The 2nd Amendment: An Even Closer Look

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Seth Meyers, I loved your piece on the 2nd Amendment in the wake of two horrific mass shootings in less than a week:

But its even worst than you said. 

We have to look at where the 2nd Amendment came from to really understand it.

After they made the US Constitution in 1788 , a number of  deficiencies were noted and a call for amendments went out in 1789. Virginia submitted an amendment that it said was a deal-breaker, and would be edited into becoming the 2nd Amendment. It was eleventh on their list. It read like this:

11th. That each state respectively shall have the power to provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining its own militia, whensoever Congress shall omit or neglect to provide the same. That the militia ...shall be subject only to such fines, penalties, and punishments as shall be directed or inflicted by the laws of its own state.

It was not to support an individual's right to bear arms. It was to assure that the slave owning states would have to right to maintain armed militia for the purposes of catching runaway slaves and putting down slave revolts. As Thom Hartmann pointed out in his piece on the 2nd Amendment:

In the beginning, there were the militias. In the South, they were also called the "slave patrols," and they were regulated by the states.

Patrick Henry saw why they needed that amendment to correct "deficiencies" in the new Constitution:

"If the country be invaded, a state may go to war, but cannot suppress [slave] insurrections [under this new Constitution]. If there should happen an insurrection of slaves, the country cannot be said to be invaded."

He told James Madison, who drafted the amendments,

"In this situation, I see a great deal of the property of the people of Virginia in jeopardy, and their peace and tranquility gone."

This is the context that explains the arcane language of:

"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."

When this amendment says "free State," read "slave State," because that's what Virginia was, so read the first part as follows:

"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a slave State,"

The second part:

"the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

Is the assurance the slave states were demanding, with Virginia in the lead, that a more liberal federal government would not take away their "right" to employ the armed violence necessary to maintain their slave-based system. 

How about mandatory gun owner's insurance?

I also liked your comparison between the requirements of car and gun ownership, pointing out drivers have to pass tests, get licenses, etc. But you left out one "feature" of car ownership that may point the way forward for those that prefer a purely capitalist road to gun control—in most states, car owners have to buy insurance.

So, suppose gun owners had to buy insurance on every gun they own? After all, they are using a machine capable of doing great damage, even if by accident.

With auto insurance, rates vary according to the number of miles you drive. With guns it might be the rounds of ammo purchased or expended. Auto insurance also varies according to the type of car. It costs more to insure a Vet than a Honda Civic. Also, other factors about the driver are taken into account.

So, the owner of one or two hand guns or shotguns for home defense that only occasionally expends rounds for practice might pay a very nominal rate, whereas the militia member who owns an arsenal of AR-15 like weapons, and regularly practices Capitol assaults in the woods with live ammo, might pay a significantly higher rate.

Clay Claiborne