Tenth Amendment Center:
In “What Did “Bear Arms” Mean in the Second Amendment?” Clayton E. Cramer and Joseph Edward Olson provide solid historical context proving that the phrase was used repeatedly when referring to non-military individuals possessing weapons.
“Those who argue that the original meaning of the Second Amendment was only to protect a collective right, either of the states to maintain militias, or perhaps of citizens to jointly form militias, assert that “bear arms” refers exclusively or at least overwhelmingly, to the collective, military carrying of weapons,” they write. “If ‘bear arms’ referred only to the military carrying or use of arms, then the right protected by the Second Amendment would not be an individual right to possess or carry arms for personal self-defense. The right would be for a government organized militia, or at best, to exercise what the Tennessee Supreme Court acknowledged was a right to revolution.”
While pointing out that historical documents written at the time of the Second Amendment referenced by many scholars generally used the phrase “bear arms” to refer to military uses, Cramer and Olson say that this is due to a bias selection problem.
“Searching more comprehensive collections of English language works published before 1820 shows that there are a number of uses that are clearly individual, and have nothing to do with military service. Some of these uses are by authors and in contexts that give special weight to an individual rights understanding.”
Among their historical evidence is a law written in England during the reign of King Henry VIII making it unlawful for any Welsh resident to “bring or bear, or cause to be brought or borne to the same Sessions or Court, or to any place within the distance of two Miles from the same Sessions or Court, nor to any Town, Church, Fair, Market, or other Congregation . . . nor in the Highways in affray of the King’s Peace, or the King’s liege People, any Bill, Long-bow, Cross-bow, Hand-gun, Sword, Staff, Dagger, Halberd, Morespike, Spear, or any other manner of Weapon . . . .”
“The specific problem that the statute sought to correct was not even Welsh rebellion,” Cramer and Olson write, “but simple criminal actions interfering with the operation of the courts.”
Another English statue intended to disarm Scottish Highlanders also uses the term “bear arms” in referring to requirements for amnesty (emphasis added).
That from and after the time of affixing any such summons as aforesaid, no person or persons residing within the bounds therein mentioned, shall be sued or prosecuted for his or their having, or having had, bearing, or having borne arms at any time before the several days to be prefixed or limited by summons as aforesaid, for the respective persons and districts to deliver up their arms. . . .
This is a good essay. While I do not ever advocate deference to international law or precedent, not even from our own English heritage, it is quite useful to understand the common usage of words and common practices of the times that led to the documents to which we are all supposed to live.
One can also see the nibbling around the edges of gun control, even in these words above, with the worst of it being gun control as a catalyst for the American war of independence. Our forefathers fought against the notion of the divine right of kings and for the idea of covenant as seen in the light of continental Calvinism.
