the Constitution. At that moment she understood the importance of the Second Amendment, it was like the heavens spoke to her. Then she realized that liberals don't own guns, that only the God-fearing rabble owned guns and they wouldn't be on her side. So she repented, she got her mind left and she's once again a well respected member of society.
It says that gun owners are to be WELL regulated, which means that if the state is not going to do it I suppose the federal government can step in and provide the regulation required.
Posted by ken
I can only hope that for your sake these comments were satirical in nature.
I could have done better than this on a freshman composition, spotting Ms. Wolf three beers and an entire day wasted on Law & Order marathons.
Which is about average for a Wolf performance.
My question is: why are this random ditz's random blatherings considered newsworthy?
I agree that Wolf's interpretation of the 2nd Amendment is bizarre, particularly in that it's crazy to suggest that the state militias are keeping our houses safe from jackbooted ATF thugs, or whatever. Of course, I also think it's crazy to suggest that our individual guns are keeping us safe from jackbooted ATF thugs, any more than Iraqis' individual guns are keeping them safe from jackbooted US troops, jackbooted Mahdi Army troops, jackbooted AQI troops, or anyone else with jackboots or without.
However, I do think that it's clear now that she didn't refer to the 2nd Amendment by mistake. She actually meant to say that. She may have weird views on the Constitution, but she knows which amendment is which, and Megan's original use of her piece to occasion a post was clearly premised on the assumption that Wolf was ignorant of the Bill of Rights. Anyway, having weird views on the Constitution is hardly something of which most of commenters on this site are innocent.
Er . . . I think a more likely explanation is that she made a mistake, and concocted this bizarre explanation as a way to claim it wasn't a mistake, while still not angering her ideological compatriots with an excessively heterodox position on the second amendment.
Well if she made a mistake, she must have been pretty prescient, because she substantiated her explanation IN A CHAPTER OF HER BOOK. I think I saw someone do the same thing on NBC's Phenomenon magic show.
I don't see how using the militia part of the language doesn't open up the question of private armies. And at the very least, it means federal regulation of military hardware outside of WMD (maybe) is completely illegal. If Colorado wants to go Switzerland style and have an M-16 in every home, the Feds can't stop them.
Wolf's views on the second amendment are clear enough in her book. Roughly stated, she sees executive control over the National Guard as a sign that Bush is a facist.
The problem has always been her use of the present tense in the op ed. Her statement that "Few young Americans understand that the Second Amendment keeps their homes safe from the kind of government intrusion that other citizens suffer around the world" isn't really consistent with her belief that the true meaning of the Second Amendment has been eviscerated by increasing federal control over the state militias.
Certainly, after the Civil War, the Reconstruction, and the confrontations over school desegregation, the idea that a state might use its militia to resist federal authority over its citizens today is laughable.
Still, we can charitably assume that Wolf meant to write something along the lines of "Few young Americans understand that the Second Amendment was intended to protect their homes from search and seizure of the kind experienced around the world, and that with the erosion of that Amendment, they are now vulnerable to just such searches."
That sentence would be wrong, and sort of stupid (Does Wolf believe that the biggest problem with illegal searches is the Feds, and that the state and local authorities refrain from searching their citizens? If anything, the only thing holding back the states from searching the h*ll out of their citizens is the federal courts, backed by federal authority. If the states were inclined to use their militias to resist the federal government, they would presumably use them to keep their Ten Commandments tablets, resist school integration, and the like.)
That said, although Wolf's point is poorly expressed and poorly thought out, it isn't necessarily[*] quite as laughable as Megan suggests.
[*] It's still an open question what Wolf meant. Although her goofy theory of the Second Amendment has shown up in her writing before, I don't think she's ever argued that the Second Amendment protects Americans from unreasonable searches. It would be like me saying that the Second Amendment is responsible for allowing Americans to petition their government, and then arguing that although the right to petition is technically protected by the First Amendment, I meant that if Courts declined to enforce the First Amendment, Americans could still use their weapons to protect their rights. Not only is that interpretation less likely than a simple mistake, it's also logically flawed. If the Courts won't enforce the Fourth Amendment, which actually protects homes from unreasonable search, why would they protect the Second Amendment, which might theoretically give the states the ability to resist unreasonable searches, were they inclined to do so?
Most people don't really see the connection between the 2nd Amendment and individual gun ownership. that's why you are always seeing references to militias by the anti-gun crowd. As the founding fathers saw it, individuals had to be able to have their own arms as the local militia was not in a position to arm the citizens. An unarmed population meant no militias.
