Gun control activist David Hogg tweeted Sunday that Americans “have no right to a gun,” suggesting that the right to keep and bear arms applies only to members of the militia.
Hogg tweeted:
The text of the Second Amendment says, “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.”
On February 1, 2018, Breitbart News noted that the phrase, “well regulated militia,” underlined the importance of the words, “shall not be infringed.”
Founding Father James Madison used Federalist 46 to explain that the American citizenry had within itself the authority to band together for purposes of repelling tyranny. He clearly stated that “ultimate authority … resides in the people alone.” And he explained that even a federal government fitted with a standing army will find itself unable to overcome the people, armed and banded together: “Extravagant as the supposition is, let it however be made. Let a regular army, fully equal to the resources of the country, be formed; and let it be entirely at the devotion of the federal government; still it would not be going too far to say, that the State governments, with the people on their side, would be able to repel the danger.”
Madison continued:
The highest number to which, according to the best computation, a standing army can be carried in any country, does not exceed one hundredth part of the whole number of souls; or one twenty-fifth part of the number able to bear arms. This proportion would not yield, in the United States, an army of more than twenty-five or thirty thousand men. To these would be opposed a militia amounting to near half a million of citizens with arms in their hands, officered by men chosen from among themselves, fighting for their common liberties, and united and conducted by governments possessing their affections and confidence. It may well be doubted, whether a militia thus circumstanced could ever be conquered by such a proportion of regular troops. Those who are best acquainted with the last successful resistance of this country.
Take away firearms or heavily restrict them via gun control and the militia is de-fanged, becoming nothing more than a group of men bound together with weapons consisting of stones, sticks, and verbal jabs.
Therefore, because a “well regulated militia is necessary to the security of a free state, the right to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.”
In other words, the right to keep and bear arms is intended as a surety that the militia will always pose enough resistance to keep the state free.
AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio and a Turning Point USA Ambassador. AWR Hawkins holds a PhD in Military History with a focus on the Vietnam War (brown water navy), U.S. Navy since Inception, the Civil War, and Early Modern Europe. Follow him on Instagram: @awr_hawkins. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.