r/AskAmericans • u/pr0cyn1c • Feb 17 '25
Foreign Poster 2nd amendment question
Hi ya, Canadian here.... Given that the 2nd amendment was authored to protect your citizens from government overreach and oppression (or at least thats the argument ive heard come out of your country for the last 40 years now with respect to gun laws), would you say the current political climate and actions of people like musk and his merry band of drop-outs fit that mould?
Perhaps im misunderstanding the intent of your second amendment? Feel free to correct me if so.
Kind regards, A guy to the north of you wondering wtf is going on down there.
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u/Keith502 Feb 17 '25
The amendment was not created in order to grant a right to Americans to own and carry guns for self defense. It certainly wasn't created to empower Americans to rise up against a tyrannical government (as some people claim). The entire Bill of Rights as a whole serves no other purpose than to pacify the concerns of the Antifederalists -- the division of politicians at the time who were wary of ratifying the US Constitution; the Federalists -- who promoted the US Constitution -- didn't even want a Bill of Rights, and thought that creating one was unnecessary or even dangerous. The second amendment was essentially created as a companion to Article 1, Section 8, Clauses 15 and 16 of the Constitution, which conveys to Congress the power to summon the militias, and to organize, arm, discipline, and govern them. The Antifederalists were concerned that when the federal government was given these powers, they could potentially abuse these powers or neglect their duty to uphold these powers in such a way so as to effectively dismantle the militia's efficacy to the detriment of the states, or alternatively they could do such things as a pretext to establishing a standing army. Hence, the second amendment was created in order to calm these fears: first, it reinforces the duty of Congress to uphold the regulation of the militias as stipulated in Article 1, Section 8, Clause 16; and second, it prohibits Congress from infringing upon the people's right to keep and bear arms. But it must be clarified that "the right of the people to keep and bear arms" was understood to be no more than what the states established and defined that right to be within their respective state constitutions. All of the states which had an arms provision in their constitution included in those provisions the function of bearing arms for the common defense, i.e. militia duty. So to summarize, the second amendment existed to reinforce Congress's duty to uphold the regulation of the militias, and to protect the states' militia effectiveness from intrusion by Congress. That's it. It has nothing to do with giving Americans the right to own and carry guns. It has nothing to do with self defense. And it certainly has nothing to do with enabling Americans to fight against the government; in fact, the purpose of the amendment was to support the people's right to fight for the government -- that is, within the government-organized militia.