I was recently asked an interesting question. I had heard the question before in the media,
so it was no surprise that someone was quoting it back to me. The question was: “Do you think our Founding
Fathers envisioned AR-15 style rifles and 30 round magazines when they drafted
the 2nd Amendment?”
It is an interesting question because the logical answer is:
Of course our Founding Fathers did not envision AR-15 style rifles and 30 round
magazines when they drafted the 2nd Amendment. Of course, it is logical to assume that the
Founding Fathers also did not envision horseless carriages (automobiles),
microwave ovens, space travel, nuclear energy, computers, or any of the other
modern conveniences that we take for granted today.
But the real implication of the question is that the 2nd
Amendment is frozen in time and that the People only have the right to “keep
and bear” the arms that were in existence on the day the 2nd
Amendment was drafted, namely muskets.
So, the real answer to the question and the implication is: Does it
really matter whether the Founding Fathers envisioned AR-15 style rifles and 30
round magazines when they drafted the 2nd Amendment?
Once again, you have to look at the purpose for which the 2nd
Amendment was included in the Bill of Rights of the U.S. Constitution. The purpose of the 2nd Amendment
was to permit the People to overthrow the government should the government ever
deny the rights to the People that are contained in the remainder of the U.S.
Constitution. In other words, the 2nd
Amendment provides the People a check and balance on the power of government. The People may never need to use the power retained
by them in the 2nd Amendment but the mere existence of the 2nd
Amendment is what prevents the government from denying the rights guaranteed by
the U.S. Constitution to the People.
With that in mind, it would appear that the Founding Fathers
were very shrewd in their drafting of the Bill of Rights. Not only did they not envisioned AR-15 style
rifles and 30 round magazines when they drafted the 2nd Amendment,
but they also understood that they could not envision the future. For that reason, they did not state that the
right to keep and bear arms was limited to muskets or whatever other weapon was
available to the government on the date of the drafting of the 2nd
Amendment. In order for the 2nd
Amendment to work properly, the 2nd Amendment had to be drafted in a
more flexible manner to retain its usefulness into the future.
When you combine this flexibility with the intent of the 2nd
Amendment, the only logical conclusion you can draw is that the Founding
Fathers intended the People to have access to the same technology that is available
to the government. In today’s society,
that means that if the government has the technology to build and arm
government representatives with AR-15 style rifles and 30 round magazines, the
only way to ensure that the check and balance of the 2nd Amendment
remains intact is to permit the People to own the same technology, namely AR-15
style rifles and 30 round magazines.
The unfortunate reality is that some of our government
representatives want to take away a power that was expressly retained by the
People, thus removing one of the most important checks and balances of our U.S.
Constitution. By removing the right of
the People to possess the same technology that is available to the government,
the government becomes more powerful than the People. We cannot let that happen. We must maintain the line.
