Lloyd Lofthouse, military veteran and teacher, explains:
Another reason for the 2nd Amendment was this:
In 1800, 94-percent of the people lived in rural areas and there were two reasons for owning a firearm. Rural in 1800 was not the rural of today. There were no roads and it could take an entire day to travel 15 – 20 miles on horseback or on foot. There were no phones so you could call 911. The closest neighbors were often miles away.
The two reasons back in 1800:
*to hunt for wild game to put meat on the table and to protect you and your family from wild animals that would eat you.
*to defend your family against the Indians defending the land they had lived on for 15,000 years against the citizens of the United STates invading that land. Also to defend you and your family from violent bullies like Trump and most of his cabinet who thought they could take anything they want even your wife and daughters.
Out in those rural areas where most of the people lived, there was no law or police or military most of the time. If you couldn’t defend yourself, you were soon to be dust.
That situation does not exist today where more than 75 percent of the people live in crowded urban areas without the fear of wild animals or Indians wanting to kill you.
Powerful firearms in a crowded urban area are dangerous because a bullet that you fire to defend yourself can pass through the bad guy if you hit them and go through several walls and kill more than one person even children in cribs.
The only firearm necessary for home defense is a shotgun and someone that hunts for sport can hunt with a bolt action rifle or a bow and arrow if they are really into sport hunting.
The population in 1800 was 6.3 million. Lots of room to shoot bullets and not hit anyone.
The population today is more than 320 million. Lots of people to easily hit with one bullet or even more with more bullets.
What goes up comes down. With all those people when someone fires off a round to celebrate the 4th of July or the New Year, that bullet that was shot into the sky could come down and kill an innocent person that lives nearby.
In 1800 when your closest neighbor usually lives miles away, you could walk outside and shoot as much as you want and the odds of hitting another person were almost non-existent.
Who will stand up to the NRA?
Who will hold them accountable for mass murders?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
It was also included in the Bill of Rights because of Southern slaveholders who had organized militias that were able to go to northern states to hunt for and bring back slaves who had fled. That’s the rationale behind the words “well trained militia”.
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Yes.
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Yes, and to guard against or put down slave revolts, as well.
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We sure DO NEED this kind of discussion! Thanks.
Off topic…(below):
I wonder how many people of voting age can pass the Citizenship test.
This country better wake up from the sleep walk. This country has been Common Bored and Cored. We have been treated like Pavlov’s dog. Our young and our public school teachers are just a stream of revenue for the few.
We have:
Fake food, fake news, fake schools (charters and vouchers), fake boobs, fake hair, fake lips, fake businesses, fake banks, fake accounts, fake accountability, fake football, fake charitable orgs., fake almost everything, and now fake potus.
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A simple rifle for hunting game is fine. Anything else should be outlawed.
When enough politicians and their loved ones start getting shot at and lose life and limb, THAT’s when Americans’ love affair with weak gun control will change. Until then, most civilians will end up being casualties.
Gabrielle Gifford was not enough to do this, nor was Matthew Brady.
But I am still optimistic that enough politicians and their loved ones will be adversely affected over time so that this way, change – real change – will be made.
No big shifts will occur without enough important big-wig sacrificial lambs, unfortunately .
Extremism and quantity are the only language American politicians understand. They are slow learners and need an immediate emergency IEP.
I feel for those in Las Vegas. It’s horrifying. As a foreigner here, my European colleagues look at me as though I have four heads and claws. They really don’t believe that America has become or is this way.
I can’t either, but here I am.
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“Demi-god” Reagan himself was shot and nearly killed. Nothing was done, poof. Here we are again with the latest blood bath in a long line of blood baths. Nothing gets done, ever. The GOP are joined at the hip to the NRA, Trump loves the NRA, nothing will get done for the next 3 1/2 years at the least. For pity’s sake, if the slaughter of the children and their teachers at Sandy Hook Elementary School was not enough, nothing is. I’m an American and I am just dumbstruck by this continual cycle of death and destruction without any positive or meaningful actions. A normal country would ban these semi automatics, machine guns (it is possible to purchase a machine gun but extremely difficult, depending on the state) and even hand guns. If we were a normal country, we would do what Australia did.
USA = guns galore, mass killings galore BUT no universal health care. IT’S INSANE!!!
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It is insane, but also evil and it will be the appropriate populist masses who will rise up and rebel at some breaking point. Before you arrive at great beauty, one may go through breathtaking ugliness.
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I don’t share your optimism. I think “Little Murders” was prophetic in its dark humor (1971 movie made from Jules Feiffer’s play), w/bullets flying everywhere in the streets. In one scene, the nervous police detective (Alan Arkin) approaches the NYC apt window (fortified top to bottom w/steel) & carefully slides a tiny panel open to see if they’re being watched: a bullet zings thro & he quickly slams it shut.
