>Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
>>
>> >This is a weird sentence to think you've got a lock on: "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 militia isn't defined. What is it? Something
>>different from a standing army, but what? The national guard? Mark
>>from Michigan's outfit? Lazare's piece goes into how the 18th century
>>used the word - but we don't need to worry about that, because the
>>meaning is self-evident over 200 years later.
>
>Whatever it means, it can't possibly mean that a citizen who isn't
>part of some well-regulated organization necessary to the security
>of the state has a right to bear arms.
I believe you are mistaken. The meaning is crystal clear to me, a militia (well regulated, or poorly regulated) is a citizen army as opposed to a professional full-time army. So it is a volunteer army in the sense that people in it earn their bread elsewhere.
A bit like the volunteer fire brigades that rural Australia relies on.
For this kind of force to be effective, the members of the militia have to have access to arms and they also have to be practiced in using them. If citizens don't have the right to bear arms, then they won't even know how to use them, let alone have access to them in the sort of emergency that would arise in a nation whose defense strategy relied on a volunteer militia.
What strikes me as ambiguous in that constitutional provision is what exactly is meant by "bear arms". Does it necessarily mean the right to personally own a firearm? Or merely the right to operate a firearm that might be owned by someone else, or stored in an armoury? Plainly, in order to be in a position to make a useful contribution to a "well regulated militia" if the need should arise, the citizen has to have a right to practice using arms regularly. So that might be sufficient to satisfy the requirement that the people have the right to "bear arms". Without any right to actually own and keep arms at home. (Makes sense, the citizen in this imaginary "free" country would also need to practice using tanks, artillery, missiles and other heavy weaponry, but it would be a bit expensive trying to buy them out of the family budget.)
That's a bit ambiguous. But in the context I don't see how the provision can be honestly interpreted to mean that potential members of a "well-regulated militia", which is everyone, can be denied the right to practise the use of a firearm, just because they don't actually belong to a militia.
A volunteer militia would need to expand dramatically in the event of it being called on to defend the people from attack. The formal members would only be the core. There would be little time to teach people how to use a gun, much better that they already know. Hence, the necessity, to the security of a free state (a free state being one that relies on a voluntary militia for its security, rather than a professional army) of the citizen's right to bear arms.
Its all very academic of course. The US state no longer relies on a voluntary militia for defense and it doesn't even satisfy the definition of being a "free state" anymore. So the preconditions that make the right to bear arms necessary, according to the constitutional provision in question, no longer apply. On that basis, the right to bear arms is redundant.
Bill Bartlett Bracknell Tas