Re. the second amendment: "well regulated" does not mean GOVERNMENT REGULATED as too many statists are apt to think today. This turn of phrase was in common usage in the eighteenth century and meant that a thing was reliable and orderly. A mechanical clock which could be depended on to keep accurate time was called "well regulated", and it did not mean that the government had any part in coercing it to keep good time.
Not to disparage the many fine people who serve in the organized state militias... but Ms. Wolfe reveals a severe lack of knowledge of even fairly recent history.
In her opinion, the organized state militias exist to protect citizens from the federal government? Well, que custodiet ipsos custodes, Ms. Wolfe?
Has she forgotten Kent State?
Am I the only one who can see Rickm's posts? Like the rabbit in Harvey?
It seems pretty far-fetched that she didn't mean to voice a strange support of the second amendment, given that she has in other places voiced the same strange position. It also seems pretty silly to invent and publish a belief you don't hold, just to deny having made a typo.
Beyond the "was it a typo" issue though, if we want to be charitable, there's a lucid point in there somewhere. Yes, today's American society is pretty stable and not at great risk of invasive federal tyranny (despite legitimate complaints about Gitmo and phone taps, they pale in comparison to serious police states), but we didn't arrive at this society instantly and magically. I suspect that the local militia culture did contribute substantially to getting us where we are today.
Sure, sure, sure. When the founders wrote "...the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed" They actually meant the right of the people to keep and bear arms may be infringed.
As Ken puts this argument:
"The second admendment is very clear. The people who wrote this admendment, who adapted it, had lived their entire lives with various sorts of government regulations on gun ownership. Some better than others and they wanted regulations to continue. So the second admendment does that and more. It says that gun owners are to be WELL regulated, which means that if the state is not going to do it I suppose the federal government can step in and provide the regulation required."
Maybe someone has already mentioned this, but . . .
From the Constitution of the State of Michigan:
ARTICLE 17
MILITIA
Militia; members; military duty; exemptions.
Sec. 1. The militia shall be composed of all able bodied male citizens between the age of eighteen and forty-five years, except such as are exempted by the laws of the United States, or of this State; but all such citizens, of any religious denomination whatever, who, from scruples of conscience, may be averse to bearing arms, shall be excused therefrom, upon such conditions as shall be prescribed by law.
Same; organization.
Sec. 2. The legislature shall provide by law for organizing, equipping, and disciplining the militia, in such manner as they shall deem expedient, not incompatible with the laws of the United States.
Same; officers, election, appointment, commission.
Sec. 3. Officers of the militia shall be elected or appointed and be commissioned in such manner as may be provided by law.
Other states have similar provisions (I know that Illinois does). This would seem to mean that the militia of Michigan consists of some 4-5 million people. If they have firearms, and there are a *lot* of deerhunters in Michigan, I think they could put up a reasonable fight against the combatants the US military could send in.
Per The Snob:
"Brown-shirted fascism is sooo last century.
Today's authoritarians wear lab coats or caps and gowns, and slice liberty away one translucent layer at a time."
Well put!
Three observations:
1. The semantic hair-splitting over which "militia" the Amendment refers to is irrelevant and ultimately tautological. The "militia" comprises all armed citizens, whether organized into a National Guard unit or State Defense Force or UNorganized--i.e., regular folks who keep arms in their homes. This is reflected in a federal statute:
United States Code: Title 10 -- Armed Forces
Subtitle A
Chapter 13
Sec. 311.
The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age and...under 45 years of age...
The classes of the militia are the organized militia, which consists of the National Guard and the Naval Militia; and the unorganized militia, which consists of the members of the militia who are not members of the National Guard or the Naval Militia.
2. Legal scholars across the political/philosophical spectrum (e.g., Larry Tribe) agree that the Second Amendment guaranties an individual right to bear arms.
3. Wolf is no constitutional scholar. She was a superficial, pretentious LitCritChick at Yale who curried favor with an allegedly lecherous professor. After reaping the benefits of that association, presumably including support for her application for a Rhodes Scholarship, she pilloried him in one of her literary vessels (the vast majority of which which can fairly be characterized as new bottles for old feminist whines).
Wolf's only legitimate claim to fame is her spectacularly bad advice to Al Gore during the 2000 campaign to wear earth tones and assume the demeanor of an "alpha male." The results of this effort were (a) silly outfits, (b) a performance in the debates that cemented Gore's image as a looming Frankenstein's monster (remember how he crept up behind Bush and handed Bush his first laugh line?), and (c) spectacular embarrassment for the campaign when it was forced to admit it paid Wolf $15,000 per month for this idiotic advice.
