My thoughts on the 2nd Amendment?
I think your ability to HAVE a weapon is quite independent of what you choose to DO with it.
Very interesting thread.
I'll jump in again when I have some more time.
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2nd Amendment states.
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 only way to understand anything in these documents is go to the original writings of the people who wrote, debated and passed the documents.
What was a militia?
“I ask who are the militia? They consist now of the whole people, except a few public officers.” – George Mason, Address to the Virginia Ratifying Convention, June 4, 1788
“A militia when properly formed are in fact the people themselves…and include, according to the past and general usuage of the states, all men capable of bearing arms… “To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them.” – Richard Henry Lee,
Federal Farmer No. 18, January 25, 1788
The right of the people to keep and bear arms:
“The laws that forbid the carrying of arms are laws of such a nature. They disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes…. Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man.” – Thomas Jefferson,
Commonplace Book (quoting 18th century criminologist Cesare Beccaria), 1774-1776
The 2nd amendment included in the Bill of Rights was the addition of the unalienable rights or God given right to self defense on the idea that life is sacred and should be protected from all evil.
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed."
Consider the basic principles expressed in that simple statement:
1. Humans are created by God;2. They are all equal;3. God grants them certain rights which cannot be abridged;4. They include the right to life and liberty; and5. Governments are instituted to protect God-given rights.
The next few lines in the Declaration of independence explain that when the sanctity of life, liberty, and property is in a long train or time span of abuses and illegal infringements then the people must act to defend peoples God given rights.
That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies;
Now that I have defined the second amendment and the mindset behind it then I ask you another question.
Do you still support the second Amendment as a Christian?
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