A fairly recent “Editor For A Day” in the E-R suggested that if more people were read the Second Amendment, they would be less inclined to try to promote gun control legislation.
Well, I’m game, I am happy to read the Second Amendment (every single word): “A well-regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”
While the NRA and other pro-gun organizations have been laser-focused on the words ‘to keep and bear arms’, they are apparently blissfully blind to the words “a well-regulated militia.”
The United States, does indeed, have a well-regulated militia; two, in fact: the US Army National Guard (approximately 336,300 members) and the Air National Guard (approximately 108,300 members). This works out to an average of 6,720 (Army) and 2,166 (Air) members per state in the Union.
And no, the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers and other illegal white supremacist ‘militia’ organizations do not, in any way, constitute “well-regulated militias.”
Warren E. Burger, the Republican Supreme Court Chief Justice (named by Richard Nixon), had this to say about the NRA’s bastardization of the Second Amendment (his exact words): “one of the greatest pieces of fraud, I repeat the word fraud, on the American people by any special interest group that I have ever seen in my lifetime.”
(For the record, I attended the Los Guilicos Law Enforcement Academy and I was an armed NPS Law Enforcement Ranger for nearly 10 summer seasons.)
— Mark S. Gailey, Chico