She's the Oakland of the public intellectual scene--there's no "there" there.
Certainly, after the Civil War, the Reconstruction, and the confrontations over school desegregation, the idea that a state might use its militia to resist federal authority over its citizens today is laughable.
===============================================
Interesting point - when Eisenhower sent Federal troops to Little Rock in 1957 to keep order during the high school desegregation, he also had the DoD call up the entire Arkansas National Guard. These NG troops were then "Federalized" and ordered to remain in their armories throughout the crisis. Eisenhower wanted to take away any possibility that Gov. Faubus would call up the Guard to keep the kids "out" of the high school and cause a confrontation with the troops coming in. Apparently Ike didn't think it was laughable.
My dad was a captain in the Arkansas NG in 1957 and told me about this.
"She's the Oakland of the public intellectual scene--there's no "there" there."
Thanks, mondonico, for the best laugh I'll likely have today. I am so totally stealing that line.
;->=
Campesino, that's my point. Eisenhower was concerned that the Guard might get in his way, so he prevented that by telling them not to.
Do you seriously believe that Federal agents' ability to search homes is limited in any material respect by their concern that the state national guard might stop them?
My estimate is that the feds search to the very limit of the range permitted to them by the federal courts, plus a little bit, which suggests that the Fourth Amendment is limiting them, but the state militias, not so much.
The Bill of Rights was written to assure the Antifederalists that the feared Nanny State (modern terminology) being created by the Federalists would not deprive the citizens of their rights. Hence, when talking about individual rights, the Framers used the term "the people," when talking about State's rights, they used the term "State." So, while recognizing that the State had a right to form a militia, the Framers also recognized the individual right to bear arms (own guns). It was intended to be the Antifederalist "check and balance" on the government being created under the Constitution. The Framers were revolutionaries themselves, and realized that governmental power could be abused, and thus were not opposed to reminding the government that its power came from the people, could be taken back by the people, and since the people had guns, it was not a meaningless threat. There are many fine law review articles about this, I recommend that the militia-only morons would read them.
The words of J.C. Fogerty come to mind...
"Someone got excited/Had to call the State Militia..."
"Do you seriously believe that Federal agents' ability to search homes is limited in any material respect by their concern that the state national guard might stop them?
My estimate is that the feds search to the very limit of the range permitted to them by the federal courts, plus a little bit, which suggests that the Fourth Amendment is limiting them, but the state militias, not so much."
Of course, a large part of the reason for this is that so far, the large majority of the population isn't sufficiently afraid of the Feds knocking down their doors to get exercised about the issue. After all, that's something that only happens to drug-dealing "other people."
Were that perception to change, however, the state militias might start to take a much more active role, to say nothing of the average gun-owning American individual.
"Other states have similar provisions (I know that Illinois does). This would seem to mean that the militia of Michigan consists of some 4-5 million people. If they have firearms, and there are a *lot* of deerhunters in Michigan, I think they could put up a reasonable fight against the combatants the US military could send in."
This brings up the interesting thought that the same people who have been complaining for the past few years about the trouble our military has been having against a bunch of "rag-tag" Iraqis, and using this as a major argument for pulling out, are the same people who have no confidence that a whole bunch of regular, gun-owning Americans couldn't give the same trouble to a authoritarian government and its military.
JorgXMcKie:
I stole the line from Gertrude Stein. (I consider it her best literary work.)
http://www.bartleby.com/66/37/55537.html
The references to Reconstruction are interesting. It has been argued that Reconstruction, and specifically the incorporation of certain of the Bill of Rights by the 14th Amendment, reinforces the case for the individual right to bear arms. The freedmen were in dire need of weapons to protect themselves from the Klan and others, particularly since local authorities might not.
This thesis is laid out and, IMHO, proven, in Freedmen, the Fourteenth Amendment, and the Right to Bear Arms, 1866-1876, by Stephen P. Halbrook (Praeger, 1998, 248 pp., $57.75).
Here's an excerpt from a review:
Senator Samuel Pomeroy of Kansas, one of the proponents of the Fourteenth Amendment, articulated what he called three “safeguards of liberty . . . which are indispensable”:
1. Every man should have a homestead, that is, the right to acquire and hold one, and the right to be safe and protected in that citadel of his love.
