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Hold your fire: Second Amendment was aimed at building militias

March 1, 2006 12:50 am

By RON MILLER

I SHOULD SAY at the outset that I believe that I have a right to own a gun and I do own one. But I don't think that the Second Amendment unequivocally guarantees me that right. Let me explain.

There weren't too many things that frightened the Founding Fathers, but two or three subjects made them very nervous. One was the idea of a state religion. They'd seen the misery caused by the establishment of an "official" faith in other countries and had no desire to see it reproduced here. Another thing that gave them the fantods was the notion of a standing army. "How dangerous it might be," wrote Massachusetts Gov. John Winthrop in 1638, "to erect a standing authority of military men which might easily in time overthrow the civil power."

"Standing armies," ran the decree disbanding the Continental Army after the Revolution, "in time of peace are inconsistent with the principles of a free people, and generally converted into destructive engines for establishing despotism."

Knowing the strong feelings of the Founding Fathers on this matter makes it seem less odd to find no provision in the original Constitution for an army. What the Founding Fathers had high hopes for in case of a national emergency was that everyone would drop what they were doing, grab a rifle from over the fireplace, and rush to the aid of their country.

They were much too idealistic, however. A civilian militia simply doesn't work--and never has. The problem is divided between self-interest and lack of discipline. The average militiaman, the Founding Fathers discovered, would head back for his farm as soon as the immediate emergency was over--or sooner, if he thought his farm or family needed him. And the citizen-soldier felt no qualms about deciding he'd had enough in the midst of a battle. Gen. St. Clair suffered a devastating defeat from the Indians in 1791 when his Kentucky militia fled en masse. It was not until Von Steuben instilled discipline and drill into the American Regulars during the Revolutionary War that they were able to stand up to the British in the open field.

In spite of the victories that resulted, the Continental Army was effectively abolished after the war, with only an army of 80 privates retained, and no officers with a rank above captain.

But with disasters such as St. Clair's still rankling, the government relented and established the Militia Act. This required the enrollment of every American male between the ages of 18 and 45. The militias would be organized by the individual states, however, and not the federal government. Recent history to the contrary, the government had already fallen prey to the myth of the "embattled farmer"--the idealistic dream that in time of national danger, every American would take down his trusty flintlock and instantly become an invincible soldier. One that had no need for drilling or discipline or order. In practice, however, none of these farmer-soldiers felt that their loyalty to the United States as a whole outweighed their individual independence to do as they pleased. And their insistence on these personal rights often "bordered on the pathological," as military historian Jack Coggins put it.

The failure of the civilian militia was brought home all too sharply by the War of 1812. Many states never bothered to respond to the call for their militia, and some flatly refused. Those that did respond found themselves pitting untrained, ill-equipped farmers against trained, organized troops--with results such as when 6,000 American militiamen were routed by fewer than 2,000 British troops at Bladensburg in 1814.

After the War of 1812, the American government realized that it would be disastrous to continue belief in the fiction that the nation could be governed by an untrained, unorganized civilian militia, however romantic the myth of the "minuteman" might be. Provisions for a regular, standing army were finally begun.

Although the idea of defending this nation by means of a civilian militia proved to be a pipe dream, a noble experiment that needlessly cost thousands of lives, its ghost remains in the Constitution to this day. That's what the Second Amendment is: a kind of fossil. It is only a single sentence and few short words have never provoked so much controversy. However, it is clear what the authors intended when it is read in its historical context.

Since few, if any, gun-ownership advocates quote the amendment in its entirety, let me do so here, just to keep things clear: "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."

The Founding Fathers did us no favor by making the syntax of such a simple statement so convoluted, but that was the style of writing in the 18th century, so there we are. It can be made clearer by simply inverting the two clauses, thus: "The right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed because a well regulated Militia is necessary to the security of a free State." To eliminate the phrase about the necessity of establishing a "well regulated militia," as most gun advocates do, is not only dishonest but apparently a deliberate attempt to disguise the intent of the Founding Fathers. And that was that the American people have a right to bear arms but with that right comes an obligation. The amendment has nothing to do with the right to protect one's home and family or the right to use a weapon for sport or hunting instead it has everything to do with providing a civilian army for the defense of the United States. In spite of the fact that it was demonstrated 200 years ago that a civilian army does not--and probably can not---work. Perhaps it is more than just a desire to shrug off this implied responsibility that keeps gun advocates from admitting to the full wording of the amendment. Perhaps it is the phrase "well regulated" that scares them. After all, it is hard to claim that the Second Amendment prohibits things such as the registration of gun ownership while at the same time acknowledging that it requires that gun owners be "well regulated."

Then again, perhaps gun advocates have been misled by believing that the Second Amendment is part of a "Bill of Rights" that is specifically aimed at guaranteeing the freedoms of individual Americans But there is no section of the Constitution called the "Bill of Rights." The Second Amendment is only one of 27 amendments, the first 10 of which have popularly albeit unofficially become known as the "Bill of Rights." But by believing there is such an official entity, gun advocates have come to believe that the Second Amendment has everything do with their individual right to gun ownership and to conveniently forget, or ignore, what its sole, original intentions were: the creation of a civilian militia for national defense.

RON MILLER of King George is a science-fiction and science-fact writer and illustrator. His books include, with William Hartmann, "The Grand Tour: A Traveler's Guide to the Solar System," now in a new edition.