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From what I have heard, the oral argument in the
Supreme Court on the District of Columbia gun case suggested that a majority
of the Justices just might discover an “individual right”
“to keep and bear Arms” in the Second Amendment, and on that
basis might declare the District’s draconian “gun-control”
laws to some degree unconstitutional. Such a decision might lead to further
victories against “gun-control” statutes and ordinances in other
jurisdictions. Yet it might prove instead to be a Trojan Horse, because it
could come down larded with so much judicial mumbo jumbo about
“reasonable regulation” and “compelling governmental
interests” as grounds for “gun control” that the Second
Amendment would be left guaranteeing less of a “right” than of an
occasion for endless legislation and litigation. Well, one can only hope for
the best—but at the same time one ought to prepare for something less.
My
concern is what happens if the Justices somehow do rule favorably on the
“individual-right theory.” I suspect that such a
victory—after the champagne runs out—will have the perverse
result of putting all the pro-Second
Amendment people and organizations to sleep. With their personal “gun
rights” apparently secure (at least for the time being), they will not
be worried about how correctly
to construe the Amendment, and how really
to enforce it, even though this country needs that construction and
enforcement now more than ever before.
The
inescapable fact is that whatever “individual right” “to
keep and bear Arms” emerges from the D.C. gun case will not provide “the
security of a free State” at which the Second Amendment aims. True,
tens and tens of millions of Americans possess firearms and ammunition; and
perhaps large numbers of these firearms are suitable for Militia service. But
the armed individual, simply as an individual, is not enough.
All
too many individual gun owners are not even aware of each other. Although
some are members of firearms ranges or gun clubs, hardly any if them are
organized for anything akin to Militia purposes. They are not members of
specific units. They have no designated leaders. They lack systems for
communications within or among units, or among individuals for that matter.
(Where, for example, is the gun-owners’ equivalent of a
“Neighborhood Watch” against local usurpation and tyranny?) Even
within their own neighborhoods, among families and friends, they make no
attempts to insure uniformity or completeness of equipment. They lack
sufficient, and often necessary, education and training. They have prepared
no plans to deal with various contingencies, let alone have assigned tasks to
be carried out in anticipated emergencies. More crucially, they do not
understand their constitutional status, purpose, and especially authority.
Many, if not most, of them have no idea what they would be defending with
their “individual rights” “to keep and bear
Arms”—other than, perhaps, simply maintaining possession of their
own firearms for purposes of possible self-defense. So, absent direct attacks
on their own persons, how many gun owners today, anywhere, no matter how
serious the crisis confronting the rest of society around them, would
exercise their “individual rights”? Or could effectively do so?
And to what end?
Oh,
common Americans may be individually insulted, even outraged, by “the
insolence of office” that increasingly characterizes rogue public
officials at every level of government today. They may rightly resent, even
intensely, the contempt with which such obnoxious officialdom treats them.
They may correctly see their and their families’ present financial
positions and future economic security being destroyed by the debt-currency
schemes, speculative bubbles, and bailouts engineered by the Federal Reserve
System and its clients among the low life of high finance. They may be
subject to endless harassment by the tax Gestapo or the mentally jack-booted
thugs in other governmental agencies. They may even have been the bloodied
victims of para-military police brutality. But so what? Now what? They do not
know what to do, or how to do it—or perhaps why.
Even
if some of these isolated and ignorant individuals could somehow come
together here and there in the midst of a crisis that sufficiently rocks
society’s foundations to wake and shake them up, they would constitute
only armed mobs, not even “militia” in the generic sense, and
certainly not “Militia” in the specifically constitutional sense.
Moreover, the very few who are already organized, and who do train, as
“private militia” lack constitutional authority—and often,
if not usually, envision themselves as outside of and antagonistic to
“the government” (rather than as the ultimate embodiment of
“government”). If these few individuals stood up with their
“individual rights” against the trained and ruthless enforcers
deployed against them by a police state, they would be branded outlaws or
“terrorists”, demonized by the big media, deserted by their
fellow citizens, and quickly picked off and packed off to morgues or
detention centers.
