cross-posted from: https://reddthat.com/post/50514110
The founders’ true intent behind the right to bear arms wasn’t liberty—it was control, oppression, and the preservation of slavery.
cross-posted from: https://reddthat.com/post/50514110
The founders’ true intent behind the right to bear arms wasn’t liberty—it was control, oppression, and the preservation of slavery.
There were two primary reasons for the second amendment:
The first reason was, as the article lays out effectively, the codification of slave militias in the South, preventing (in theory) the North from manumission by way of military service in the North. The South, like the Confederates of the 19th century, like the ones today, were paranoid and motivated by fear of loss of property and power, both of which were built on the systematic dehumanization of out-groups. This mentality has existed in America for over 400 years. I could write an entire thesis on how this fear informs today’s gun culture…
More practically, they needed to enforce a police state in order to avoid getting murdered by the people they enslaved. (You can see in the article above how Patrick Henry refers to the danger to the “people of Virginia” in the event of slave insurrections; like all Southern slavers, he literally did not consider the slaves themselves to be people.)
The second reason was to avoid the cost and threat to democracy of a standing army, informed by the experiences of a recent war that relied on these local militias. They had previously had first-hand experience how an authoritarian (King George III) could wield power against the population through the use of a standing army, which is why the Constitution only specified the power to raise an army for a limited time (a period of up to two years [1]).
When Confederates talk about the need for state militias to resist tyranny (albeit apparently only tyranny they don’t approve of), they’re obliquely correct. But ensuring the legal basis to continue to operate a police state to enforce slavery was also a primary factor.
[1] Incidentally, the legal framework for a standing army despite the clear intent of the Constitution itself is Congress’s regular defense appropriations bills.
The 2nd was written because we just finished fighting and winning a war against a military with private arms. This idea that it was about keeping slavery going is bullshit. It was used against slaves during the civil war, but stop trying to make it into something it wasn’t to try and drive a point that the 2nd is somehow a racist idea.
There is a reason a very large part of 2A supporters want minorities armed. Hell even the shitty NRA recently came out and said they don’t support disarming trans people.
I find articles like this funny because it most certainly was because of militias and that is why they are specifically mentioned in the amendment and its also because they actually were worried about the democracy sliding back into something like fuedalism. The article is interesting but if it was one state it would not be number two out of ten and as they like to say. por que no los dos. Even then though I would say it was a done deal given the war and even madison talks about the importance for there to be an armed populace in the federalist papers.
As a start, you can try reading the article you’re commenting on.
I did, the article is wrong. It’s another “we need to disarm ourselves cause guns r bad”…just this one uses race to try and push that narrative.
Race? Funny thing is America had white slaves oh sorry indentured servants. Then when the lower class revolted they put us against each other and it’s been working ever since.
Pretty much every single country on the planet has had slavery. Hell places still have it, the 2nd had nothing to do with slavery. Again, this article is trying to say the 2nd is racist. It’s not, and the more minorities get armed the better, especially with this current regime of fascist.