I had formerly thought the 2nd amendment exists because we didn't not have a standing army up to the task of defeating confidently Indians and Brits in 1787. We needed citizen soldiers that is.
Nope. In fact, after much debate (and the temporary demobilization of the Continental Army) the decision was made to maintain a standing Army in 1784 several years before the formal adoption of the US Constitution. The Constitution also allowed for the continuation of a standing army. While providing some support from external threats, when called to arms the citizen militias of the day were hardly inspiring and generally performed fairly poorly beyond basic, localized self defense. It was realized early on that the country was unlikely to be able to significantly organize the people to a formal military task much beyond having a weapon and knowing how to use it when the town bell rang. At which time the local commander (sheriff or mayor) would march them off. Of course, using arms for individual self protection and to protect the community from disorder is also considered to fall under this in a broader sense.
The limitations placed on the length of tours of duty and the circumstances for which it might be called into federal service further impaired the usefulness of the militia. No militiamen could be compelled to serve more than three months in any one year, nor could the President order the militia to duty outside the United States. The effect of these limitations would be readily apparent during the War of 1812. http://www.army.mil/cmh-pg/books/amh/amh-05.htm
The equal cornerstone of the 2nd (which stilll applies today) was to protect us from the necessiary standing Army, should it be misused by a tyrant. The federalist papers cover much of this, as do the open debates between the federalists and anti-federalists of the period, private letters between the founders, and essays published in the contemporary press. This link covers it pretty well.
The Framers feared two things: large standing armies and select militias. A select militia was an armed group formed not from the entire population of a jurisdiction by public notice, but selected by some method that might make them unrepresentative of the community, and a threat to lawful government or to the community. A regular standing army or police force is always a select militia, and it may serve the will of those in power, and be used against the people. Therefore, the Framers intended that the militia should always be able to prevail over the government and its armies or select militias. They did not trust those in power to voluntarily refrain from corruption or the abuses that attend it. The Militia was seen as one of the checks on the power of government, like division of powers between the central and state governments, between the executive, judicial, and legislative branches, and between the two houses of the legislative branch.
http://www.constitution.org/col/5508_col.htm
Note: a
Select Militia represents a "National Guard" model. The current National Guard is ultimately a federal body regardless of initial state controls. By organization and function it could not be the militia outlined in the 2nd. A
General Militia is "the people with their guns."
And this:
Surely one of the foundations of American political thought of the period was the well-justified concern about political corruption and consequent governmental tyranny. Even the Federalists, fending off their opponents who accused them of foisting an oppressive new scheme upon the American people, were careful to acknowledge the risk of tyranny. James Madison, for example, speaks in Federalist Number Forty- Six of "the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation." [59] The advantage in question was not merely the defense of American borders; a standing army might well accomplish that. Rather, an armed public was advantageous in protecting political liberty. It is therefore no surprise that the Federal Farmer, the nom de plume of an anti-federalist critic of the new Constitution and its absence of a Bill of Rights, could write that "to preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always posses s arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them..." [60] On this matter, at least, there was no cleavage between the pro-ratification Madison and his opponent.
In his influential Commentaries on the Constitution, Joseph Story, certainly no friend of Anti-Federalism, emphasized the "importance" of the Second Amendment. [61] He went on to describe the militia as the "natural defence of a free country" not only "against sudden foreign invasions" and "domestic insurrections," with which one might well expect a Federalist to be concerned, but also against "domestic usurpations of power by rulers." [62] "The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered," Story wrote, "as the palladium of the liberties of a republic; since it offers a strong moral check against the usurpation and arbitrary power by rulers; and will generally, even if these are successful in the first instance, enable the people to resist and triumph over them." [63]
We also see this blending of individualist and collective accounts of the right to bear arms in remarks by Judge Thomas Cooley, one of the most influential 19th century constitutional commentators. Noting that the state might call into its official militia only "a small number" of the eligible citizenry, Cooley wrote that "if the right [to keep and bear arms] were limited to those enrolled, the purpose of this guaranty might be defeated altogether by the action or neglect to act of the government it was meant to hold in check." [64] Finally, it is worth noting the remarks of Theodore Schroeder, one of the most important developers of the theory of freedom of speech early in this century. [65] "[T]he obvious import [of the constitutional guarantee to carry arms]," he argues, "is to promote a state of preparedness for self-defense even against the invasions of government, because only governments have ever disarmed any considerable class of people as a means toward their enslavement." [66]
http://www.firearmsandliberty.com/embar.html
Charon
