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[Bengalzona]

(06-16-2016, 01:24 PM)Belsnickel Wrote: Yeah, context is key. It was intended for the major ground force in the country to be for defensive purposes and be made up of the populous. They never intended for a standing army, which is why they give permission for a standing navy but only allow an army to be approved for two years at a time. Reliance on a militia AND the ability to rise against a tyrannical government were the aims, but in modern context with the way we handle our military the intent of the SA just doesn't apply in the same way.

The original intent was that the militias would be sponsored and organized by the individual states, not private armies. The bias was against having a federal army. But that bias was quickly thrown out when it was found that state militias were generally inadequate to respond to foreign (and sometimes domestic, see Shay's Rebellion) threats and that a full-time professional force was required.

That doesn't mean that there wasn't a recognition for the need for individuals to keep their own arms. We were a frontier nation and the threat from Indians on individuals and small settlements was real and ever-present. The thought of taking arms away from individuals settling the frontier would have been insane at that time. And that, of course, should be the primary evidence that the Second Amendment was never about protecting individuals' rights to arms. It was concerned solely with states having the rights to maintain their own militias.