Quote:
Origin of the Second Amendment
In 1786, a decade after the Declaration of Independence was signed, the United States existed as a loose national government under the Articles of Confederation. This confederation was perceived to have several weaknesses, among which was the inability to mount a Federal military response to an armed uprising in western Massachusetts known as Shays' Rebellion.
In 1787, to address these weaknesses, the Philadelphia Convention was convened with the charter of amending the Articles. When the convention concluded with a proposed Constitution, those who debated the ratification of the Constitution divided into two camps; the Federalists (who supported ratification of the Constitution) and the Anti-Federalists (who opposed it).
Among their objections to the Constitution, anti-Federalists feared creation of a standing army that could eventually endanger democracy and civil liberties as had happened recently in the American Colonies and Europe. Although the anti-Federalists were ultimately unsuccessful at blocking ratification of the Constitution, through the Massachusetts Compromise they laid the groundwork to insure that a Bill of Rights would be drafted, which would provide constitutional guarantees against encroachment by the government of certain rights.
The Federalists on the other hand held that a Bill of Rights was unnecessary, particularly as the Federal Government could never raise a standard army powerful enough to overcome the militia. Leading Federalist James Madison wrote:
Let a regular army, fully equal to the resources of the country, be formed; and let it be entirely at the devotion of the federal government; still it would not be going too far to say, that the State governments, with the people on their side, would be able to repel the danger. The highest number to which, according to the best computation, a standing army can be carried in any country, does not exceed one hundredth of the whole number of souls; or one twenty-fifth part of the number able to bear arms. This proportion would not yield, in the United States, an army of more than twenty-five or thirty thousand men. To these would be opposed a militia amounting to near half a million of citizens with arms in their hands, officered by men chosen from among themselves, fighting for their common liberties, and united and conducted by governments possessing their affections and confidence. It may well be doubted, whether a militia thus circumstanced could ever be conquered by such a proportion of regular troops.[7]
Similarly, Federalist Noah Webster wrote:
Tyranny is the exercise of some power over a man, which is not warranted by law, or necessary for the public safety. A people can never be deprived of their liberties, while they retain in their own hands, a power sufficient to any other power in the state.[8]
One example given by Webster of a "power" that the people could resist was that of a standing army:
Another source of power in government is a military force. But this, to be efficient, must be superior to any force that exists among the people, or which they can command; for otherwise this force would be annihilated, on the first exercise of acts of oppression. Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom in Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops that can be, on any pretence, raised in the United States.[9]
The controversy of a standing army for the United States existed in context of the Continental Forces that had won the Revolutionary War which consisted of both the standing Continental Army created by the Continental Congress and of State and Militia Units. In opposition, the British Forces consisted of a mixture of the standing British Army, Loyalist Militia, and mercenaries (e.g., Hessians).
Federalists, on the other hand, believed that federal government must be trusted and that the army and the militias "ought certainly to be under the regulation and at the disposal" of federal government. This belief was fundamentally stated by Alexander Hamilton:
The power of regulating the militia, and of commanding its services in times of insurrection and invasion are natural incidents to the duties of superintending the common defense, and of watching over the internal peace of the Confederacy.[10]
The origin of the Second Amendment also occurred in context of an ongoing debate about "the people" fighting governmental tyranny, (as described by Antifederalists); or the risk of mob rule of "the people", (as described by the Federalists).
if only they knew that, instead of americans(unlike the swiss)being able to fully arm themself(m-16's/army type arms/etc), we would be held to 9mm hand guns and shotguns, of which there is no way the citizens could defend itself against a rogue government.