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.
This Second Amendment privilege has triggered more pain and suffering since the Bill of Rights was first passed into law in 1791, then all the rest of the amendments put together. Whenever any clan, group or organization exercises what they feel is the full extent of their rights, some other group will loose some of theirs. Rights are privileges that must be regulated with reason, loaded with liberty, submissive to others, fortified with compassion and seasoned with love. Rights require responsibility, accountability and regulations. The Bill of Rights is not an instrument from deity, yet heroic, inspired and courageous men and women labored, fought and died to offer the great privilege of what we call rights.
When written flint lock pistols and muskets were the high tech weapons of hunting, war and defense, nearly 400 years after they were first invented. It was over 40 years after that before the first revolver was invented and an additional 50 years for the first automatic hand gun to be patented in 1892. Do you think that when the second amendment was written the writers had any idea, that someday a lone psychotic gunman would have the ability to go to a gun show, purchase a high powered assault rifle and begin killing scores of men, women and children? Does that help the “security of a free State”?
When Madison first penned the Bill of Rights over 300 years ago, he knew that all men were not created equal and that “God” did not endow us with unalienable rights. Focused attention with willingness to broaden viewpoints on any aspect of nature, fact of science or observation of human behavior lead back to one indisputable fact. Rights are a gift of civilization, activated by responsible behavior and enforced by regulations. The battle for equal rights for women, people of color and minorities of every type still rages on today. No two humans have ever been equal in physical strength, mental acuity or educated wisdom. So what did he mean when he wrote:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men were created equal, that they were endowed by their creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
These praise worthy goals have done a great service as the building blocks of “Democracy”, but they do not exist within the “Laws of Nature” or any other form of government. This is the reason we are still at war today, to defend and promote democracy. As I view these words, I see the meaning resting in the concept of: “One God one family”. Democracy, is the gift that offers life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness as stepping stones large enough with stand the flood tides of adversity, tyranny of oppression and the dangers of corruption.
So what is the role of a “well regulated Militia” of a free state or of democracy itself?
Militia: Groups of able bodied men who protected their towns colonies and eventually states.
Certainly in the days after the filing of the Declaration of Independence and demanding freedom from British tyranny we needed the ability to protect and defend that decree. That need came about swiftly with the Revolutionary War and the war of 1812. In fact the birth of militias dates back almost a thousand years to the reign King Henry and the need to protect the home land. In those days a group of people protecting their home land, fighting on their own turf, defending what they believed in were a powerful foe, but not from the overwhelming force of a well-trained and well-armed army. The high capacity, rapid fire and deadly powerful military assault rifles of today would neutralize even a largest militia of farmers with axes, shovels and rakes. Times have changed. Today a large group of a so called “Militia” would be no match for even a local police force much less when supported by a national guard and the Federal government. Times have changed and continue to change at exponential rates. We can no longer apply the horse and buggy laws of flint lock weapons to the extremely efficient killing tools of today’s arsenals.
Quotes from the Urantia book:
0:9.13 When rights are old beyond knowledge of origin, they are often called natural rights. But human rights are not really natural; they are entirely social. They are relative and ever changing, being no more than the rules of the game—recognized adjustments of relations governing the ever-changing phenomena of human competition.
70:9.14 What may be regarded as right in one age may not be so regarded in another. The survival of large numbers of defectives and degenerates is not because they have any natural right thus to encumber twentieth-century civilization, but simply because the society of the age, the mores, thus decrees.
70:9.15 Few human rights were recognized in the European Middle Ages; then every man belonged to someone else, and rights were only privileges or favors granted by state or church. And the revolt from this error was equally erroneous in that it led to the belief that all men are born equal.
70:9.16 The weak and the inferior have always contended for equal rights; they have always insisted that the state compel the strong and superior to supply their wants and otherwise make good those deficiencies which all too often are the natural result of their own indifference and indolence.
