The Crazy Cruz Control Thread.

[MyRescueKittehRocks]

He's not exactly wrong.

Is there contextual support for the position that the Founders put the Second Amendment into the Constitution so that citizens would be able to use guns against the government?

Yes. The entire debate about standing armies suggests as much. Why fear standing armies unless there is also fear that the lawful government could use said standing armies for tyrannical purposes.

See Federalist 46 for example: "Besides the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation, the existence of subordinate governments, to which the people are attached, and by which the militia officers are appointed, forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition, more insurmountable than any which a simple government of any form can admit of. Notwithstanding the military establishments in the several kingdoms of Europe, which are carried as far as the public resources will bear, the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms. And it is not certain, that with this aid alone they would not be able to shake off their yokes. But were the people to possess the additional advantages of local governments chosen by themselves, who could collect the national will and direct the national force, and of officers appointed out of the militia, by these governments, and attached both to them and to the militia, it may be affirmed with the greatest assurance, that the throne of every tyranny in Europe would be speedily overturned in spite of the legions which surround it."

See also, the Virginia Declaration of rights: "A well-regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the proper, natural, and safe defense of a free state; that standing armies, in time of peace, should be avoided as dangerous to liberty; and that in all cases the military should be under strict subordination to, and governed by, the civil power."

Eldebridge Gerry, 1 Annals of Cong. 749-50 (1789): “What, sir, is the use of a militia? It is to prevent the establishment of a standing army, the bane of liberty. Now, it must be evident, that, under this provision, together with their other powers, Congress could take such measures with respect to a militia, as to make a standing army necessary. Whenever Governments mean to invade the rights and liberties of the people, they always attempt to destroy the militia, in order to raise an army upon their ruins.”

Joeph Story's Commentaries Sec. 1890: " The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered, as the palladium of the liberties of a republic; since it offers a strong moral check against the usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers; and will generally, even if these are successful in the first instance, enable the people to resist and triumph over them."


I wrote an academic paper on the constitutional right of revolution this past Spring. I can email it to you if you'd like to read a more in depth analysis.

And boom goes the mother of all bombs. I'd also like the email on your research. Sounds like it'll be a good read.