Musing About The Meaning

"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."

How these words – which say in the context (originalists please pay attention here) of their 18th Century origin – that the United States of America did not want to have a standing army (the entire 17th century in England being the basis for that desire; read Macaulay’s History of England  for more on that assertion) but instead, recognized the need for local and patriotic standing militias, have been twisted by the NRA, just plain nut cases, and, even, the Supreme Court, is an amazing metamorphosis.

Even without that metamorphosis the gun nuts all assert that: any gun is a good gun and any good gun needs to be laid away under the beds and hidden in the attics of America to defend against the criminals, the vagabonds and the ne'er-do-wells that are replete upon the land, and god damn those who deny this inalienable right – of guns under the beds and in the attics.

One would question why one would want to have a country with more killing devices than citizens.

One might also question, reading the second amendment, how its purpose has migrated from the asserted need for a well regulated militia to defense of one’s home, or the right to carry weapons on the street and in churches and in parks and in school.

Militias were for defending one’s state, and doing that as a group, and most likely getting the weapons out of the local armory; not stocking as many as one’s house could accommodate.

But the NRA controls the narrative, so who am I to question it.

But there are life and death consequences.

Especially when the situation involves the ready access of military weapons to civilians.

So the NRA keeps mowing them down.

45 rounds per minute for an AR 15; maybe double that with a bump stock.

And that 223 round has been designed to tumble through the air to its target.

That makes it substantially more lethal than its petite size would seem to indicate.

It tears through flesh and bone like a buzz saw.

And, in any event, the really scary thing is that the concept of a militia has metamorphosed from its original purpose of being ready to repulse a post 1066 French invasion into a threatening form of aberrant male behavior in iPhone America.