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Originally Posted by Pio1980
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An absolutely outstanding essay. Let me offer a quote of it's central argument:
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Hamilton’s and Madison’s original belief was that it was vital for the country’s security that all citizens have the right to keep and bear arms so that instead of a large, standing federal army, these already-armed citizens would be available to staff their well-regulated state militias in times of insurrection or invasion.
The idea that every citizen needed to have the right to keep and bear arms so that rather than a standing federal army, armed citizens would be always available to serve in his state’s militia in the event of invasion or insurrection was demolished when
Only a limited number of the state’s citizens were even eligible to join the militia and,
None of them were allowed to bring their own guns even if they had them, and
We now had that substantial federal standing army that the militias were intended to eliminate the need for
Once the country had a substantial, federal standing army and members of well-regulated state-operated militias were armed with guns supplied by the federal government and militia members were actually prohibited from supplying their own guns, the Second Amendment’s stated reason for protecting the rights of the citizens to keep and bear arms, namely the need for citizens to have guns to fight with when the militia was called up, disappeared.
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The surrounding essay builds a strong case for this argument. Indeed, I would say an unarguable one.
But, in modern times, there was a lot of money to be made if people in their millions could be convinced to buy AR-15s.