Sean CastenLook, I'm glad we're having a conversation about the hypocrisy of the legal logic used by America's gun nuts. But can we stop pretending this is a new thing? They have never advocated for universal access to firearms. They only want their team to be armed. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2026/01/25/alex-pretti-gun-debate-second-amendment/
The NRA opposed open-carry in CA and got a bill signed in to ban the practice in 1967 under then Governor Ronald Reagan. It wasn't because they realized they'd gone too far. It was because black people were open-carrying. https://www.history.com/articles/black-panthers-gun-control-nra-support-mulford-act
To suggest that there is some intellectual inconsistency between an ideology that says it's OK if George Zimmerman and Kyle Rittenhouse shoot people in the street but a capital crime if Alex Pretti is carrying is to assume that their stated policy is their actual logic. It ain't.
America has a long history of people with unpopular ideas who are hostile to our democratic system and want to constrain democracy so that their ideas can flourish. It's how we got the Senate, and the 3/5ths rule, and the narrative that guns exist to stand up to a "tyrannical government."
After all, if you think that a government of, by and for the people is carrying out tyrannical ideas it is axiomatic that you think the will of the majority is a tyrannical imposition on your right to elevate your liberty over my equality.
(As an aside, the fact that these ideas go back to our inception when only 6% of the population could vote, thus sustaining that minority power largely explains why the most democracy-fearing members of the Supreme Court are all "originalists". But I digress.)
I recommend Carol Anderson's book "The Second" if you want to understand this history, and how we got 2A in the first place. It was decidedly NOT about making sure that future Alex Prettis could protect themselves from racist ICE agents who came on a Somali fraud pretext and started killing.
The TL;DR though is in plain text in the Constitution. When 2A referenced a well arm militia you can assume the writers were using that term in the same way they used it in the body of the Constitution, where Congress had the right to summon militias for only 3 reasons:
1) to enforce the laws of the US; 2) to defend against foreign invasions and 3) to suppress domestic insurrections. The folks who wrote this had direct, recent experience with Shay's Rebellion, the Revolutionary War and lived in constant fear of slave rebellions. 1, 2 and 3 respectively.
Suffice to say that in the modern world, our nation's gun nuts are really not wild about the US government using a militia to enforce the law (see: Ruby Ridge, Waco, Constitutional Sheriff movement, etc.)
And given the size and power of the US military (esp as compared to our founding era when we neither had a standing army nor the tax system to pay for it) it also doesn't make any sense to suggest Congress might need to call up well regulated militias to defend against foreign invasion.
David Chisnall (*Now with 50% more sarcasm!*)And given the size and power of the US military (esp as compared to our founding era when we neither had a standing army nor the tax system to pay for it)
And strong objections to having one at all. Several of the founding fathers wrote on this subject and it was quite controversial when the US eventually did get a standing army. Unfortunately, modern warfare requires sufficient training (and has enough specialised rôles) that a standing army is necessary if you face possible attack from a country that has one.