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Lloyd may explain the need for a gun . But Thom Hartman does a good job of explaining what the Second Amendment was about. It was not about your right to own a gun.
https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/repeal-second-amendment
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Second Amendment, I have a suggestion.
In light of the recent ruling (6/4/21 ) by Federal judge Roger Benitez overturning a California firearms ban on assault weapons where he ruled it violates the Constitutional right to bear arms, his words, referring to the Second Amendment, I have a suggestion. In my thesis regarding the Second Amendment I think it will prove his ruling “..right to bear arms” has everything to do with a “militia” and nothing to do with a “person” or individual, which the following will suggest..
In some 225 years neither law professors, academic scholars, teachers, students, lawyers or congressional legislators after much debate have not been able to satisfactorily explain or demonstrate the Framers intended purpose of Second Amendment of the Constitution. I had taken up that challenge allowing Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s dilemma to understand the true intent of the Second Amendment.
I will relate further by demonstration, the intent of the Framers, my understanding using the associated wording to explain. The Second 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.”
Militia, a body of citizens organized for military service.
If, as some may argue, the Second Amendment’s “militia” meaning is that every person has a right to keep and bear arms, the only way to describe ones right as a private individual is not as a “militia” but as a “person.” (The individual personality of a human being: self)
The 4th Amendment reminds us, “The right of the people to be secure in their persons….”
The Article of Confederation lists eleven (11) references to“person/s.” The Constitution lists “person” or “persons” 49 times to explicitly describe, clarify and mandate a constitutional legal standing as to a “person” his or her constitutional duty and rights, what he or she can do or not do.
It’s not enough to just say “person/s” is mentioned in the United States Constitution 49 times, but to see it for yourself (forgo listing), and the realization was for the concern envisioned by the Framers that every person be secure in these rights explicitly spelled out, referenced and understood how these rights were to be applied to that “person.”
Whereas, in the Second Amendment any reference to “person” is not to be found. Was there a reason? Which leaves the obvious question, why did the Framers use the noun “person/s” as liberally as they did throughout the Constitution 49 times and not apply this understanding to explicitly convey the same legal standard in defining an individual “persons” right to bear arms as a person?
Justice Amy Coney Barrett dissent in Barr v Kanter (2019) Second Amendment argument acquiesced to 42 references to “person/s, of which 13 characterize either a gun or firearm. Her Second Amendment, “textualism” approach having zero reference to “person/s. Justice Barrett’s view only recognizes “person/s” in Barr, as well in her many other 7th circuit rulings. It is her refusal to acknowledge, recognize or connect the U.S. Constitution benchmark legislative interpretive precept language of “person/s,” mandated in our Constitution 49 times, to the Second Amendment.
Leaving Supreme Court Justice Barrett’s judgment in question.
In the entire U.S. Constitution “militia” is mentioned 5 times. In these references there is no mention of “person” or “persons.” One reference to “people” in the Second Amendment. People, meaning not a person but persons in describing militia.
Now comes the word “shall” mentioned in the Constitution 100 times. SHALL; ought to, must ..
And interestingly, the word “shall” appears in the Second Amendment. “A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, and shall not be infringed.”
“[S]hall not be infringed.” Adding another word “infringed” to clarify any misunderstanding as to the intent of the Second Amendment. Infringe. To encroach upon in a way that violates law or the rights of another;
The condition “Infringe” has put a stop as to any counter thoughts regarding the Second Amendment, as you shall not infringe or encroach on beliefs other to what is evident as to the subject “Militia.”
Finally, clarifying “..the right of the people to keep and bear arms…
People. Human beings making up a group or assembly or linked by a common interest.
In closing, I am not against guns, everybody has them. I’m against using the Second Amendment illogically as a crutch. If it makes those feel better so be it. Just what it deserves, use it with a wink.
William Heino Sr.
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Thank you for this comment. Anyone who reads the Second Amendment in its entirety can see that it is not about the right of the individual to bear arms, but the right of a militia to bear arms. Congress banned the purchase or sale of assault weapons in the 1990s for a decade. George W. Bush let the law lapse. The federal judge in CA who overturned the state’s ban on such weapons of carnage compared them to “Swiss Army knives.”
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As long as the DC v. Heller is on the books, (a terrible decision involving Scalia overreach AND Scalia painfully stretching the grammar to meet his predetermined decision) and Congress is impotent in the face of the NRA, this will continue.
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No problem for the 11 Justice supreme court. Just give Donald a few years to screw things up.
