With a new baby and the chaos of the holidays, it’s been a few months since I posted anything, so to avoid a cramp, allow me to ease back into this thing with a quick missive. Thanks for reading.

Here we go again. Taking Rahm Emanuel’s advice to never let a good crisis go to waste, liberals are spinning on their eyebrows and are engaged in a full-on assault against firearms, their owners, and the Second Amendment, itself. It doesn’t take a Constitutional historian or a gifted grammarian to understand the meaning and intent of the Second Amendment. Despite the fact that we have scads of external sources from the authors of the Bill of Rights on this very issue, we don’t have to go nearly that far in discerning their intent – it’s right there in the amendment, itself, if you understand the English language.

Another progressive in my circle of acquaintances trotted out the militia argument, again, this week, and while I handily dispensed with his warped understanding of how our founders defined “militia” and “well-regulated” using the words of the founders, themselves, it occurred to me that answering this argument is really a waste of time. The fact is, the “well-regulated militia” clause is inconsequential to the “keep and bear arms” clause and actually places no requirements upon it.

His argument was that, according to the Second Amendment, the use of arms should be restricted to those in a well regulated militia, but the actual text of the amendment and its structure do not bear this premise out. Let’s examine that text:

“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.”

Looking purely at sentence structure, leaving all politics aside, the “well regulated militia” clause places no requirements upon the rest of the amendment. In other words, there is no reason to interpret the amendment in such a way that the major premise (the “keep and bear arms” clause) is predicated upon the “well regulated militia” clause, requiring the gun owner to be a part of an organized militia in order to exercise the enumerated right.

The easiest way to see this point is to maintain the sentence structure but replace the subjects and objects with other terms and see how the sentence would be interpreted in other circumstances:

“A full stomach, being necessary to the physical satiety of a free man, the right of the people to belly up to the buffet at Golden Corral shall not be infringed.”

The question must be asked, “what if I don’t want a full stomach?” What if I simply want to drop $12 on a few yeast rolls from the bakery bar? What if I just want to meet my dad there for a cup of coffee? According to the gun-grabbers’ interpretation, I have no right to patronize “The Trough” (as my wife and I call it), unless I’m there to stuff myself. Is this a reasonable interpretation?

“A well funded savings account, being necessary to the financial security of a free man, the right of the people to labor and save money shall not be infringed.”

Again, does this sentence suggest that in order for me to retain the right to work and save money, I must be doing it for the sole purpose of funding my retirement account? Of course not. What if I want to eliminate accumulated debt? What if I want to buy a home? What if, God forbid, I wanted to purchase a Colt AR-15 carbine with a flat-top upper receiver, collapsible stock, Picatinny tactical rails, and an Aimpoint M68 Close Combat Optic?

I wonder how liberals would interpret the following amendment, if it existed:

“Having no more than two children in the home, being necessary to the positive mental state of a woman, the right of a woman to seek out and obtain an abortion shall not be infringed.”

If we interpreted this sentence the way that liberals interpret the Second Amendment, only women who already had two children living at home would be entitled to have an abortion. Do we honestly believe that liberals would allow such an interpretation?

It is clear from the structure of the Second Amendment that the founders, in the “well regulated militia” clause were listing, perhaps, one of the most important reasons as to why the right of the people to keep and bear arms should not be infringed. It strains credulity, however, to assert that the founders believed this to be the only qualifying reason for the people to keep and bear arms.

Thomas Jefferson, in November of 1787, said that the tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. I find it difficult to believe that he imagined a tyrant’s blood being shed by anything other than a firearm in the hands of a patriot.