Pubdate: Tue, 14 May 2002
Source: Denver Post (CO)
Copyright: 2002 The Denver Post Corp
Contact:  http://www.denverpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/122
Author: Ed Quillen, Denver Post Columnist

DO THEY REALLY WANT US TO FORM MILITIAS?

Every so often, I get e-mail to the effect of, "You're one of those 
liberals who wants to take away our guns." I patiently respond that I'm 
pretty close to an absolutist on the Bill of Rights, and that I have never 
supported any new gun laws.

As far as I'm concerned, it's none of my business or any government's if 
you keep and bear anything from a single-shot .22 for rabbit hunting to a 
heat-seeking missile for taking out helicopter-borne trespassers.

On the other hand, although I've owned guns in the past and may again 
someday, I don't own any now. Guns are a lot of work - not just their safe 
storage, but cleaning and other maintenance, along with finding a practice 
range and remembering that the slide on a given pistol will eat the webbing 
between my thumb and forefinger if I hold it in a way that looks sensible 
but isn't. Further, ammunition isn't cheap.

Also, a gun wouldn't make much sense for me in defending my household 
against intruders. By the time I found my glasses so I could see to shoot, 
the intruder could have carted off the TV, the stereo and all the 
computers. If the intruders were in uniform, perhaps executing a no-knock 
search warrant at the wrong address, my gun would just give them an excuse 
to kill me, and the taxpayers would be out for the time and money that the 
district attorney had to expend in fabricating a whitewash.

That said, let's look at the latest developments in Second Amendment 
interpretation. The text is short: "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."

Over the years, this has inspired two schools of thought. One is the recent 
liberal reading - I say "recent" because Eleanor Roosevelt, patron saint of 
American liberalism, carried a pistol in her purse whenever she left the 
White House grounds - that sees "the right of the people to keep and bear 
Arms" not as a right to be exercised by individuals, but as a sort of 
communal right to be exercised through local or state militias.

This reading doesn't make much sense in the constitutional context of what 
the Founding Fathers meant by "people." Go on down to the Fourth Amendment: 
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers

... " Obviously, they meant an individual right for us "people."

So it was refreshing to read last week that the Bush administration agrees 
with a common-sense interpretation of at least one provision in the Bill of 
Rights - that the Second Amendment guarantees an individual right to keep 
and bear arms. One can only hope that Attorney General John Ashcroft 
continues his reading in this area and reaches the sensible conclusion that 
the War on Drugs is a gross violation of the Constitution. However, such 
fantasies tend to breed in one's mind, and in the process, I wondered what 
might happen if anyone took the gun-controllers seriously - that the right 
guaranteed in the Second Amendment applies only to people in duly organized 
militias.

The dictionary at hand offers several definitions for militia, among them, 
"The armed citizenry as distinct from the regular army." That one won't 
help the gun-controller argument, since they have a problem with an "armed 
citizenry," so let's consider the other primary definition: "A citizen army 
as distinct from a body of professional soldiers."

The appropriate question here is "citizen of what?" We are American 
citizens, of course, but we are also Colorado citizens, as well as citizens 
of various towns, cities and counties.

Presumably, any of these political jurisdictions enjoys a constitutional 
power to establish and maintain a volunteer militia, and there's some 
Currier-and-Ives charm in the image of the local militia out drilling on 
the village green.

In days of yore, the militias were generally organized to protect the 
settlers - who weren't in a position to get timely assistance from their 
state or federal government - from Indian attacks, which aren't much of a 
threat now.

But Colorado communities still face threats and invasions, and it's 
possible to imagine how a local militia could help them defend against 
developers, subdividers, water exporters, big-box retailers, strip- mall 
franchises and other threats to their way of life.

Even the most rabid gun-controller would have to support these militias, 
since local citizen militias would conform perfectly to their reading of 
the Second Amendment.

Now, I don't know that I'd feel safer if both Salida and Poncha Springs had 
militias the next time they wrangled about water rights. But you can ask 
the gun-controllers about that. As far as I'm concerned, the Second 
Amendment is an individual right.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Beth