Why did the founders put the Second Amendment into the Constitution? Because they had just gone through a bloody war with a country that had the worlds best army and they wanted the people to be armed in case it happened again. The founders knew that an armed populace is less likely to be subject to tyranny from the authorities or from fellow citizens who have run amok. We have lots of examples of this Condoleezza Rice gave one on The View recently:
“Let me tell you why I’m a defender of the Second Amendment. I was a little girl growing up in Birmingham, Alabama, in the late fifties, early sixties. There was no way that Bull Connor and the Birmingham Police were going to protect you. And so when White Knight Riders would come through our neighborhood, my father and his friends would take their guns and they’d go to the head of the neighborhood, it’s a little cul-de-sac and they would fire in the air, if anybody came through. I don’t think they actually ever hit anybody. But they protected the neighborhood. And I’m sure if Bull Connor had known where those guns were he would have rounded them up. And so, I don’t favor some things like gun registration.”
Hitler disarmed the Jews in Germany before he started to persecute them.
The Afghan rebels fought the Soviet invaders for years with personal arms before the USA started to arm them. Read Charley Wilson’s War for details.
Guns are a useful tool against tyranny so the founders enshrined the right to have arms in the Constitution.
But what about the children? How can we protect them? In my next post I’ll talk about what I think we can do.