I wrote this response to an opinion article in the Jewish Journal of Los Angeles: The Second Amendment Does NOT Exist in a Vacuum, by Karen Kaskey.
Ms. Kaskey displays her ignorance of American history and Jewish history in America. Her out-of-sequence argument regarding the Second Amendment could most charitably be described as an attorney’s summation, where the facts are restructured, if admitted into evidence at all. Of course, the full set of facts would, in her case, get in the way of her cart-before-horse conclusion. Her ignorance of American political theory as background to the Consitution only adds to the incompetence of her argument.
The full text of the Second Amendment includes the phrase ‘being necessary to the security of a free State’. Why is this important? Because political power in these United States derives from the people, not our freedoms from the government.
Note that the Constitution provides for a Navy, but most emphatically not for a standing army; that is why the Amendment refers to a well-regulated militia. The militia was defined by law and custom as free adult citizens who were ‘on call’, much as the National Guard is, when necessary for the defense of the nation.
Ms. Kaskey’s assertion that the militias were well-regulated during the Revolutionary War is not borne out by the histories of the time.
Volunteers (aka rebels) arrived with muskets of varying caliber, requiring that each soldier had to varry his own set of ball-casting equipment. Nothing could be shared as each was unique. Hell of a way to run a war. The regulations engendered by the amendment provided for standardization of caliber and weight of ammunition, as well as regular drill times and other matters. There were no armories, except for heavier equipment such as cannons. At the end of the day, the militia members took their weapons home; power was in the hands of the people. Perhaps Ms. Kaskey is afraid of the power that resides in the American people.
A number of years ago, after the Oklahoma City Federal Building bombing, the ACLU went on a high-and-mighty campaign about the danger of militias. This continued (mostly as a great fund-rasing tactic) until they received a letter from a militia organization in Arizona, which opened with “we are a militia group; we are also Orthodox Jews.” There was much more, but that opening put the kibosh on the ACLU’s sturm-und-drang campaign.
In closing, Ms. Kaskey might wish to study the history of Nieuw Amsterdam under the regime of Pieter Stuyvesant. The rules of the colony were that each male resident was required to own a weapon and share in guard duty on the northern wall (now Wall Street), making them equal citizens. Mr. Stuyvesant decreed that Jews could not participate in this civic duty, instead would be required to pay a tax as a penalty for their failure to do so. Aaron Lopez fought this decree and won the right to bear arms in defence of the colony, thus establishing the precedent that Jews were to be equal to Christians as citizens.
by David R. Peters via Facebook
