Gutting the National Guard

PUT the crack pipe down.

 

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Army-related arms

The Swiss army has long been a militia trained and structured to rapidly respond against foreign aggression. Swiss males grow up expecting to undergo basic military training and a mandatory period of service in the Auszug (the active-duty field army), after which Swiss men still remain part of the militia either in a home guard (Landwehr) or reserve capacity (Landsturm) until age 42 (age 52 for officers). Each such individual keeps his army-issued personal weapon (the Sig 550 5.6 mm assault rifle for enlisted men, the SIG-Sauer P220 9mm semi-automatic pistol for officers medical and postal personnel) at home with a specified quantity of government-issued ammunition, sealed and inspected regularly to insure that no unlawful usage takes place.

When relieved of duty, militiamen have the choice of keeping their personal weapon and other selected items of their equipment. The government sponsors training with rifles and shooting in competitions for adolescents wishing to.

The sale of ordnance ammunition - including Gw Pat.90 rounds for army-issue assault rifles - is subsidised by the Swiss government and made available at the many shooting ranges patronised by both private citizens and members of the militia. There is a regulatory requirement that ammunition sold at ranges must be used there. Indeed, while the sale of all ammunition is registered at the dealer if purchased at a private store, ammunition purchased at a shooting range is not.

In addition to the general tendency of self-discipline running strongly throughout the Swiss national character, the Swiss Army maintains tight adherence to high standards of proper military conduct. In 2005, for example, the Swiss prosecuted Auszug recruits who had reenacted the torture scenes of Abu Ghraib, one of the charges having been improper manipulation of service weapons

 

sorry but our national guard does not take guns home like the swiss can so the feds can butt fuck your wife while you watch . unless you made a effort to invest on a few guns.

 

"To Keep and Bear Arms"

The "right of the people" that the Second Amendment secures is a right "to keep and bear Arms." As the previous subpart showed, those who hold the right are, according to the text, "the people" - individuals - not the government or even the militia. The phrase "to keep and bear Arms" is consistent with this conclusion: The phrase "keep . . . Arms" reinforces it, (45) and the phrase "bear Arms" is not inconsistent with it.

 

"To Keep . . . Arms."

In eighteenth-century English, an individual could "keep arms," and keep them for private purposes, unrelated to militia duty, just as he could keep any other private property, and the phrase was commonly used in this sense. For example, in Rex v. Gardner (K.B. 1738), a defendant charged with "keeping a gun" in violation of a 1706 English statute (which prohibited commoners from keeping specified objects or "other engines" for the destruction of game) argued that "though there are many things for the bare keeping of which a man may be convicted; yet they are only such as can only be used for destruction of the game, whereas a gun is necessary for defence of a house, or for a farmer to shoot crows." The court agreed, reasoning that "a gun differs from nets and dogs, which can only be kept for an ill purpose." (46) The Court of Common Pleas six years later treated Gardner as having "settled and determined" that "a man may keep a gun for the defence of his house and family," (47) and in 1752 the King's Bench reiterated that "a gun may be kept for the defence of a man's house, and for divers other lawful purposes." (48) The same usage appeared in an earlier prosecution of a man for "keeping of a gun" contrary to a statute that barred all but the wealthy from privately owning small handguns. (49)

William Blackstone, whose Commentaries on the Laws of England, first published in the decade before the American Revolution, was the leading legal authority in America at the Founding, wrote, without any reference to the militia, of "person" who are "qualified to keep a gun" and are "shooting at a mark," apparently on their own property. (50) He also noted that certain persons could not "keep arms in their houses," pursuant to a statute that used "keep" to signify private ownership and control over arms, wherever located. (51) Colonial and early state statutes similarly used "keep" to "describe arms possession by individuals in all contexts," including requiring those exempt from militia service (such as the over-aged) to "keep" arms in their homes for both law enforcement and "the defense of their homes from criminals or foreign enemies." (52) At the Massachusetts Ratifying Convention in 1788, Samuel Adams proposed an amendment prohibiting Congress from "prevent[ing] the people of the United States, who are peaceable citizens, from keeping their own arms," indicating ownership by individuals of private arms. (53) And that State's Supreme Court, in a libel case soon after the Founding, likened the "right to keep fire arms" to the freedom of the press, both being individual but not unlimited rights - the former not protecting "him who uses them for annoyance or destruction." (54) The basic dictionary definition of "keep" -"[t]o retain" and "[t]o have in custody"- was consistent with this specific meaning. (55)

In short, the phrase "keep arms" was commonly understood to denote ownership of arms by private citizens for private purposes. When that phrase is read together with its subject - "the right of the people" - the evidence points strongly toward an individual right. Had the Constitution meant not to protect the right of the whole "people" to "keep" arms but instead to establish a "right" of the States or of only the members of their militias to store them, presumably it would have used different language

 

"To . . . Bear Arms."

