The Right to Bear Arms

My name is Dr Kevin.

You'll I am associate professor of history of

American History at the University of Sunderland.

And I'm going to talk to you in this section

about the Second Amendment of the United States Constitution which,

as you all know, uh, concerns the right to bear arms.

That's different, of course, than the right to arm bears, which is in the 17 now.

It's not really obviously, but I don't know why I make that job, but I do.

So why the Second Amendment?

The Second Amendment, rather surprisingly for many people,

comes almost directly from the English Bill of Rights.

The Bill of Rights 16 89 allowed Protestant citizens of England to quote,

have arms for their defence suitable to their conditions and, as allowed by law

except if they were Catholic.

So the English right to bear arms actually dates back far further than that.

And in many countries you have that as far as 8 70 a. D.

When British laws required all free men into own

arms and to be prepared to defend the nation.

So as

one,

uh,

point in the 17th century is really the time when

this comes to a head because it it does involve,

um, the citizens.

It's It's the sort of development of the British citizen against

the crown that very much brings the issue to a head.

And so already in the in the courts in in the 16 thirties, Uh, you have, for instance,

there's one called the proceedings.

In the case of ship money in 16 37

it says, arms are not for the defence,

not only for the defence against foreigners,

but in watching and warning upon human cry and otherwise,

to keep the peace within the realm

and for the execution of justice.

By assisting the sheriff when he shall have occasion to use a Posse Comitatus

and otherwise.

And as the use of arms is more general, so are they for more immediate defence.

So already you have a concept in British law that in fact, people should be armed,

particularly virtuous citizens should be armed in order to keep order.

So by the mid 17th century, guns were common in England, and, uh,

the tumultuous events of that century made an armed citizenry

necessary and made many people feel that they were,

uh, worried about this.

What is interesting about this period of time

is that there was from the 17th century.

There's a decline in criminal violence right up until the 20th century.

So while arms are becoming,

they were becoming more and more arms coming throughout.

Uh, this period,

uh, then there is also, um, a situation whereby crime is going down,

crime against the person generally.

And so you have a declining crime and the growth of guns and more free,

freely available weapons.

So it's worth keeping in mind, uh, issues like that.

It's easily the most controversial part of the

American Bill of Rights is the Second Amendment.

The Second Amendment is.

It's worth going through the wording because the wording has

caused as much problem throughout the years as anything else.

The Second Amendment states that quote 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.

So that has two issues to it and which have created the difficulty is that, uh,

whether it enshrines individual rights to bear arms or whether it reflects the

need for a militia against a standing army This is very relevant,

of course today because very few people would say that

we need a standing army or we need a militia,

uh, in the United States. And if you did have a militia to fight the U. S.

Army,

it would lose because basically a bunch of

hunting rifles are not going to really shoot

down many of the advanced weaponry fighters and

jet fighters and everything else like that.

So it's It's an issue that's very alive today because it

it bears upon whether the question was about individual rights.

So everybody should have an individual right to bear arms or whether it was all

about we had to have militias then Now we no longer need to have them.

Therefore, we no longer need to have guns,

so

it brings bears. It brings in all sorts of interesting questions.

Because if individuals were to have this right to weapons,

why was there a militia even mentioned?

Why? Why would you have? Why would you frame it in terms about of militia?

But on the other hand, why If this was all about a militia,

does the Second Amendment speak of the right of the people to keep and bear arms.

And why does it appear amongst many other individual rights that the

rest of the Bill of Rights of the United States um,

the 1st 10 amendments to the to

the United States Constitution what they're normally referred

to these are mostly about the right not to have your appropriate against unusual,

uh, search and seizure.

Um, you know, they involve individual rights is what I'm trying to say.

And so why would you include this amongst what are generally individual rights?

But even in England in the past,

personal defence was considered as a legitimate reason to keep arms.

Uh, you had, uh,

Post Bill of Rights prosecutions for unlawful possession of firearms.

Uh,

you have records whereby the king's bench upheld

the right to keep arms for personal defence,

and this was very much the case in the United States as well.

So in summation, really,

we have almost a marrying of the two of the idea of an individual, uh, carrying arms,

but plus a militia.

And if you think about the individual situations into which these,

um came up during the 17th century in England

and during the 18th century in the United States.

There were very much concerned with the ability of a citizenry to resist,

um, any kind of, uh,

any kind of attack by the crown and to prevent the need for a

standing army and also to physically prevent a standing army from coming in.

Don't forget that the United States, before it informed the Americans, had had, uh,

British soldiers posted within their homes, um,

prior to and during the revolution of the standing Army and they were obligated to

to interrupt their daily schedules. This was a source of great consternation.

So you had the two sort of sides of things, uh,

marrying up in the minds at the time they were.

What I'm trying to say is these were not separate issues

during the original period of discussion,

that the individual right of resistance was exactly the same as

the right to resist against the crown of the militia.

Right, So we haven't separated that in our day, But really, at the time, uh,

these two things were completely together.

And that's why I think the Second Amendment mentions both militia and, um,

the right of the people, too.

Uh, bear arms. It's a you might have a parallel and democracy.

You either have a monopoly over decisions made political

decisions made by the crown by the state.

Or you have the individual citizen able to form into political parties and, um,

to exercise their right so you can see that the militia was right away of people, uh,

in some ways, enforcing their individuality.

So I don't think the two were as separate as it appears today.