Posted on 08/18/2003 7:03:44 AM PDT by Atlas Sneezed
The thirteen words many conservatives wish had been left out of the Constitution are these: "a well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State."
By seeming to qualify the words that follow, "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be abridged," the militia thing has provided the excuse for all sorts of mischief on the issue of gun control, clouded what would otherwise be an unambiguous assertion and given liberal judges unfortunate wiggle room.
But gun control aside, what about the phrase itself? In the 21st Century, is a well regulated militia necessary to the security of the United States?
I do not intend to discuss here the question of whether an armed citizenry is a bulwark against domestic tyranny, however interesting such a discussion might prove. Instead, I want to talk about today's official militia, the National Guard.
In the beginning, the militia, consisting of all the able-bodied men of the nation, was in fact available for and expected to respond to national defense emergencies, bringing their own guns. That's what the Minute Men were, and what they did.
Now, each state has a formal National Guard organization, which can be called to duty by the Governor for state emergencies such as natural disasters, or made available to the Federal authorities for deployment in the interest of national defense.
In this latter capacity, National Guard units are more or less indistinguishable from the reserve units maintained by each of the services.
This raises an interesting question. Why do we need both?
With regard to the Navy and Marine reserves, there are probably sufficient reasons for keeping them separate, but with regard to the Army and Air Force, this is vastly less clear.
I can hear the squeals already from those with vested interests in the current reserve system, but if there are persuasive general objections they are hard to come by. We have two largely redundant and very expensive command structures. Why?
Obviously, the state governors need state militias, but with enabling help from Congress, there is no reason why they cannot command and control the entire Army and Air Force Reserve Component force structure, just as they do the National Guards today.
I say a well regulated militia IS necessary to our security, even today, and by combining its redundant components, we could regulate it much more efficiently than we do.
Another idea for increasing the efficiency of our fighting forces is to follow up on the estimate of the Army staff that it can convert over 100,000 uniform positions to civilian positions, thereby freeing the equivalent of four combat divisions and their support organizations for deployment. Not only would this move mean that more of our fighting forces would be available for combat duty, it would be exceptionally cost- effective.
Retired Army Col. Glenn Lackey, one of very few senior officers in the history of the Army to also serve in a top staff position in Congress, notes that every Lieutenant who comes on Active Duty and stays for a career costs the American taxpayer over $4 million in direct compensation and benefits and training costs alone, not to mention the cost of the materiel with which he or she will fight. Why, Lackey wonders, are we spending that kind of money on officers who then get assigned to jobs that could easily be filled by an equally competent but vastly less expensive civilian?
Some of the money we save by not overtraining troops for non-combat jobs should be spent on upgrading the currently inadequate training combat troops get in urban warfare; clearly we have a way to go before our troops are as good downtown as they are out in the countryside. Although there are reputable urban warfare training simulations available in the private sector, my guess is that the best ideas are still out there waiting to be thought up. Perhaps DARPA could take time out from its game theory speculations to work on it.
Finally, the Iraq and Afghanistan experiences demonstrate clearly that we need to improve the art of nation-building. It simply cannot remain an afterthought. The hardened Peace Corps I have previously advocated can be a part of the solution of this problem, but the real answer is to have dedicated units of highly-skilled people, specifically trained in communications, organization-building and management, with language skills and multicultural understanding as an absolute requisite.
The war ain't over 'til the new nation is up and running, and its people are happy the United States helped them get to that stage. General Barry McCaffrey has written that it will take "no less than two years of inspired leadership, courageous soldiering and $100 billion" to put Iraq back on its feet. That estimate may be too great, too little or right on the mark, but surely we need more than simply a bigger Army. Just as surely, the task would have been easier if we had provided better post-combat training and a more efficient command structure to those tasked with trying to win the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people, organize their civic institutions, and jump-start them into responsible nationhood.
If we're ever going to do something like Iraq again – and something tells me we are – let's do it right.
This is the Age of Terrorism, in which we must maintain a war footing without benefit of old-style national mobilization. Never has there been a greater need for a well regulated militia, competent in all the many and various disciplines required and rational in its structure.
