Why do people claim the second amendment is claims they have the right to carry a firearm in public?

Question

The exact wording of the Second Amendment says "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." How do people claim they are part of a "well regulated militia" that are need to secure our country?

Answer 1

The main purpose of the second amendment is to protect the nation from invasion. If every citizen has a couple of rifles they could make a stand against any army trying to invade. The seconddary purpose of it is to protect the people from their own government. The founders of the country came from tyranny and knew if the population was armed they could defend themselves from a goverment if it became too overpowering.

Answer 2

The purpose of the Second Amendment is the concept of an armed and dangerous populace.
If all the peasants in Bagdhad were armed, and willing to fight, the US never could have conquered them. If all the peasants in Bagdhad were armed, and didn't want ole Shaddap Horselips as presidente/premier/ boss-for-life/dictator, they could have removed him all on their onesies, by forming a "well-regulated militia", savvy?
This is the whole idea.
Now, that's the first part. The second part is a little simpler, and more straightforward. It goes like this: "shall not be infringed".
Understand?
See, if you give a government a little control, pretty soon they will accumulate more control. Government, as an organization that is devoted to imposing order, and by nature prone to grow and expand, is a pernicious, but nececessary, evil.
The Founding Fathers knew that, and wrote the Second Amendment to prevent not only Invasion, but Repression. The consequences of having a disarmed populace were deemed to be worse than the dangers of crime. In modern terms, Saddam is worse than the Jamal the Carjacker.
Yes, the practice of thugs and crazies of carrying firearms on city streets is wrong. In fact, it is illegal in many areas. But it is a necessary evil that our society was set up to endure, in order to ensure that we will be free.
Pity most of our citizens don't understand what "free" means, but I suspect it has always been so.
Bottom line, the gun-toters don't (repeat, Do Not) claim that they are a "well-regulated militia" ... they claim, and correctly, that their right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed, period. End of story.
Cheers.

Answer 3

When the United States gained its independence from Britain, the national army under George Washington was disbanded. This meant that the security concerns of the people were thrust onto the states which were no more capable of maintaining standing armies than was the Continental Congress.

The United States was poor, rural, widely spread out on a piece of real estate the size of western Europe, and beset on all sides by threats (The British in Canada, the Spanish in Florida and the Mississippi Valley, and the numerous Native American tribes).

To handle security in the absense of a standing army, the states relied on the militia system of defense. In most states, the term Militia referred to any able bodied male aged 16 -55 who owned a firearm. These individuals could be mustered on the orders of the governor of the state, or by special order of the President of the United States.

The 2nd Amendment was adopted because the states feared that the new government would not be capable of defending them (which was true), and so they wanted to make sure that they would have the right to maintain control over their own militia forces for purposes of maintaining local security.

The reason the Amendment talks about the right of the people to bear arms is precisely because of the definition for militia I gave you above. It was essentially every male with a gun. But the universal opinion among legal scholars is that this amendment deals only with state control over their militias, and not with a general right of citizens to own guns.

For this reason the United States Supreme Court has never Incorporated this Amendment to the states (Which means that the Supreme Court has never said that states can't restrict firearms. States CAN restrict firearms and DO so on a regular basis).

Thus the real meaning of the 2nd Amendment has nothing to do with a declaration of a universal right to bear arms, it actually deals only with the narrow rights of the states to maintain their own internal security. To view this amendment as a general right of people to own guns is to totally ignore the historical context from which this amendment arose, and to be utterly ignorant of more than a century of Supreme Court opinions on the subject.

Answer 4

Historically, speaking yes. There was a time where every male (including those who weren't in a militia) were expected to carry. The Federalist Papers back this up. Then the knife attack in Tennessee was stopped by a citizen with a gun.

ARLINGTON, Tennessee (AP) -- A knife-wielding grocery store employee attacked eight co-workers Friday, seriously injuring five before a witness pulled a gun and stopped him, police said.

The 21-year-old suspect, whose name was withheld pending charges, was arrested and then taken to a hospital after complaining of chest pains, Memphis Police Sgt. Vince Higgins said. The attack apparently stemmed from a work dispute, police said.

Five victims, one in critical condition, were admitted to the Regional Medical Center, the main trauma hospital for the Memphis area. Three others were less badly hurt and treated at another hospital.

The attacker, chasing one victim into the store's parking lot, was subdued by Chris Cope, manager of a financial services office in the same small shopping center, Higgins said.

Cope said he grabbed a 9mm semiautomatic pistol from his pickup truck when he saw the attacker chasing the victim "like something in a serial killer movie."

"When he turned around and saw my pistol, he threw the knife away, put his hands up and got on the ground," Cope told The Associated Press. "He saw my gun and that was pretty much it."

Police arrived within minutes and took the attacker into custody.

"He just kept saying, 'I'm insane. I wish I was never born' and that kind of stuff," Cope said.

The attack started in an employee area of the Schnucks supermarket on the outskirts of Memphis and no customers were involved, Higgins said.

Police said two large kitchen knives used in the attack were found at the scene.

Witness Frank Rector said the attacker held a knife high in a stabbing position as he chased a victim into the parking lot. The victim, Rector said, "was circling, trying to get away from him."

The ages of the victims were not immediately released. Higgins and a company spokeswoman said all the victims were employees of the store.

The spokeswoman said officials from the St. Louis-based company were on their way to the scene.

Higgins said police were pulling into the parking lot as Cope was confronting the attacker.

"We commend him," Higgins said. "But we don't encourage people to take that kind of risk. He could have been hurt."


It takes the police 15 minutes to respond, and can take a person thirty seconds to bleed out.

Not to mention animal attacks.

If you don't want to carry you don't have to we'll protect you too.

Answer 5

"the right of the people to keep and bear arms"

Why is the 2nd amendment the only place in the Constitution where "people" refers to state governments?

Why don't we give the freedom of religion to state governments because it says that the "people" have those rights?

The framers of the Constitution knew that the right of the people to own guns it the best way to keep the government from becoming oppressive.

Grendle, wrote one of the best explanations I have ever seen.

Answer 6

The right of the people to keep and bear arms, means what
it says. Without this ground rule, the rest of the Bill of Rights
can't hold water. If all honest, law abiding citizens packed
a side arm, crime would decrease seven fold.
I Corinthians 13;8a, Love never fails!!!!!

Answer 7

Definition of "militia": An army composed of ordinary citizens rather than professional soldiers.

Answer 8

You see those commas,they separate equal statements.