Veni Quid Veniat

     In the aftermath of several prominent mass public shootings, a heated debate over gun control has arisen, and several restrictive policies have been proposed to limit gun ownership. The debate inevitably eventually lands on the nature of the Second Amendment's provision that the "right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." Some voices, particularly political liberals, contend that the presence of the phrase "a well regulated militia being necessary for the security of a free state" is a limitation on those people who possess the "right of keep and bear arms" mentioned immediately after. Surprisingly, this argument is quite common, and is generally the first objection raised when the right to keep and bear arms is mentioned. It does not, however, stand up to scrutiny.

     First, one should consider the context of the sentence itself. Here the bane of English students everywhere - diagramming - becomes a useful tool. By diagramming the sentence it is possible to determine what relationship the two parts of the amendment have to each other. The diagram below does so.

The first part of the amendment is what is called a "nominative absolute." It consists of a noun or pronoun and a participle, and, notably, has no grammatical connection with the rest of the sentence. In other words, the rest of sentence would have the same meaning without the presence of the nominative absolute. Therefore, the amendment retains the same meaning as if it read as "The right of the people to keep an bear arms shall not be infringed." The nominative absolute exists to explain the remainder of the sentence, not to change the meaning of the rest of the sentence.

     With this in mind, the amendment can be interpreted more clearly. To paraphrase, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed, because - remember that the nominative absolute exists to explain the rest of the sentence - a well-regulated militia is necessary for the security of a free state. When arranged in this manner it couldn't be more clear that the amendment refers to an individual right for all the people to bear arms (it should also be noted that "infringed" includes any form of limiting, so anything that limits the right to keep and bear arms in any way violates the Second Amendment).

     The reader may remain unconvinced. If so, there is a way to test this interpretation. If this interpretation is correct, then the "militia" in question would refer to "the people" as a whole, and we would expect this fact to be reflected in what the authors of the Constitution had to say on the matter. As it happens, they had a great deal to say on the topic. First, think about what Patrick Henry - who, I'm sure, needs no introduction here - had to say:

“The great object is that every man be armed. Everyone who is able might have a gun.”

Consider also this quote from Richard Henry Lee, a member of the Continental Congress and signatory of the Declaration of Independence and the Articles of Confederation.

"A militia, when properly formed, are in fact the people themselves...and include all men capable of bearing arms."

 Lee apparently believed that the militia consisted of the entirety of the populace. If a clearer statement is desired, George Mason, the "Father of the Bill of Rights" was happy to oblige.

"I ask, sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people, except for a few public officials." 

Tench Coxe, a Pennsylvania delegate to the Continental Congress gave his own description of what the militia was.

“Who are the militia? Are they not ourselves?"

Finally, James Madison, who drafted most of the Constitution, was also very clear about the correct nature of the militia.

"The right of the people to keep and bear...arms shall not be infringed. A well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the best and most natural defense of a free country..."

It seems abundantly obvious from the above quotes that the above interpretation of the Second Amendment - that is, that the reference to a militia is an explanation of why the people have the right to bear arms, not a limitation on the right to bear arms - is the correct one. The fact that a well-regulated (well-trained and equipped - note the similarity to the term "regular army," which referred to a professional, well-equipped army) militia is necessary is the reason that the people's right to keep and bear arms should not be infringed.

Therefore, the objection that the right to keep and bear arms is offered only to a select few militiamen is flatly contradicted by both historical and grammatical context. Further, the Second Amendment denies the government the ability to take any action to infringe on - in other words, to limit - the right to keep and bear arms. For this reason, unless the Constitution is discarded or amended, any action to limit the availability of firearms - gun control, as it is known today - is entirely unconstitutional. Few people sum the matter up better than Tench Coxe:

“Congress have no power to disarm the militia. Their swords, and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birth-right of an American… [T]he unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or state governments, but, where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the people.”

Finally, Patrick Henry, an early skeptic of the Constitution because he believed it did not provide enough protection for state and individual rights, covers the right to bear arms as a whole in his usual fiery style.

“Are we at last brought to such a humiliating and debasing degradation, that we cannot be trusted with arms for our own defense? Where is the difference between having our arms in our possession and under our own direction, and having them under the management of Congress? If our defense be the real object of having those arms, in whose hands can they be trusted with more propriety, or equal safety to us, as in our own hands?

     The right to keep and bear arms is the right of the people. They have yielded it, in part (and unwisely), to both federal and state governments in order to create a standing army, however, the fact that the federal and state governments have such a right is no reason to infringe on the peoples' right to do the same. Any attempt to do so is both dangerous and unconstitutional, and should not be tolerated.