As I’m sure you know, even before the Constitution was finally ratified, there was a demand to add to it. Several of those who framed the Constitution wanted to guarantee certain rights. It was a while before this was accepted and like the rest of the Constitution a considerable amount of discussion and compromise was involved in drawing up the first ten amendments to our Constitution, The Bill of Rights.
James Madison is credited with being the key author of these amendments. A footnote of history: the clerk who put quill and ink to parchment to inscribe this document was the father of Alfred Beckley, the founder of Beckley, WV.
This was definitely not the first document to guarantee rights of the individual. It drew upon predecessors. It is important not because it was a first but because even today it protects our rights.
I am going to concentrate on one of these amendments which guarantee our rights by asking a question. Is the second amendment still relevant or is totally out of step with today’s society?
Ours was a young country when the Constitution and the Bill of Rights were written. The framers had just won independence from the most powerful empire of the time and definitely wanted to avoid the abuses of power that they had suffered under British rule. They were afraid of the power of strong government, and rightly so.
The second amendment says: “A well regulated militia being necessary, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”
Interestingly, this is the only one of these ten amendments of our Bill of Rights to have a preface explaining why it is deemed necessary. This preface has led to considerable debate and controversy throughout the years. What does it actually mean?
At the time it was written, the militia consisted of all the able bodied men of the community. Each was expected and required to keep arms for defense of self, community and state. The militia was expected to protect society, starting with protecting themselves and their families.
These were the troops who served in the French and Indian War. They were the ones who kept their communities safe from Indian attacks These were the men who first rallied to the colors in the rebellion against Britain. These were the men who first heard the “shot heard round the world” that April day at Concord bridge.
Our founding fathers feared standing armies as they had seen first hand how a powerful army could subjugate the people at the whim of absolute rulers. The second amendment was seen as protecting the new nation against a government that might grow too strong as well as protecting this new nation against foreign invasion. We had just won our independence and did not want to lose the rights which we had gained. The possibility of government growing too strong and too large was definitely on the minds of many of