Heck of a job Donnie.
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Even Scalia, at the end of the Heller decision, notes that nothing in it should “be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms.”
Even Justice Scalia, in turning 200 years of Court precedent upside down in the Heller case, said this: “It is not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose: For example, concealed weapons prohibitions have been upheld under the Amendment or state analogues.”
A federal appeals court noted recently that American history is chock full of the “extensive practice of restricting citizen’s freedom to carry firearms in a concealed manner.”
Even Scalia grasped this stuff.
Former federal appeals court judge Richard Posner, considered one of the top judicial intellects in modern American history, said the 2nd amendment does not have anything to do with an individual right to bear arms, and that Scalia’s finding of an individual right to bear arms in the 2nd amendment an example of the “real deterioration in conservative thinking.”
And that’s an understatement.
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Real men live in Australia.
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2017/10/las_vegas_will_not_be_the_last_mass_shooting.html
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Thank you!
(from a real man in Australia)
No mass shootings since the gun laws were tightened after the Port Arthur massacre in 1996.
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David Perry,
Care to give us a brief history lesson on what happened at Port Arthur, how the government reacted.
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From Bloomberg News, 10-3-17:
“Australia enacted strict gun ownership laws after a historic massacre that left 35 people dead in 1996; since then, there have been zero mass shootings, and the firearms homicide and suicide rates have plummeted.”
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Things are poised to get much much worse as the NRA and it’s sock puppet politicians are trying to pass the “Hearing Protection Act” which will legalize silencers. They claim that they are only mufflers that don’t reduce the sound by much at all, which is both true at the moment and also completely by design. They know how totally unpopular a device which totally silences gunfire would be, both among the public and within the law enforcement community, so the ones being made now don’t reduce the sound that much. If the law is passed, that will change very quickly. I saw the hopes of one gun nut that after passage, 80% suppressors would soon hit the market. There is no technological barrier to making such devices. Right now, a particular design is available, one that’s old and not too effective. Other designs exist, it’s possible to DIY them as well. Will the law cover that? Law enforcement takes a dim view of the law. I take a dim view of the silly excuses being made in favor of it. As if existing in and on ear protection is insufficient. Balderdash! It’s all a giant bait and switch by the NRA and the gun industry. Here’s the law enforcement communities position on it all. https://www.lepartnership.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/LEP_Statement-on-The-Hearing-Protection-Act-of-2017_3-10-17.pdf
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Please print every excuse, spin, dance, rationalization, and lie that comes out of the mouths of every elected official.
The “this is not time for policy discussion” “until we have the facts” is sick.
If 10 small planes with 5 passengers each crashed, the FAA would be under a microscope, regulations would change, and the manufacturers brought in to Congressional hearings. 53 people are killed by a machine gun and person with 42 guns – and the White House and GOP will run scared of the NRA.
How do they sleep?
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59 people as of now
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How do they sleep? With lots of NRA and gun industry money.
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Thank you Diane for posting Lloyd’s and GregB’s thoughts and insights on the 2nd Amendment. And, of course, thank you Lloyd and GregB for sharing your thoughts.
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Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Education and commented:
Some people may disagree with this but he does have a point.
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The idea of having little to “hit” with a bullet puts me in mind of the mass killing of our nation’s buffalo over a period of a few short years: the buffalo roamed in herds, making for an easy mass killing. What is inside the psyche of our species which argues “see how many you can hit” for the sake of the act?
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“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.” To what well regulated militia do these people with high powered rifles utilizing them in mass killings belong? Let us go back to the wild west and just give everyone a gun and let these gun owners keep themselves and the rest of us safe. Since guns keep us all so safe why not dispense with police? It would save a lot of tax money.
Has anyone of our politicians looked at the statistical difference between suicides with guns and people who have “protected” themselves and their families with guns? Has anyone of them looked at Australia and how their killing were dramatically reduced when guns were regulated? Of course that does not matter. Our politicians owned by the NRA and other corporations could care less about that which what experts studying problems have found out.
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I have studied the weapons laws in Australia, Switzerland, and other countries. See what happened in Australia:
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Yes, the amendment was written for quite a different time & circumstance.
Thanks, Lloyd. Too bad it’s all about the money now–the buying of legislators by the NRA/gun industry.
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I am a veteran as well. The reasons for the Constitution, having explicit protection for both the personal and collective right to keep and bear arms, are manifold. I stipulate, that the world we live in now, is vastly different from the America, which people inhabited in 1789.
The writers of the Constitution, had just been through a revolution. They realized, that the colonists had to have the same weapons that the previous enemy (the British) had, else resistance is futile. Some (not all) of the framers, feared a large, standing Army, so naturally, they favored a citizen-militia. A national guard is impossible, without weapons.
