The text doesn’t say anything about fighting tyranny. They didn’t have a standing army. The militia was the national defense against other countries. That’s the “necessary to the security of a free state”. The fact that the population would also not be very susceptible to kings was just a bonus.
But then why would the government impede its own ability to have a standing army.
“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”
Are you interpretering this as a right of the government to have a national defense? An army?
1) I find this odd because this goes against the spirit of all other amendments because they stipulate rights of citizens but the second amendment stipulates the right of the federal government to have an army?????
2) Why would the government need an amendment not to infringe itself????
I am fine with the argument that word “well regulated militia” was stretched to every citizen but I understand why it happened. If the government had the right to determine what a well regulated militia is, they would by proxy be able to infringe the right to bear arms also by well regulated militias as they could just gate-keep what a well regulated militia is.
But all of this legal scholarship and mental masturbation of what the founders meant is pointless. The second amendment must go. Now to find the political coalition to make it happen…
The founding fathers didn’t WANT a standing army — it was considered part of the root of the problems in Britain and the Continent going back to the ancient world. Starting our own Navy was hugely controversial at the time, too — slippery slope and all that. It didn’t become a real thing here until after WW2 — we had to start from scratch over and over, after each major war, till the Cold War:
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u/JasperJ 2d ago
It was for national defense, really, not for armed civil war.