Veteran GOP media consultant Jay Bryant’s regular columns are available at www.theoptimate.com, and his commentaries may be heard on NPR’s “All Things Considered.”
If you wanted to know all about the Big Bang, you'd ring up Carl Sagan, right? And if you wanted to know about desert warfare, the man to call would be Norman Schwarzkopf, no question about it. But who would you call if you wanted the top expert on American usage, to tell you the meaning of the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution?
That was the question I asked A.C. Brocki, editorial coordinator of the Los Angeles Unified School District and formerly senior editor at Houghton Mifflin Publishers — who himself had been recommended to me as the foremost expert on English usage in the Los Angeles school system. Mr. Brocki told me to get in touch with Roy Copperud, a retired professor of journalism at the University of Southern California and the author of American Usage and Style: The Consensus.
A little research lent support to Brocki's opinion of Professor Copperud's expertise.
Roy Copperud was a newspaper writer on major dailies for over three decades before embarking on a a distinguished 17-year career teaching journalism at USC. Since 1952, Copperud has been writing a column dealing with the professional aspects of journalism for Editor and Publisher, a weekly magazine focusing on the journalism field.
He's on the usage panel of the American Heritage Dictionary, and Merriam Webster's Usage Dictionary frequently cites him as an expert. Copperud's fifth book on usage, American Usage and Style: The Consensus, has been in continuous print from Van Nostrand Reinhold since 1981, and is the winner of the Association of American Publisher's Humanities Award.
That sounds like an expert to me.
After a brief telephone call to Professor Copperud in which I introduced myself but did not give him any indication of why I was interested, I sent the following letter:
"I am writing you to ask you for your professional opinion as an expert in English usage, to analyze the text of the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution, and extract the intent from the text.
"The text of the Second Amendment is, 'A well-regulated Militia, being necessary for the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.'
"The debate over this amendment has been whether the first part of the sentence, 'A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State', is a restrictive clause or a subordinate clause, with respect to the independent clause containing the subject of the sentence, 'the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.'
"I would request that your analysis of this sentence not take into consideration issues of political impact or public policy, but be restricted entirely to a linguistic analysis of its meaning and intent. Further, since your professional analysis will likely become part of litigation regarding the consequences of the Second Amendment, I ask that whatever analysis you make be a professional opinion that you would be willing to stand behind with your reputation, and even be willing to testify under oath to support, if necessary."
My letter framed several questions about the test of the Second Amendment, then concluded:
"I realize that I am asking you to take on a major responsibility and task with this letter. I am doing so because, as a citizen, I believe it is vitally important to extract the actual meaning of the Second Amendment. While I ask that your analysis not be affected by the political importance of its results, I ask that you do this because of that importance."
After several more letters and phone calls, in which we discussed terms for his doing such an analysis, but in which we never discussed either of our opinions regarding the Second Amendment, gun control, or any other political subject, Professor Copperud sent me the follow analysis (into which I have inserted my questions for the sake of clarity):
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[Copperud:] "The words 'A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state,' contrary to the interpretation cited in your letter of July 26, 1991, constitutes a present participle, rather than a clause. It is used as an adjective, modifying 'militia,' which is followed by the main clause of the sentence (subject 'the right', verb 'shall'). The to keep and bear arms is asserted as an essential for maintaining a militia.
"In reply to your numbered questions:
[Schulman:] "(1) Can the sentence be interpreted to grant the right to keep and bear arms solely to 'a well-regulated militia'?"
[Copperud:] "(1) The sentence does not restrict the right to keep and bear arms, nor does it state or imply possession of the right elsewhere or by others than the people; it simply makes a positive statement with respect to a right of the people."
[Schulman:] "(2) Is 'the right of the people to keep and bear arms' granted by the words of the Second Amendment, or does the Second Amendment assume a preexisting right of the people to keep and bear arms, and merely state that such right 'shall not be infringed'?"
