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, shall not be infringed". Thus says the Second Amendment to the Bill of Rights of the Constitution of the United States.

Over the past four decades this amendment has come under tremendous attack by the Progressive left in this nation. Oh yes, we are told that our hunting rights will be protected. Ms. Hillary, recently seen tossing back a shot and beer, has now told us about her day in a duck blind where she shot a "banded" duck. Her opponent chided her on taking her "six gun" into a duck blind. Word of caution here, do not go into a duck blind with Barack Obama.

Had these two presidential candidates, and others before them , tried to convince our colonial ancestors that they some how needed the Second Amendment to protect their hunting rights, they would have been laughed off the farm. Our ancestors did not need a Constitutional guarantee to hunt. Guns were a way of life, a tool if you will, that you took with you for two reasons, to hunt animals and to protect yourself against unforeseen dangers whether man or beast.

The Progressives want to argue that the Second Amendment is not an individual right. Rather it is there for state militias. To the gun regulating Progressives, guns should be in the hands of what they perceive to be the modern militia, the National Guard and Reserves. According to my Compact Oxford Dictionary a militia is "a military force made up of civilians, used to supplement a regular army in an emergency".In short, a militia is a citizens army. During colonial times men were expected to report to the town square with weapons and ammunition that they supplied. They were, for the most part, not in uniform, and they practiced military drills on the town square in order that they could act in an effective manner during an emergency. They did not gather there to learn how to make decoys, call turkey, or stalk big game animals.

The Second Amendment is about self defense. You have the God given, not governmental given, right to protect yourself and your country. You can be called upon to this day to be a member of a citizens' militia where you would be required to bring your own gun and ammunition.

The United States Supreme Court recently heard a case involving the stringent Washington, DC gun ban. Under this ban, for all intents and purposes, citizens of the District could not own a gun. A lower court had decided that the ban was to restrictive and that the Second Amendment was an individual right. This decision was appealed to the High Court. Among the briefs and arguments was documentation that in modern times citizen militias have been created. One such example was in the state of Maryland during World War II. The governor, looking to the gun clubs on the Eastern Shore of his state, called on such clubs to serve in the capacity of militias because so many men had gone into the regular military and, along with the National Guard, had been called up for duty due to the war. The men in the gun clubs were expected to bring their own guns and ammunition and serve as the military force in the state. Some 60 plus briefs were filed on this case, a case that is going to make it clear once and for all that the Second Amendment is an individual right just like all the other rights found in the Bill of Rights and the other Amendments added to the Constitution. It's about time that this issue be put to rest so that we can rest in peace knowing that we will be able to protect ourselves from the interlopers on our rights whether they be foreign or domestic.