2. He should have the right to bear arms for the defense of himself and family and his homestead. . . .
3. He should have the ballot. (p. 26)
Halbrook shows how Congress heard testimony concerning the disarming of freedmen and white Unionists, which enraged Republicans. Conversely, opponents of the Fourteenth Amendment criticized Republicans for hypocrisy in supporting the Fourteenth Amendment, since military authorities in a number of southern states had disarmed whites, while allowing blacks to form militias. Some western members of Congress, while supportive of guarantees of the right to keep and bear arms for freedmen, “wished to exclude Indians and Chinese from citizenship. Williams of Oregon argued that if Indians were citizens, then state laws that prohibited whites from selling arms and ammunition to Indians would be void” (p. 13).
The Fourteenth Amendment grew out of earlier congressional efforts to use statutes to protect civil rights in the South. The most notable of these was the Freedmen’s Bureau Bill. The bill explained that the “full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security of person and estate, including the constitutional right of bearing arms" was in need of protection against state and local governments (pp. 16-17). That “the constitutional right of bearing arms” needed to be protected against state government infringement is plainly incompatible with Handgun Control, Inc.’s theory that the Second Amendment guarantees a right of state governments, not a “right of the people.”
Debate and reports associated with the Civil Rights Act of 1871 pointed out that the Fourteenth Amendment had given Congress the power to protect “the right in the citizen to ‘keep and bear arms.’” The Civil Rights Act further provided that “whoever shall take them away, by force or violence, or by threats and intimidation, the arms and weapons which any person may have for his defense, shall be deemed guilty of larceny of the same. . . .” (p. 122).
http://www.davekopel.com/NRO/2001/Check-the-Footnotes.htm
The framers lived with gun regulations all their lives. In some places it was illegal to fire a gun at night. In some places it was illegal to leave a loaded weapon ready for use in a house or barn or other structure. In some places it was illegal to fire a gun across certain parts of a road. In some places it was illegal to hunt for game without state residency. There were many and various other regulations on gun ownership.
And in all places the arms of private citizens were subject to legal confistication and use by the state for its own purposes to arm its active militia. Since all citizens were generally considered part of the militia all citizens fell under the gun regulations of the day.
This regulation was desirable by the framers who wanted it continued in conjuction with the self arming of the nations citizenry. So they specifically called for gun owners to be well regulated in the text of the second admendment. They even gave a reason why this was necessary: for 'security'.
Today arms are ubiquitous but regulations have not kept up with the need for them. Hence we have places where gun owners deny people the 'security' promised by the second admendment itself.
"Today arms are ubiquitous but regulations have not kept up with the need for them. Hence we have places where gun owners deny people the 'security' promised by the second admendment itself."
Really? Which regulations do you have in mind that will add to a militia being well maintained? I happen to believe that just like all the other liberties spelled out in the Bill of Rights, the 2nd is subject to some limits. That could mean keeping weapons in good condition or requiring some sort of training. But I get the feeling your idea of well maintained somehow implies removing weapons from the populace. That to me seems the opposite of what you are calling for. Not to put words in your mouth, but what are you getting at?
Please provide a citation for this particular regulation during the time of the framers.
This is so contorted that it is laughable.
Oh, mondonico, I recognized the authorship, I was just appreciative of the use in context. I suspect that would be a difficult insult to understand did one not know its exegesis.
David Perry, I am guessing that the people who don't understand how a bunch of "rag-tag" Iraqis (and others) could cause such damage to a modern army have no idea about the folks I grew up with. Fighting them would make the Iraqi insurgents look tame. For one thing, they blend into the general population because they *are* the general population. For another, they are more disciplined marksmen, trust me. Additionally, they would most likely have almost total voluntary support of all the local non-combatants. They have been hunting (and making illegal alcohol and growing marijuana) for decadesn and fishing on the rivers and in the sloughs. Even a few of them, willing to kill, would be a very potent adversay, *unless* one were willing to disregard 'collateral' damage and go for mass killing.
ken, yes, those poor inhabitants of D.C. are "den(eid) . . . the 'security' promised by the second admendment itself" by all those firearms possessed by their neighbors. Same for Chicago and NYC. Really, what planet did you grow up on, and did you arrive from the Mothership with Kucinich?
Morton Grove, IL banned gun laws and saw its crime rate rise, while that town in GA that passed an ordinance all but compelling homeowners to own and keep a firearm in the house saw their crime rate drop during the same period.