[Copperud:] "(2) The right is not granted by the amendment; its existence is assumed. The thrust of the sentence is that the right shall be preserved inviolate for the sake of ensuring a militia."
[Schulman:] "(3) Is the right of the people to keep and bear arms conditioned upon whether or not a well regulated militia, is, in fact necessary to the security of a free State, and if that condition is not existing, is the statement 'the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed' null and void?"
[Copperud:] "(3) No such condition is expressed or implied. The right to keep and bear arms is not said by the amendment to depend on the existence of a militia. No condition is stated or implied as to the relation of the right to keep and bear arms and to the necessity of a well-regulated militia as a requisite to the security of a free state. The right to keep and bear arms is deemed unconditional by the entire sentence."
[Schulman:] "(4) Does the clause 'A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State,' grant a right to the government to place conditions on the 'right of the people to keep and bear arms,' or is such right deemed unconditional by the meaning of the entire sentence?"
[Copperud:] "(4) The right is assumed to exist and to be unconditional, as previously stated. It is invoked here specifically for the sake of the militia."
[Schulman:] "(5) Which of the following does the phrase 'well-regulated militia' mean: 'well-equipped', 'well-organized,' 'well-drilled,' 'well-educated,' or 'subject to regulations of a superior authority'?"
[Copperud:] "(5) The phrase means 'subject to regulations of a superior authority;' this accords with the desire of the writers for civilian control over the military."
[Schulman:] "(6) (If at all possible, I would ask you to take account the changed meanings of words, or usage, since that sentence was written 200 years ago, but not take into account historical interpretations of the intents of the authors, unless those issues can be clearly separated."
[Copperud:] "To the best of my knowledge, there has been no change in the meaning of words or in usage that would affect the meaning of the amendment. If it were written today, it might be put: "Since a well-regulated militia is necessary tot he security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be abridged.'
[Schulman:] "As a 'scientific control' on this analysis, I would also appreciate it if you could compare your analysis of the text of the Second Amendment to the following sentence,
"A well-schooled electorate, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and read Books, shall not be infringed.'
"My questions for the usage analysis of this sentence would be,
"(1) Is the grammatical structure and usage of this sentence and the way the words modify each other, identical to the Second Amendment's sentence?; and
"(2) Could this sentence be interpreted to restrict 'the right of the people to keep and read Books' only to 'a well-educated electorate' — for example, registered voters with a high-school diploma?"
[Copperud:] "(1) Your 'scientific control' sentence precisely parallels the amendment in grammatical structure.
"(2) There is nothing in your sentence that either indicates or implies the possibility of a restricted interpretation."
Professor Copperud had only one additional comment, which he placed in his cover letter: "With well-known human curiosity, I made some speculative efforts to decide how the material might be used, but was unable to reach any conclusion."
So now we have been told by one of the top experts on American usage what many knew all along: the Constitution of the United States unconditionally protects the people's right to keep and bear arms, forbidding all governments formed under the Constitution from abridging that right.
As I write this, the attempted coup against constitutional government in the Soviet Union has failed, apparently because the will of the people in that part of the world to be free from capricious tyranny is stronger than the old guard's desire to maintain a monopoly on dictatorial power.
And here in the United States, elected lawmakers, judges, and appointed officials who are pledged to defend the Constitution of the United States ignore, marginalize, or prevaricate about the Second Amendment routinely. American citizens are put in American prisons for carrying arms, owning arms of forbidden sorts, or failing to satisfy bureaucratic requirements regarding the owning and carrying of firearms — all of which is an abridgement of the unconditional right of the people to keep and bear arms, guaranteed by the Constitution.
And even the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), staunch defender of the rest of the Bill of Rights, stands by and does nothing.
It seems it is up to those who believe in the right to keep and bear arms to preserve that right. No one else will. No one else can. Will we beg our elected representatives not to take away our rights, and continue regarding them as representing us if they do? Will we continue obeying judges who decide that the Second Amendment doesn't mean what it says it means but means whatever they say it means in their Orwellian doublespeak?