70:9.17 But this equality ideal is the child of civilization; it is not found in nature. Even culture itself demonstrates conclusively the inherent inequality of men by their very unequal capacity therefor. The sudden and non-evolutionary realization of supposed natural equality would quickly throw civilized man back to the crude usages of primitive ages. Society cannot offer equal rights to all, but it can promise to administer the varying rights of each with fairness and equity. It is the business and duty of society to provide the child of nature with a fair and peaceful opportunity to pursue self-maintenance, participate in self-perpetuation, while at the same time enjoying some measure of self-gratification, the sum of all three constituting human happiness.
What is the role of Democracy?
Representative democracy, with all its flaws, has given us the rights, responsibilities and the regulations essential to protect our freedom, liberty and abilities. Democracy and the regulatory authority required to hold it together, have given us the strongest nation this world has ever known. But that fragile balance is in jeopardy by the very regulators we elected to serve us. Greed, corruption and the lust for power are now trumping the quest to serve, unite and protect. We need to take back our democracy, but it cannot nor will not be done with the power of force or the weapon’s of war. If the events of the January 6th insurrection in Washington have taught us anything, it is that well intentioned people can make terribly wrong decisions and of the importance of regulating our regulators. Responsibility, accountability and group wisdom are essential requirements for the fragile foundations of democracy. The role of democracy is among other things withstand the assaults of personal liberty by those that would abuse power.
48:7.8UB To enjoy privilege without abuse, to have liberty without license, to possess power and steadfastly refuse to use it for self-aggrandizement—these are the marks of high civilization.
81:5.7 UB Liberty subject to group regulation is the legitimate goal of social evolution. Liberty without restrictions is the vain and fanciful dream of unstable and flighty human minds.
71:2.1 Democracy, while an ideal, is a product of civilization, not of evolution. Go slowly! select carefully! for the dangers of democracy are:
1. Glorification of mediocrity. 2. Choice of base and ignorant rulers. 3. Failure to recognize the basic facts of social evolution. 4. Danger of universal suffrage in the hands of uneducated and indolent majorities. 5. Slavery to public opinion; the majority is not always right.
Intelligent and trained representation. The survival of democracy is dependent on successful representative government; and that is conditioned upon the practice of electing to public offices only those individuals who are technically trained, intellectually competent, socially loyal, and morally fit. Only by such provisions can government of the people, by the people, and for the people be preserved.
It is time for a “well-regulated militia”! The idea that “right to bare arms” without responsibility or adequate regulations, is an attack on the rights of the majority. The rights of the majority not to own tools primarily designed for the purpose killing, but also from the fear of knowing that at any time a single bullet may cause utter destruction, as happens multiple times daily in some innocent citizen life. There is no question that guns of every type from a hunting rife to a howitzer and beyond, while being instruments of war, have also helped insure peace, protected trade and reduced conflict around the world. Even in countries where owning a firearm is difficult to say the least, regulators still need them to protect the rights of the responsible from the irresponsible.
With more guns in this country than we have people, the need for protection and security and emotional tensions around the issue as high as they are, guns are here to stay. We will not in the foreseeable future achieve the type of gun regulations imposed by other democracies like Australia, Canada, Germany and Japan to name a few. But we can and should design regulated, responsibilities for the right to own, possess or use a firearm. Why should gun ownership not at least, hold the same level of responsibility as a motor vehicle? Is asking for paid yearly registration for ownership, responsibility to transfer ownership and insurance to protect the innocent not fair and just? After all more people die in America from gun violence every year than from car accidents and most Americans drive. Why not tax bullets the way we tax cigarettes? At least a smoker gets to make the choice. For less than the cost of a single cigarette, a single bullet can cost death, despair and millions in tax payer dollars. I know that most gun owners are responsible as are most drivers, but the privilege to drive carries with it the responsibility to be insured and we all share in the burden. Gun ranges could be a “tax on bullet” free zone to encourage training, and responsible use of firearms. Proceeds from registrations could be used pay anyone not wanting to resister their weapons a fair price to begin a reduction in gun ownership and deaths.