BullpupBen
Member
If his argument is the intention of the founding fathers in ratifying the amendment, then you should read to him quotes of the founding fathers which clearly show that the purpose of the second amendment is to protect against the government, and this idea is spelled out in John Locke's Social Contract, which is referenced many times in the decleration of independence (i assume thats where he got the idea of only applying to the British)
"The strongest reason for people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government." -- (Thomas Jefferson)
Here is one such site of quotes, you can easily google up many more:
http://www.godseesyou.com/2nd_amendment_quotes.html
If you want to use it, here is a piece of a blog post (so excuse the bad grammar and all that) from an argument in my US Government class about gun control. Its pretty long, so just sift through it and take the parts which apply to you:
I: The Right to Keep and Bear Arms
I think that the right to keep and bear arms is not only a fundamental part of the constitution, but in fact one of the most important and unique facets of the United States and in the end the ultimate protection against "tyranny by one or by few" as the textbook calls it.
The founders created the right to keep and bear arms for one purpose and one purpose alone: to make the constitution a true social contract by preserving and ensuring the peoples' Right to Revolution.
John Locks' idea of a social contract is one of the fundamental ideas which are the foundation both for the declaration of independence and the Constitution. For those of you who don’t know, the Social Contract is the idea that for a government to be legitimate the people basically make a pact with the government.
The people give their consent to be governed either actively (by moving to a country or by making a new country) or passively (by being born in a country and not leaving it). In exchange for this the government agrees to protect their fundamental human rights of Life, Liberty, and the Property (sometimes called the Pursuit of Happiness). If at any time the government fails to protect these most basic ingredients for a fair and cohesive society, the people have the "right to revolution" wherein they rise up and destroy the current government in order to replace it with a new one which will protect their Life, Liberty, and Property.
Here is some evidence from the Declaration of Independence of how the social contract was the basis for legitimate uprising of the colonists to free themselves from British rule:
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness... it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."
Now, I'm not going to go into the list of grievances because I'm sure that none of you feel like reading them, but if you do you will find that they are all more or less complaints of violations of Life, Liberty, and Property of the colonists.
So now that we've established that the right to revolution's usage in legitimizing the Revolutionary War, how does that translate into the constitution?
During the drafting of the constitution there were two main parties competing over its direction: The federalists (more central government power) and the anti-federalists (more individual rights)
Basically the physical bulk of the constitution was written by the federalists, with such talents as James Madison. However, they could not get the anti-federalists to sign it. Although most of these rich white folk wanted a stronger government where individuals ceded many of their personal freedoms to the powers at be (hmmm.. i wonder why?) the anti-federalists fundamentally believed that the rights of the individual (or the many) must be preserved, as a check to the rule of the one (a tyrant) or the rule of the few (those rich families who wrote the constitution).
If one looks closely, you can see that that every single one is about the rights of common people to help them hold their freedoms against an oppressive government. They are about the rights of the individual to stop corruption of government by speaking out against government action, filing a list of grievances, having a reasonable bail, not being imprisoned without trial, the right to trial by a jury of your peers (who represent the many) and not by a judge (who represents the aristocratic few). Each and every one of these rights becomes relevant only when the government has become corrupt. If governments were always benevolent we could ban KKK demonstrations without worrying about that affecting the right to legitimately criticize society. However, this is not the case. The idea behind all of these amendments in the bill of rights is that some ground must be lost to minor problems to ensure stability and the protection of basic rights in the long run.
So with all this background on the constitution and the bill of rights one can understand and appreciate the second amendment:
“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 second amendment has the same purpose as all of the other amendments which is to protect individuals from the tyranny of the government. The main difference between the second amendment and the rest of the bill of rights, however, is that this right should not and can not be used until every other right has already been taken away by an oppressive government.