Or will be simply keep and bear the arms of our choice, as the Constitution of the United States promises us we can, and pledge that we will defend that promise with our lives, our fortuned, and our sacred honor?
(C) 1991 by The New Gun Week and Second Amendment Foundation. Informational reproduction of the entire article is hereby authorized provided the author, The New Gun Week and Second Amendment Foundation are credited. All other rights reserved.
This sentence proves the author is an ignoramus.
USC Title 10 (311 Militia: Composition and Classes) states,
"The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age and, except as provided in section 313 of title 32, under 45 years of age who are, or who have made declaration of intention to become, citizens of the United States, and of female citizens of the United States who are commissioned officers of the National Guard.
The classes of the militia are-- (1) the organized militia, which consists of the National Guard and the Naval Militia; and (2) the unorganized militia, which consists of the members of the militia who are not members of the National Guard or Naval Militia."
...is the working part of the 2nd Amendment. We have to be careful not to let the first part of the sentence distract us. It is just an explanation, or a modifier; by no means should it be taken as a necessary and sufficient condition for the second part.
The militia are the whole body of the people who are able to bear arms. PERIOD. It is the only true bulwark of our liberty, and the Founding Fathers knew this very well - an armed populace cannot be subjected to a tyranny against its will. The following quote should be of interest in this matter:
At what point shall we expect the approach of danger? By what means shall we fortify against it? Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant to step the ocean and crush us at a blow? Never! All the armies of Europe, Asia, and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth in their military chests; with a Buonaparte for a commander, could not by force take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in the trial of a thousand years.
At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we ourselves must be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.
-- Abraham Lincoln, January 27, 1838
It may be that there is an element of economizing in flattening their command heirarchy, but any attempt to do so must be accomplished with an eye to minimizing its impact on their ability to quickly incorporate into existing active-duty command structures. What level of redundancy will most efficiently meet this requirement is a major question for U.S. military planners. It is simply not as straightforward as the author implies.
But the National Guard is not intended to fill this role at all, nor is it a "militia," however "well-regulated." Its principal role is in augmentation of state resources in times of natural disaster, whether that be a hurricane or a civil insurrection. There is, to be sure, a similarity in role to that of those reservists assigned to, say, road-building in Iraq, but the latter is not the principal function of the reservists; they just happen to be good at it.
I do not think the author intended to enter into a discussion of firearms ownership by invoking the Second Amendment; rather simply to use the well-kneaded phrase "well-ordered militia." But there is a connection between the two concepts, and it is one that anti-gun enthusiasts typically ignore - the degree to which private ownership of firearms functions to enhance civil order in times of disaster, as opposed to the degree to which criminal possession detracts from it. The private hands in which firearms reside do, in fact, constitute a "non-regulated" (meaning non-drilled) militia in the old sense, and if the mechanism for turning these into some sort of "regulated" militia are lacking (and they are) then it is a function of government to restore them, rather than depend on the National Guard to replace them.
Unfo, you're not going to win any arguments with the antis using that explanation!
This answer does not comport with the context in which it was written. The Constitution already provided for civilian control over the militias. And the 2nd amendment wouldn't be talking about keeping and bearing arms as a means of advancing civilian administration. It's far more likely that it referred to the necessity of having a militia that's set up to be effective at doing its job, being properly "regulated" for that purpose the same way a watch is properly regulated.
To avoid confusion: only one government was formed under the Constitution and that was the federal government, the states were not, and were not intended to be, restricted by the Second Amendment.
"He [ John Marshall at the Virginia ratification convention ] then concluded by observing, that the power of governing the militia was not vested in the states by implication, because, being possessed of it antecedent to the adoption of the government, and not being divested of it by any grant or restriction in the Constitution, they must necessarily be as fully possessed of it as ever they had been. And it could not be said that the states derived any powers from that system, but retained them, though not acknowledged in any part of it."
This view is reaffirmed with the Tenth and Ninth Amendments.
The Fourteenth Amendment arguments in the case are intriguing, but we must resist any temptation to adopt a new interpretation of the Second Amendment- or any part of the Constitution- counter to our Founders' intent.
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