article: How Slave Owners Dictated the Language of the 2nd Amendment

Bee · Aug 18, 2019

"It took Madison two drafts to get the Second Amendment into the single sentence it is today. His careful wording was deliberate. In drawing a connection between militias and the right to bear arms rather than simply defending the right to bear arms, Madison, a slave holder himself, was speaking to his state’s ruling powers. Only the white men in the Virginia militia had the right to bear arms. Free African-Americans could join the militia, but they were limited to being drummers or buglers."

https://www.yahoo.com/news/slave-owners-dictated-language-2nd-091217240.html

I have no opinion, myself, because:

1. I am grossly under-educated in most Antebellum/Constitutional politics.

2. I only have other folks' summary/opinion of the SCOTUS Heller decision.

Feel free to weigh in your own opinion/interpretation.

Not sure if this is the proper forum; feel free to move without complaint

5fish · Aug 18, 2019

Thomas Jefferson may have gotten it right about the right to bear arms but it never made it into the Virginia Consitution or the Consitution... He did three drafts of his thoughts on the topic.

http://tjrs.monticello.org/letter/1561

Third Draft: "No freeman shall be debarred the use of arms within his own lands or tenements" by Thomas Jefferson

This person thinks Jefferson thoughts would make for a good compromise... The guy that wrote this article is a far-right activist if I remember right...

http://www.howardischwartz.com/the-...-court-pass-over-this-point-so-superficially/

Could Jefferson, the writer of the Declaration of Independence, the ultimate defender of individual rights, and the Third President of the United States, offer us a compromise that both sides could live with? I would suggest that it could represent a possible compromise. Jefferson’s views could carry enough ‘founder’ weight to shape how the Supreme Court reads the second amendment and could align with the Court’s view that the second amendment is about the individual right to have a gun and protect oneself. It could mollify too those who want to limit the use of guns in society by allowing gun possession and use at home but not in public, unless the public grants those rights as in the case of hunting in some situations. It could possibly mollify also those who worry about protecting themselves against a tyrannical government, by allowing them to buy and use firearms on private property, but not in public.

5fish · Aug 18, 2019

Bee said:
Feel free to weigh in your own opinion/interpretation.

So Patrick Henry is the one we get to blame for our god awful 2nd amendment... They fear of slave rebellion and the federal government unwillingness to defend them against slaves... not because of some tyrannical government coming to power stomping on our rights or the fear of slave revolts...

https://www.yahoo.com/news/slave-owners-dictated-language-2nd-091217240.html

By contrast, James Madison, the author of the Second Amendment, wrote his amendment with his eye firmly fixed on practical politics. He introduced the amendment during Virginia’s debate over the ratification of the Constitution because Virginia Governor Patrick Henry saw danger lurking in Article 1, Section 8, of the Constitution, which gives Congress the power to provide for “organizing, arming, and disciplining” militias.

Henry feared that without checks upon it, Congress could undermine the ability of militias in Virginia and elsewhere in the South to suppress slave uprisings and pursue runaway slaves.

The militia issue was important enough for Henry to see it as grounds for opposing ratification of the Constitution. The positive power Congress had over militias, Henry reasoned, could easily be turned into restrictive power. “By this sir, you see that their control over our best defense is unlimited,” Henry warned his fellow Virginians.

Al Mackey · Aug 18, 2019

Bee said:
"It took Madison two drafts to get the Second Amendment into the single sentence it is today. His careful wording was deliberate. In drawing a connection between militias and the right to bear arms rather than simply defending the right to bear arms, Madison, a slave holder himself, was speaking to his state’s ruling powers. Only the white men in the Virginia militia had the right to bear arms. Free African-Americans could join the militia, but they were limited to being drummers or buglers."

https://www.yahoo.com/news/slave-owners-dictated-language-2nd-091217240.html

I have no opinion, myself, because:

1. I am grossly under-educated in most Antebellum/Constitutional politics.

2. I only have other folks' summary/opinion of the SCOTUS Heller decision.

Feel free to weigh in your own opinion/interpretation.

Not sure if this is the proper forum; feel free to move without complaint

Well, here's the Heller decision: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/07pdf/07-290.pdf

That takes care of #2.

As far as the article goes, I think the author gives a false impression of Patrick Henry's complaints. The way it's written, he makes it seem as though that was Henry's only complaint. Henry was against the Constitution and used a number of arguments against ratification. He also said ratifying the Constitution would mean the loss of slaves and that there's nothing a state could do to get out of it once it was ratified. Nobody contradicted him on that last point, by the way.

It seems to me there's more than a little bit of assumption that the amendment is rooted in slavery. I know there are a few historians who agree with the claim, but I'd like to see some more definite linkage.

jgoodguy · Aug 19, 2019

OTOH
I am pretty sure there were no slaveholders in Vermont or Massachusetts.

https://guncite.com/journals/halvt.html#fnb15

Before the federal Bill of Rights was adopted, explicit right-to-bear-arms guarantees appeared in the declarations of rights of Pennsylvania,[13] North Carolina,[14] Vermont,[15] and Massachusetts.[16] The Virginia Declaration of Rights of 1776 heralded the virtues of "a well regulated Militia, composed of the body of the People, trained to Arms,"[17] and three other states adopted similar provisions.[18] The first constitutions of four states included no bills of rights,[19] and two states adopted no written constitutions until the nineteenth century.[20](p.258

article: How Slave Owners Dictated the Language of the 2nd Amendment

Bee

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