A lot of debate has raged over the syntax of the second amendment. anti-gun people and organizations like the Brady Campaign claim that the second amendment protects only the right to form state militias, which are essentially military forces that answer to the state and not to the federal government. There are a variety of reasons why this is incorrect. To begin with, practically, the states are no longer even remotely independent from the will of the federal government as the anti-federalists hoped they would be. This means that even if there were state militias today, they would never be useful in a revolution, it is clear to anyone who watches the news that armed resistance in this century comes from groups of people united under ideals, and not from any kind of state. In addition, the militias are not given the right to bear arms. That right clearly belongs to "the people", the same "people" who are mentioned numerous other times in the bill of rights. Imagine if the first amendment were read like this:
"The reading of newspapers being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to read shall not be infringed"
Now it is the 21st century. Most people dont really get their news from newspapers, so would this amendment also protect peoples right to read things on the internet? Of course it would! The founding fathers assumed that newspapers would be the medium of critisism of the government, just as they may have imagined that militias would be the medium for rebellion. Times have changed, and the internet has largely replaced newspapers while the individual has replaced militias. The amendment is not protecting the right to read newspapers, it is protecting the right to read in general, and noting that newspapers are the form of writing they assume would be the line of defense against government coruoption and tyranny.
For an expanded analysis on the second amendment by a real linguist, check out this article I found: http://www.fff.org/freedom/1095e.asp
One also has to remember that discussing little technicalities like the precise meanings of militias is irrelevant in the big picture of things. The purpose of the amendment is not to protect militias, it is to protect militias with the hope that they would allow people to exercise their God-given right to terminate the social contract. State militias might have been the logical outlet for rebellion against tyranny in those days, but in these days of high-speed communication, low respect for states rights, and a society focused very much upon individuals the outlet for rebellion must come from individuals united under one cause.
Those who say things like "a few people with rifles could not possibly hope to stand up to a modern army of tanks and planes" are probably the same people who cant beleive a bunch of barely trained Iraqi militants with cheap rifles and home made explosives caused massive casualties against the greatest army in the world, and very nearly had us defeated just a few years ago. There is no one, liberal or conservative, who will tell you that the change in casualty rate is because we had "more planes and tanks."
"There are only two forces in the world, the sword and the spirit. In the long
run the sword will always be conquered by the spirit."
- Napoleon Bonaparte
"The strongest reason for people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government." -- (Thomas Jefferson)
Here is one such site of quotes, you can easily google up many more:
http://www.godseesyou.com/2nd_amendment_quotes.html
If you want to use it, here is a piece of a blog post (so excuse the bad grammar and all that) from an argument in my US Government class about gun control. Its pretty long, so just sift through it and take the parts which apply to you:
I: The Right to Keep and Bear Arms
I think that the right to keep and bear arms is not only a fundamental part of the constitution, but in fact one of the most important and unique facets of the United States and in the end the ultimate protection against "tyranny by one or by few" as the textbook calls it.
The founders created the right to keep and bear arms for one purpose and one purpose alone: to make the constitution a true social contract by preserving and ensuring the peoples' Right to Revolution.
John Locks' idea of a social contract is one of the fundamental ideas which are the foundation both for the declaration of independence and the Constitution. For those of you who don’t know, the Social Contract is the idea that for a government to be legitimate the people basically make a pact with the government.
The people give their consent to be governed either actively (by moving to a country or by making a new country) or passively (by being born in a country and not leaving it). In exchange for this the government agrees to protect their fundamental human rights of Life, Liberty, and the Property (sometimes called the Pursuit of Happiness). If at any time the government fails to protect these most basic ingredients for a fair and cohesive society, the people have the "right to revolution" wherein they rise up and destroy the current government in order to replace it with a new one which will protect their Life, Liberty, and Property.
Here is some evidence from the Declaration of Independence of how the social contract was the basis for legitimate uprising of the colonists to free themselves from British rule:
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness... it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."
Now, I'm not going to go into the list of grievances because I'm sure that none of you feel like reading them, but if you do you will find that they are all more or less complaints of violations of Life, Liberty, and Property of the colonists.
