Standing army feared

The history leading up to the wording of the Second Amendment is, rightly given, long and complex (see “The Militia And The Constitution: A Legal History” by William S. Fields and David T. Hardy, Military Law Review, Spring 1992). But, cut brutally short, it deals with the “militia,” which indeed was considered to include every citizen (well, every male citizen) – but which was envisaged as, and had historically been, an organized body with officers and a command structure under the ultimate authority of the state.

While some then did hold the view that the right to keep and bear arms existed independent of the needs of a militia, that was not the general or majority view at the time, as the wording passed by the House makes clear: “A well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, being the best security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.”

The deeper issue was an abiding distrust of a standing army, with the militia seen as an alternative that made such an army needless – a position very difficult to justify even then, and utterly impossible today.

Eric Walker

Ritzville