To "bear" was, at the Founding as now, a word with numerous definitions - used with great "latitude" and "in very different senses," as Samuel Johnson noted in his dictionary. (57) Its basic meaning was simply to "carry" or "wear" something, particularly carrying or wearing in a way that would be known to others, such as in bearing a message, bearing another person, or bearing something as a mark of authority or distinction. (58) As a result, "bear," when taking "arms" as its object, could refer to multiple contexts in which one might carry or wear arms in this way. (59) It is true that "bear arms" often did refer to carrying arms in military service. (60) But the phrase was not a term of art limited to this sense. Arms also could be "borne" for private, non-military purposes, principally tied to self-defense. For example, an early colonial statute in Massachusetts required every "freeman or other inhabitant" to provide arms for himself and anyone else in his household able to "beare armes," and one in Virginia required "all men that are fittinge to beare armes" to "bring their pieces" to church. (61)

There are also several examples closer to the Founding. In 1779, a committee of eminent Virginians including Thomas Jefferson and George Mason, charged with revising the new State's laws, authored a bill penalizing any person who, within a year of having violated a restriction on hunting deer, "shall bear a gun out of his inclosed ground, unless whilst performing military duty." This bill demonstrates that to "bear a gun" was not limited to "performing military duty." James Madison submitted this bill to the Virginia legislature in 1785. (62) Many early state constitutions, including some written before the Founding (Pennsylvania's and Vermont's) and one written a month after Secretary of State Jefferson declared the Bill of Rights ratified (Kentucky's), protected an individual right to "bear arms" in "defense of himself and the State" or in "defense of themselves and the State," indicating that a person might be said to "bear arms" in self-defense. (63) A 1780 opinion of London's Recorder (the city's legal adviser and the primary judge in its criminal court) on the legality of a private self-defense association acknowledged "the rights of the people of this realm to bear arms, and to instruct themselves in the use of them, collectively," albeit within limits. (64) In a newspaper commentary published in major cities after Madison introduced the Bill of Rights in Congress, a friend of his wrote that the proposed Second Amendment would "confirm[]" the people's "right to keep and bear their private arms." (65) Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story, in his 1833 Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States, paraphrased as a "right to bear arms" the right of English "subjects . . . [to] have arms for their defence," an individual right not tied to service in the militia. (66) Finally, other examples of contemporaneous uses of "bear arms" to denote actions of individuals appear in cases from the early 1800's up to the Civil War, discussed below in Part IV.B.

The Minority Report issued by twenty-one delegates of the Pennsylvania Convention that ratified the Federal Constitution in late 1787 illustrates the various uses of the phrase at the time, including both the right of private "bearing" and the duty of "bearing" for the government in the militia. The report recommended amending the Constitution to recognize "[t]hat the people have a right to bear arms for the defence of themselves and their own State or the United States, or for the purpose of killing game" and also urged exemption from militia service for those "conscientiously scrupulous of bearing arms." Although the Minority Report was a product of Anti-Federalists, who had lost at that convention and who lost the battle over ratifying the Constitution, we are unaware of any contemporaneous criticisms that this widely circulated document misused language in giving such senses to the phrase "bear arms." (67)

1. In sum, although "bear arms" often referred to carrying or wearing arms in connection with military duty, it was not limited to such a meaning. When, as in the Second Amendment, those words are used in conjunction with "keep arms," which commonly did refer to private action, and the whole phrase "to keep and bear Arms" is used in the context of a "right of the people," (68) we conclude that the core, operative text of the Amendment secures a personal right, which belongs to individuals. We next consider whether the Amendment's prefatory language requires a different conclusion.

