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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LindyBill who wrote (94337)	1/9/2005 1:30:17 PM
From: Ilaine	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 793838

I believe the militia sentence was there to justify the keeping of arms. What is now the Second Amendment would have been debated after the Philadelphia Convention, when the ratification was stalled due to the arguments of the Anti-Federalists that a Bill of Rights was necessary. Madison persuaded the Anti-Federalists to ratify the Constitution based on his assurance that he would immediately seek amendments, which we now know as the Bill of Rights. He used the Virginia Declaration of Rights (drafted by George Mason, an Anti-Federalist) as the starting point. From my readings, it seems clear to me that the entire purpose of what is now the Second Amendment was to provide for a militia made up of the entire able bodied citizenry, rather than a standing army, which they abhorred. From the Virginia Declaration of Rights: Section 13. That a well-regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the proper, natural, and safe defense of a free state; that standing armies, in time of peace, should be avoided as dangerous to liberty; and that in all cases the military should be under strict subordination to, and governed by, the civil power. archives.gov It doesn't appear to have ever occurred to them to discuss the keeping of arms as a right in and of itself. They wanted to make sure that the militia had arms available to it in time of necessity.