And Switzerland. How doggone dangerous is *that* place what with all those fully automatic military weapons that are *required* in just about every household?
David Perry writes:
...so far, the large majority of the population isn't sufficiently afraid of the Feds knocking down their doors to get exercised about the issue. After all, that's something that only happens to drug-dealing "other people."
Were that perception to change, however, the state militias might start to take a much more active role, to say nothing of the average gun-owning American individual.
David, it seems to me that that's fair but a little unlikely. If the feds' searching became unacceptable to the majority of the population, the most likely response would be electing a new president at the federal level. (In addition, under 4th Amendment constraints, it might be hard for the Feds to search homes so pervasively as to upset the majority).
The only circumstance I can imagine where the state national guards might come into play would be where the voters in a majority of states supported seaching the citizens of a smaller number of states in suffient numbers to upset the citizens of those states. It's hard to imagine that happening in real life, though, and even then, there are about 70 things that would happen before the state seriously considered resisting search by use of its militia.
The much more common circumstance, IMHO, is that the state wishes to search its citizens and is limited by federal authority, which is the opposite of what Wolf now claims she believes occurs.
Kevin, Boston was one place where it was illegal during colonial times to leave a loaded weapon inside a house or other structure ready for use. Apparently they had too much trouble with volunteer firemen getting shot at by unattended guns when the owners fled without remembering to bring their loaded weapons with them.
Just google it.
In other places there were regulations limiting the amount of gunpowder that could be kept at home and stict regulations on the storage of same.
Jorg,
All guns in Switzerland are registered and the owners are required to leave their families and jobs and report to the government and submit to obedience training for several weeks at a time.
I'd agree with you that this is not a bad idea for gun regulation in America as well but I'm afraid it is not politically feasable at the moment. We have too many gun nuts.
ken,
you seem to be ignorant of the regulations in place today covering the very things you point out as historically regulated. e.g.
"In other places there were regulations limiting the amount of gunpowder that could be kept at home and stict (sic) regulations on the storage of same."
There are federal regulations covering the amount of gunpowder and how it should be stored in place today. The regs cover black powder and smokeless powder.
Likewise, from your previous posts, there are laws and regulations about discharge of firearms. Most of those show up under hunting regulations. The regs generally limit type of firearm and where they may be discharged according to population density. Hunting regs generally prohibit shooting from or across any road and close to any dwellings. In fact, there has to be an exception in the law allowing you to discharge a gun in an otherwise prohibited place for self-defense.
You sound a lot like anti-gun folks that constantly suggest that laws, which already exist, should be enacted. Guns are already heavily regulated by a myriad of laws. So many in fact, that it can be a daunting task to make yourself aware of them all.
Never mind all that. The crucial issue: does Ms. McArdle own Precious Moments collectables? Please say it isn't so.
Just so the facts are known: there were 1,098 commissioned officers in the Regular Army in 1861. 286 resigned and joined the Confederacy. Of the 350 West Pointers from slave states in service, 162 stayed with the Union and 168 "went South".
Thus, it appears that only about a quarter of the officers "went South", those being about half the number from the South.
“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."
I believe the founders were trying to say:
The right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed, [since] a well regulated militia [is] necessary to the security of a free State.
The right was justified based on the need for militias; but if militias go away, the right does not go away with them IMO.
"The Second Amendment protects U.S. citizens by protecting local militias that are closely accountable to the people. The states are still allowed to have their own militias, which are referred to as State Guards or State Defense Forces (as opposed to the National Guard, which is part of the federal army). Twenty-five states have such guards, which are under the direction and control of the governor of the state."
So now Naomi's for states' rights, too? Man, I'm liking this girl more every day...
Another argument is that licensing laws alone, in conjunction with today's technologies, simply satisfy the 'well regulated' part of the 'militia' controversy.
I would be all for a gun licensing/registration/mandatory training scheme, handled on a state level. I am NOT currently in favor of such a scheme because there are powerful lobbies out there who have explicitly stated that they want such systems in place as a precursor to siezing all guns.
This is not a paranoid slippery-slope argument but a reasonable response to passionate anti-gun lobbies and organizations who are mainstream enough to be cause for concern.
When the anti-gun nuts are marginalized, I may be more willing to consider gun registration/licensing schemes.
I encourage those who hate guns to put signs in their front yards proclaiming their house a gun-free zone...
EI
You guys will be laughing out the other side of your mouth after Col. Wolf's Amazon Militia takes over.
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