 

"A Well Regulated Militia, being Necessary to the Security of a Free State"

A feature of the Second Amendment that distinguishes it from the other rights that the Bill of Rights secures is its prefatory subordinate clause, declaring: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, . . . ." Advocates of the collective-right and quasi-collective-right interpretations rely on this declaration, particularly its reference to a well-regulated militia. On their interpretation, the "people" to which the Second Amendment refers is only the "people" in a collective, organized capacity as the state governments, or a small subset of the "people" actively organized by those governments into military bodies. "People" becomes interchangeable with the "State" or its "organized militia."

This argument misunderstands the proper role of such prefatory declarations in interpreting the operative language of a provision. A preface can illuminate operative language but is ultimately subordinate to it and cannot restrict it.

1. Wholly apart from this interpretive principle, this argument also rests on an incomplete understanding of the preface's language. Although the Amendment's prefatory clause, standing alone, might suggest a collective or possibly quasi-collective right to a modern reader, when its words are read as they were understood at the Founding, the preface is fully consistent with the individual right that the Amendment's operative language sets out. The "Militia" as understood at the Founding was not a select group such as the National Guard of today. It consisted of all able-bodied male citizens. The Second Amendment's preface identifies as a justification for the individual right that a necessary condition for an effective citizen militia, and for the "free State" that it helps to secure, is a citizenry that is privately armed and able to use its private arms.

 

The "Militia."

A key claim of the collective-right and quasi-collective-right schools with regard to the Second Amendment's preface is that a "well regulated Militia" is a standing military organization or body of troops, of limited size, organized and governed by state governments, albeit concurrently with the federal Government (akin to voluntary select forces such as the National Guard that were established over a hundred years after the Amendment was adopted). As a result, the argument goes, the Amendment merely protects the States against federal efforts to undermine such forces, either by protecting the States directly or by protecting only persons serving in those forces. (87)

1. This argument disregards the understanding of the "Militia" at the time of the Founding. As used in the Second Amendment, and elsewhere in the Constitution, "Militia" referred to a body consisting of all adult male citizens up to a certain age (anywhere from forty-five to sixty), the goal being to include all who were physically capable of service. It was not limited to a select force of persons in active military duty. This entire population of able-bodied male citizens was involuntarily "enrolled" by local militia officials, somewhat as men now register for the selective service (except that enrollment required no action by the citizen), and all enrolled citizens were required by law to join occasional "exercise" - to which they were expected to bring their own, private arms - but they otherwise remained in civilian life. The militia "rest[ed] upon the shoulders of the people," (88) because, as then understood, it consisted of a large number of the "people" at any one time and of all of the able-bodied white men for a substantial portion of their lives. It was the people embodied as an armed force. Thus, a key aspect of the term "Militia" was the composition of the force to which it referred. As a result, the reference to the "Militia" in the Second Amendment's preface "agrees with" the individual right that the Amendment's operative text sets out, (89) because securing to "the people" a right to keep and to bear their own arms made such a broad-based, privately armed force more likely to exist and to be effective.

 

instense, that was real nice, but... That's what's written. And a good thing it is, too. Well thought out by the folks who's smarts make this administration look like a... well, I don't want to offend anyone, but you get the idea.

But it isn't about what's written; it's about what these nutters can get away with. Skip and I are often miles apart on the same side of the fence, but his musing are what's been going 'round in my head lately. There is no need to alter Posse Comitatus or enact any legislation geared to giving the military (as opposed to the Guard) more of a policing role. There are statutes in place now that can, by act of Congress or decree of a governor, provide the military with all the legalese required to protect life and property (as the statutes are written). So why is the shrub thumping that we need new something? To make it easier to federalize things that weren't meant to be in the hands of the fed to begin with. Frankly, it's worrying the shizzle out of me. My mind keeps thinking back to 1930s Europe.

 

First of all you have no idea what a real arsenal is. second i do agree i got carry away. But what really burns me is millions of people in the U.S do not the slightest clue what the Second Amendment is much less what it means. and stop now and think if it was not that important to the fathers of the U.S constitution it would not be in slot # 2 . AND with out the second your first is on a big limbo . becouse when it gets right down to it = no police, army or federal agency wants to tackle with millions of angry gun owners, last figures were around 50 millions and thats a very consevartive number. just look what bunch of lunatic in iraq do to us much less 50 millions. in our school system the second is only mention very light unless you go to a very well known university "the kind that cost lots of money" and is not run by a bunch of liberals.

 

Dude you dont have too . no difrent than a radio station you dont like the music = SWITCH THE CHANNEL . and stay ignorant.