So now that we've established that the right to revolution's usage in legitimizing the Revolutionary War, how does that translate into the constitution?
During the drafting of the constitution there were two main parties competing over its direction: The federalists (more central government power) and the anti-federalists (more individual rights)
Basically the physical bulk of the constitution was written by the federalists, with such talents as James Madison. However, they could not get the anti-federalists to sign it. Although most of these rich white folk wanted a stronger government where individuals ceded many of their personal freedoms to the powers at be (hmmm.. i wonder why?) the anti-federalists fundamentally believed that the rights of the individual (or the many) must be preserved, as a check to the rule of the one (a tyrant) or the rule of the few (those rich families who wrote the constitution).
If one looks closely, you can see that that every single one is about the rights of common people to help them hold their freedoms against an oppressive government. They are about the rights of the individual to stop corruption of government by speaking out against government action, filing a list of grievances, having a reasonable bail, not being imprisoned without trial, the right to trial by a jury of your peers (who represent the many) and not by a judge (who represents the aristocratic few). Each and every one of these rights becomes relevant only when the government has become corrupt. If governments were always benevolent we could ban KKK demonstrations without worrying about that affecting the right to legitimately criticize society. However, this is not the case. The idea behind all of these amendments in the bill of rights is that some ground must be lost to minor problems to ensure stability and the protection of basic rights in the long run.
So with all this background on the constitution and the bill of rights one can understand and appreciate the second amendment:
“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 second amendment has the same purpose as all of the other amendments which is to protect individuals from the tyranny of the government. The main difference between the second amendment and the rest of the bill of rights, however, is that this right should not and can not be used until every other right has already been taken away by an oppressive government.
A lot of debate has raged over the syntax of the second amendment. anti-gun people and organizations like the Brady Campaign claim that the second amendment protects only the right to form state militias, which are essentially military forces that answer to the state and not to the federal government. There are a variety of reasons why this is incorrect. To begin with, practically, the states are no longer even remotely independent from the will of the federal government as the anti-federalists hoped they would be. This means that even if there were state militias today, they would never be useful in a revolution, it is clear to anyone who watches the news that armed resistance in this century comes from groups of people united under ideals, and not from any kind of state. In addition, the militias are not given the right to bear arms. That right clearly belongs to "the people", the same "people" who are mentioned numerous other times in the bill of rights. Imagine if the first amendment were read like this:
"The reading of newspapers being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to read shall not be infringed"
Now it is the 21st century. Most people dont really get their news from newspapers, so would this amendment also protect peoples right to read things on the internet? Of course it would! The founding fathers assumed that newspapers would be the medium of critisism of the government, just as they may have imagined that militias would be the medium for rebellion. Times have changed, and the internet has largely replaced newspapers while the individual has replaced militias. The amendment is not protecting the right to read newspapers, it is protecting the right to read in general, and noting that newspapers are the form of writing they assume would be the line of defense against government coruoption and tyranny.
For an expanded analysis on the second amendment by a real linguist, check out this article I found: http://www.fff.org/freedom/1095e.asp
One also has to remember that discussing little technicalities like the precise meanings of militias is irrelevant in the big picture of things. The purpose of the amendment is not to protect militias, it is to protect militias with the hope that they would allow people to exercise their God-given right to terminate the social contract. State militias might have been the logical outlet for rebellion against tyranny in those days, but in these days of high-speed communication, low respect for states rights, and a society focused very much upon individuals the outlet for rebellion must come from individuals united under one cause.
Those who say things like "a few people with rifles could not possibly hope to stand up to a modern army of tanks and planes" are probably the same people who cant beleive a bunch of barely trained Iraqi militants with cheap rifles and home made explosives caused massive casualties against the greatest army in the world, and very nearly had us defeated just a few years ago. There is no one, liberal or conservative, who will tell you that the change in casualty rate is because we had "more planes and tanks."
"There are only two forces in the world, the sword and the spirit. In the long
run the sword will always be conquered by the spirit."
- Napoleon Bonaparte
