|
| | | | |
|
|
THE MILITIA QUESTION, RESOLVED
THE MILITIA
QUESTION, RESOLVED
SECOND AMENDMENT 101
by Michael Kreca
"The most foolish
mistake we could possibly make would be to permit the conquered Eastern
peoples to have arms. History teaches that all conquerors who have allowed
their subject races to carry arms have prepared their own downfall by doing
so. Indeed I would go so far as to say that the underdog is a sine qua non for
the overthrow of any sovereignty. So let's not have any native militia or
police. German troops alone will bear the sole responsibility for the
maintenance of law and order." ~~ Adolf Hitler, April 11, 1942,
in “Hitler's Table-Talk at the Fuehrer's Headquarters 1941-1942”, Dr.
Henry Picker, ed. (Athenaeum Verlag, Bonn, 1951)
Twenty-seven words first published
in 1790 are now the source of the bitterest controversy the USA has seen since
the 1960s if not since the War Between the States a century before that. They
are central to an issue that splits left and right, male and female, white and
nonwhite, North and South, East and West, wealthy and not-so wealthy.
They are:
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.
Let’s get this straight right
away. First of all, the inalienable right of individuals to keep and bear arms
as a check on a tyrannical government predates our Declaration of Independence
and Constitution. This, among other things, was clearly and eloquently
expressed in Sir William Blackstone's 1768 "Commentaries On The Laws of
England.” Hence, the Founders were operating within a long historical
tradition based upon English common law.
Secondly, the term “well-regulated” meant something quite different two
centuries ago. It is not today’s definition of “controlled,”
“limited,” or “restricted” but was instead defined as “having proper
kit and provisions” or in the case of objects or machinery,
“properly maintained and kept in good repair.” The next is the
Constitutional definition of the “militia,” and this what requires detailed
explanation. The militia issue was extensively debated during the 1787-89
Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia and today has sadly been ignored by
both sides in this issue.
Founder George Mason explicitly
wished to have it clearly spelled out that the militia was “of the whole
people," in effect, a “general militia” that was affirmed in the Second
Amendment and the 1792 Militia Act. Mason and his supporters feared the
development of "special militias"—ones much like the Puritan
"Roundheads" led by Oliver Cromwell and their opponents, the
“Cavaliers,” in the English Civil War of 1642-57. Special militias are
nothing more than state-sanctioned paramilitary groups--witness the German Nazi
SA and its successor the SS as well as the Italian Fascist "Blackshirts."
In those cases, Nazi/Fascist Party membership was strictly required to join them
as well as to legally own a firearm of any kind in either of those countries at
the time.
These two groups were little different than standing armies. The difference is
that they were created and used by the German and Italian governments to bypass
any laws against using the military domestically against the people (or in the
absence of such laws, to forestall the military’s unwillingness to do so)—in
order to crush dissent and terrorize opponents. (Sound familiar?) Cromwell used
his Roundheads to do much the same thing, even having King Charles I beheaded
after a bogus trial, later closing Parliament and then invading Ireland with
plans to wipe out the Catholic population, killing those of his comrades and
anyone else who refused to comply.
Distressingly, we now have a lot of special militias in the USA—the Secret
Service, FBI, BATF, DEA, IRS, the National Guard and today’s "near
federalized" status of most state and local police departments--to name but
a few. And they are all unconstitutional, if the plain meaning of the 2nd
Amendment and the 1792 Militia Act is correct. George Mason's fears about them
were well placed and have come tragically true. All these alphabet-soup special
militias can do and have done (other than freely lapping up taxpayer money in
ever-increasing amounts) is be responsible for numerous cruel and meaningless
tragedies. These range from spying on, harassing and ruining the lives of anyone
deemed an “enemy of the state,” to brutally breaking strikes, violently
disrupting demonstrations and killing innocent people in places ranging from
Kent State to Ruby Ridge and Waco.
Even the courts are beginning to revive this long forgotten but crucial
“general vs. special” militia distinction. The 1990 Supreme Court case
Perpich vs. Department of Defense is a case in point. Then Minnesota Gov. Rudy
Perpich claimed the DoD violated the Constitution when it ordered the Minnesota
National Guard (which he claimed was the 'state militia') to duty outside the
state without his consent or that of the state legislature.
The Supreme Court ruled against Perpich. It held the National Guard is an
integral component of the US Army Reserve system (it has been since 1916). It
further supported its ruling by specifying the difference between the “special
militia” (in this case the Minnesota Guard) instead of the “general
militia” (citizens with privately procured and owned arms) as expressed in the
2nd Amendment. Also in 1990 the Court in another case affirmed the definition of
“the people” expressed in the Bill of Rights as meaning individual persons,
not a group.
So the statist left has its “militia” and the rest of us have ours. No
wonder so many of them can’t free themselves from the false but mesmerizing
aura of the “Militia=National Guard” equation. The statist left doesn’t
want to because it’s interested not in the right of individuals to protect
their lives and liberty against a tyrannical federal government, but in giving
that tyrannical federal government a blank check, figuratively and literally, to
indulge in state-sponsored terror under the tautological trinity of “crime
prevention," "anti-terrorism" and "national security.” And
Clinton Defense Secretary William Cohen has all but told us to “get used to
the idea.”
So there it is. General militia versus special militia.
Which are you?
Think about that question the next time you are cajoled by otherwise-idle
Million Mom March mavens to support “sensible gun laws” or are exhorted by
the denizens of the pseudo-patriotic “law-and-order” crowd to “back the
badge.”
Michael E. Kreca is a staff writer
for Ether Zone. Michael E. Kreca lives in San Diego and has been a
financial reporter for Business
Week, Knight-Ridder and the Financial Times of London. He can be reached at mkreca@connectnet.com
Published in the May 26, 2000 issue of Ether Zone. Copyright © 2000 Ether
Zone
Reposting permitted with this message intact.
|
|
|
