. But Madison was running for … By the time the 13 states came together in Philadelphia for the Constitutional Convention in 1787, four state constitutions protected the right to bear arms within a militia, but only Pennsylvania allowed broader ownership. Welcome back. Yet factual data on how many threats or attacks were deterred in a given year by displaying a firearm have long been available. He made headlines in 2015 for shaming lawmakers who took money from the NRA and sent “thoughts and prayers” after mass shootings. My friends and countrymen, it is not so, for THE POWERS OF THE SWORD ARE IN THE HANDS OF THE YEOMANRY OF AMERICA FROM SIXTEEN TO SIXTY. [8], Chapter 1. “Hitherto charters have been written grants of privileges by governments to the people. To facilitate this dirty work—and ensure that guns did not fall into the “wrong” hands—early Americans employed stringent gun regulations. The Constitution’s chief author—James Madison—had a problem. The Second Amendment, as passed by the House and Senate and later ratified by the States, reads: The hand-written copy of the Bill of Rights which hangs in the National Archives had slightly different capitalization and punctuation inserted by William Lambert, the scribe who prepared it. Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny. 46, January 29, 1788 “The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. The fundamental law of the militia is, that it be created, directed and commanded by the laws, and ever for the support of the laws. Rhode Island conducted a house-by-house census of gun owners. Noah Webster, the political writer and “father of American scholarship and education,” asked sarcastically if Congress should not include language “that Congress shall never restrain any inhabitant of America from eating and drinking, at seasonable times, or prevent his lying on his left side, in a long winter’s night, or even on his back, when he is fatigued by lying on his right.”. Who are the militia? Colonial governments tracked citizens’ firearms, and militiamen faced stiff penalties if they failed to report to muster. Pennsylvania law allowed the government to disarm individuals deemed insufficiently loyal to the state. Benjamin Franklin Gun Quotes. Congress have no power to disarm the militia. In a country with many millions of guns, not all of them registered, this is a fantasy and a farce. During the 19th century, state militias began to give way to standing armies, and as the United States expanded west, violence increased. Gun control laws were originally promulgated by Democrats to keep guns out of the hands of blacks. In our Governments, the real power lies in the majority of the Community, and the invasion of private rights is chiefly to be apprehended, not from the acts of Government contrary to the sense of its constituents, but from acts in which the Government is the mere instrument of the major number of the constituents.”, “The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted.”. That all such of the inhabitants of this State being of the people called Quakers as, from scruples of conscience, may be averse to the bearing of arms, be therefrom excused by the legislature; and do pay to the State such sums of money, in lieu of their personal service, as the same; may, in the judgment of the legislature, be worth. The Founding Fathers wanted a country with fewer guns.

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