Origin of the right to bear arms

Although the founding fathers of the United States of America can be considered gentlemen of genius, the concept of a right to bear arms (preventing government from disarming you), among others, was not conceived during the drafting of the US Constitution. In 1689, the English Parliament produced a "Bill of Rights" Act in response to a King's regime confiscating the weapons of citizens, particularly of locales with political opposition. The law gave Protestants the right to "have arms for their defense". This origin of our 2nd Amendment to the US Constitution was an individual right to bear arms and was carried over here in our new country.

The English civil war of 1642-1651 was a conflict between "Parliamentary" forces and the "Royalist" forces supporting the King (Charles the First). King Charles was ultimately defeated and executed in 1650.

Scotland and Ireland were also involved in the fray. A Scottish army invaded England in 1639-1640. Catholic Ireland rebelled in 1641. Generally northern and western England and much of Ireland supported the King, while Scotland and southeast England supported the Parliament. After taking control of England, the "Parliamentary" forces moved on to conquer Ireland in 1649. In 1650 the son of Charles the First led English and Scottish "Royalists" to rebel against the "Parliamentarians" but were defeated when their Scottish territory was invaded in 1650. Oliver Cromwell, the great statesman and soldier of the "Parliamentarians", led the war effort the entire time. Mr. Cromwell passed away in 1658.

Charles the Second returned to England in 1660 to restore the crown. It was common for the citizenry to possess weapons, hide weapons, and stockpile weapons, due to the violent history and conditions of the time. The existing standing army ("republican army") was mostly dissolved with the support of both the King and Parliament, and Charles II created a new militia (volunteer regiments) to help police the state. The last regiments of the standing army were retained, however, to produce a new royalist army. Charles II also implemented policies to disarm the population, particularly in areas where he faced political opposition. By 1662 he had succeeded. Royalists in the Parliament passed laws such as the Game Act that disarmed rural citizens under the guise of protecting wildlife from excessive hunting and depletion, and the Militia Act that gave police power to disarm law-abiding citizens.

In 1686 King James II (a Catholic supporter) used the laws to disarm Protestant citizens. After King James fled the kingdom, Parliament finally presented a declaration of rights related to gun control and gun ownership to King William and Queen Mary. The 1689 English Bill of Rights established the right of Protestants to be armed, an individual right, which supplemented the expectation that it was a civic duty to be armed to participate in a militia when needed.

As stated by Joyce Lee Malcolm at Harvard Law School:

"The Second Amendment should properly be read to extend to every citizen the right to have arms for personal defense. This right was a legacy of the English, whose right to have arms was, at base, as much a personal right as a collective duty. It is significant that the American right to keep arms was unfettered, unlike the English right, which was limited in various ways throughout its development.

Thus, in guaranteeing the individual right to keep and bear arms, and the collective right to maintain a general militia, the Second Amendment amplified the tradition of the English Bill of Rights for the purpose of preserving and protecting government by and for the people."

As stated by Richard Henry Lee in Letters from the Federal Farmer 53:

"to preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them."

Tench Coxe in the Pennsylvania Gazette in 1788:

"the 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." […] "Whereas civil rulers, not having their duty to the people duly before them, may attempt to tyrannize, and as military forces, which must be occasionally raised to defend our country, might pervert their power to the injury of their fellow citizens, the people are confirmed by the article in their right to keep and bear their private arms."

George Tucker in the 1803 edition of Blackstone's Commentaries, proposed that Americans:

"may reasonably hope that the people will never cease to regard the right of keeping and bearing arms as the surest pledge of their liberty." […] "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed; […] and this without any qualification as to their condition or degree, as is the case in the British government."

William Rawle in the 1825 A View of the Constitution of the United States of America, the 2nd Amendment's

"prohibition is general. No clause in the Constitution could be any rule of construction be conceived to give to congress a power to disarm the people." Mr. Rawle recognized that Americans have a better chance at staying free, while in Europe "the prevention of popular insurrections and resistance to government" is achieved by "disarming the people."

In the 1833 Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States, Joseph Story writes:

"the right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered as the palladium of the liberties of a republic", and the 2nd Amendment provides "a strong moral check against the usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers."

After the Civil War, Republicans in congress were able to lead the effort to amend the Constitution (14th Amendment) to have black americans protected by the Bill of Rights (as citizens) including explicitly the right to bear arms.