The 2d amendment protected the right of states to have a well-ordered militia. A citizen-Army, which could serve to protect the new nation, from foreign threats.
The framers also recognized, that people have a right to self-defense. If a person is threating you, your family, and your property, you have the right to meet that threat with deadly force. Without the right to keep/bear arms, the right of self-defense is meaningless.
The framers also feared, that any government, including the American government, could get oppressive, and trample the rights and freedom of the citizen. (Like the Weimar republic, collapsed, and then Hitler took over Germany). By guaranteeing an armed citizenry, this ensured that the people could rise up, and overthrow an oppressive government.
In 1789, there were a large number of Americans on the frontier, and these people needed weapons to hunt game. There was also the danger of hostile Indian attacks. There were the Spanish in Florida, and the British in Canada. There was no Army to police the frontier, and there were hostile nations on the border of young America.
Today, in 2017, some of the rationale behind the government’s guaranteeing of the right to keep/bear arms, is historically obsolete. I stipulate this.
Nevertheless, there is still a fundamental necessity for the private and collective ownership of deadly weapons.
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Justice Amy Coney Barrett Second Amendment dilemma
In some 225 years neither law professors, academic scholars, teachers, students, lawyers, or congressional legislators after much debate have not been able to satisfactorily explain or demonstrate the Framers intended purpose of the Second Amendment of the Constitution. I had taken up that challenge allowing Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s dilemma to understand the true intent of the Second Amendment.
I will relate further by demonstration, the intent of the Framers, my understanding using the associated wording to explain. The Second 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.”
Militia, a body of citizens organized for military service.
If, as some may argue, the Second Amendment’s “militia” meaning is that every person has a right to keep and bear arms, the only way to describe ones right as a private individual is not as a “militia” but as a “person.” (The individual personality of a human being: self)
The 4th Amendment reminds us, “The right of the people to be secure in their persons….”
The Article of Confederation lists eleven (11) references to“person/s.” The Constitution lists “person” or “persons” 49 times to explicitly describe, clarify and mandate a constitutional legal standing as to a “person” his or her constitutional duty and rights, what he or she can do or not do.
It’s not enough to just say “person/s” is mentioned in the United States Constitution 49 times, but to see it for yourself (forgo listing), and the realization was for the concern envisioned by the Framers that every person be secure in these rights explicitly spelled out, referenced and understood how these rights were to be applied to that “person.”
The President was elected on 13 of these references. Of which 11 are Amendments, conditioning a “person,” unlike the Second Amendment, to the role of the President of the United States.
Whereas, in the Second Amendment any reference to “person” is not to be found. Was there a reason? Which leaves the obvious question, why did the Framers use the noun “person/s” as liberally as they did throughout the Constitution 49 times and not apply this understanding to explicitly convey the same legal standard in defining an individual “persons” right to bear arms as a person?
Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s dissent in Barr v Kanter (2019) Second Amendment argument acquiesced to 42 references to “person/s, of which 13 characterize either a gun or firearm. Her Second Amendment, “textualism” approach having zero references to “person/s. Justice Barrett’s view only recognizes “person/s” in Barr, as well in her many other 7th circuit rulings. It is her refusal to acknowledge, recognize or connect the U.S. Constitution benchmark legislative interpretive precept language of “person/s,” mandated in our Constitution 49 times, to the Second Amendment.
Leaving Supreme Court Justice Barrett’s judgment in question.
In the entire U.S. Constitution “militia” is mentioned 5 times. In these references, there is no mention of “person” or “persons.” One reference to “people” in the Second Amendment. People, meaning not a person but persons in describing militia.
Now comes the word “shall” mentioned in the Constitution 100 times. SHALL; ought to, must ..
And interestingly, the word “shall” appears in the Second Amendment. “A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, and shall not be infringed.”
“[S]hall not be infringed.” Adding another word “infringed” to clarify any misunderstanding as to the intent of the Second Amendment. Infringe. To encroach upon in a way that violates law or the rights of another;
The condition “Infringe” has put a stop as to any thoughts counter regarding the Second Amendment, as you shall not infringe or encroach on beliefs other to what is evident as to the subject “Militia.” Article 1. All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in the Congress of the United States, …”
Clarifying “..the right of the people to keep and bear arms…”
People. Human beings making up a group or assembly or linked by a common interest.
Finally, another reason and need for…. “A well regulated militia, …” exactly, because we fight among ourselves.
In closing, I am not against guns, everybody has them. I’m against using the Second Amendment illogically as a crutch. If it makes those feel better so be it. Just what it deserves, use it with a wink.
William Heino Sr.
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