To the Editor:

This letter is in response to Jesse Sommer’s column “Accept or Abolish the Second Amendment” that appeared in the April 4, 2019 Altamont Enterprise.

I am not a lawyer but I do have an interest in the United State Constitution and the English language.

As Mr. Somers indicates, the Second Amendment reads: “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.”

Mr. Sommers goes on to make the case that the Second Amendment was meant to preserve the right of the people to engage in armed resistance to an overreaching central government.

It is worth noting that Article 1 Section 8 of the Constitution gives power to the Congress: “To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasion”

These words suggest that the purpose of the militia was not to create a counterforce to abusive government power but to enforce the law and protect the state against internal and external threats. It should be remembered that in the tender years of the Republic there was great concern by the founders over the threats from external enemies (see Britain) and internal disturbances (see slave insurrections; Whiskey Rebellion).

If the purpose of the Second Amendment was to protect individual liberties from government abuse why didn’t it just say so? It seems a stretch to say that that idea is contained in the words “necessary to the security of a free state.”

I wonder, too, in the minds of the Second Amendment authors, who would be responsible to assure the militia was “well-regulated” if not the government?

The opinion of the Supreme Court in the 2008 Heller decision included these words:  “…nothing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms.”

In other words, the Court upheld the right of the state to pass laws that limit in some fashion the right of people to keep and bear arms. How can those words be taken to support the idea that the Second Amendment is meant to protect people against the state if it gives the state the right to limit the people’s access to arms?

In fact, as a practical matter, if one is serious about interpreting the Second Amendment as the right to defend against government tyranny there can be no regulation of arms. Those who want to fight the U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines will certainly need more that rifles and shotguns or even AR-15s.

Does anyone seriously think that homegrown 21st-century patriots will succeed without access to artillery, munitions, anti-tank weaponry, rocket-propelled grenade launchers, land mines, shoulder-fired surface to air missiles, etc?

Do we really want to go there?

Finally, I don’t discount the possibility that one day we might find that our freedoms have been significantly eroded by government. If that happens I think it is far more likely to come from the right than the left. In any case, the only realistic response should be massive but passive, resistance.

Steven Schreiber

Voorheesville