To the editor:
In response to Mr. Richard’s viewpoint on the Second Amendment, published in your October 21-27 edition, I would like to clarify why the Supreme Court’s 2008 decision (DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA ET AL...v. HELLER) upheld the “originalists” position that, contrary to Mr. Richard’s mistaken “historical” expose, supports the fact that the Whole people are the militia, and not the contemporary armed forces as many revisionists propose.
Furthermore, a more accurate understanding of our history would reveal that those comprising the revolutionary generation believed standing armies were dangerous to liberty. They reasoned that militias, made up of citizen-soldiers, were more in line with the character of what was to be our republican government.
Considering the amendments in the Bill of Rights, the Second Amendment is unique, in that there is a preface explaining the right that is protected; Militias are necessary for the security of a free state. The important fact that clarities what our Founders meant, when composing this essential amendment, was that a “Free State,” in the founding era, makes it abundantly clear that it is referring to a non-despotic or non-tyranical state.
Understanding that the principle constitutional debate leading up to the Heller decision pivoted on whether the “right to keep and bear arms” was a collective right or an individual right, we know the outcome. Given the limitations of my comments here, I finish my viewpoint with the judicious and historically accurate conclusion of the Supreme Court: that the Second Amendment guarantees that the right to “keep and bear arms” is the right of every individual for the purpose of self defense. Like the right to revolution, the framers sagaciously made it abundantly clear that the natural right to self-defense or self-preservation should never be ceded to the government!
Dr. Robert DeYoung
Milford