Such
a scenario, of course, is the exact opposite of the true Militia model, and
of actual Militia experience in American history. When thousands of
Militiamen appeared outside of Boston, Massachusetts, on 19 April 1775, were
they acting solely in pursuance of an “individual right”? Did
“the embattled farmers” fight only as individuals? Were they just
a lawless mob? Was their victory at the Battle of Lexington and Concord the
lucky result of martial anarchy? Of course not.
Very
few “civilians” (in the purest sense of that term) were involved
on that fateful day. Most of the men who mustered were members of Militia
companies that had been training assiduously for some time theretofore. (And
the ones who were not, because they were too old to be required to serve, but
who fought anyway, had been members of the Militia when young.) Had not that
been the case, the Militia would never have been able to assemble so many
men, on such short notice, from beyond Concord all along the road back to
Boston.
Neither
did “the embattled farmers” fight merely as individuals. They may
have employed the tactics of irregulars—neither maneuvering in
parade-ground formations nor presenting a concentrated target to their
enemies—but they always operated in set units, typically Militia
companies, which averaged about 50 men apiece when at full complement. The
Militiamen’s success was based upon organization—being
called out in a systematic fashion by riders, bells, or the firing of shots; equipment—being
adequately armed and accoutred; training—knowing
what to do, under their designated officers; morale—being psychologically ready
and confident; and especially authority—knowing
that they had the legal right, power, and duty to take action, because
British General Thomas Gage, and the Ministerial Government behind him, were
the usurpers and law-breakers.
Particularly
revealing is the background to Lexington and Concord. Gage’s descent on
Concord was only his last misstep in a series of oppressive maneuvers.
Disarming the Militia by means of the seizure of their
[g]unpowder
was undoubtedly on Gage’s mind when he began sending his troops on
marches in the [Massachusetts] countryside early in 1775. * * * Each march
also tested the provincial warning system. Gage hoped that if five or six
alerts turned out to be false alarms—the regulars were just marching
along molesting neither persons nor property—the minutemen might grow
weary or careless about responding.
Instead
of growing weary, the Americans turned out in force every time the British
appeared outside Boston. They saw these confrontations in different terms.
When the British turned back, the minutemen were convinced they had done so
because they had lost their nerve. [Thomas Fleming, The First Stroke: Lexington,
Concord, and the beginning of the American Revolution
(Washington, D.C.: National Park Service, United States Department of the
Interior, 1978), at 35.]
So,
neither Gage nor the Militiamen imagined that only isolated individuals were
involved on the patriots’ side of things. Gage knew perfectly well that
he was facing an organized body of trained men of a single mind. And by his
reactions to their “turn[ing] out in force”, the Militiamen
believed that they were deterring him, and gained confidence in themselves
from that belief.
On
the other hand, the British miscalculated on the basis of overconfidence born
of hubris. About a month before Lexington and Concord, Major of Marines John
Pitcairn—who later commanded the British troops at the moment when they
fired on the Militiamen at Lexington—wrote to the Earl of Sandwich that
[o]rders
are anxiously expected from England to chastise those very bad people. * * *
I am satisfied that one active campaign, a smart action, and burning two or
three of their towns, will set everything to right. Nothing now, I am afraid,
but this will ever convince these foolish bad people that England is in
earnest. [Letter of 4 March 1775, in
The Private Papers of John, Earl of Sandwich, First Lord of the Admiralty,
1771-1782 (London, England: Navy Records Society, G.R. Barnes
& J.H. Owen, Editors, 1907-1911), Volume I, at 59.]
After
the battle, though,
[Lord]
Percy[, one of Gage’s best officers,] recognized, with the eye of an
intelligent soldier, one of the least understood realities of April 19th. The
Americans who responded to the British challenge were not a mass of
disorganized individuals; they were a well-supplied rudimentary army which
had been organizing and training for 6 months. They were in a state of battle
readiness, much better prepared to fight than the British soldiers who
marched out of Boston. A heavy proportion of the American officers were
veterans who knew how to lead men into battle. Their training and the
knowledge that they outnumbered the British five to one (even counting all
the men Gage had in Boston) added to the confidence with which they responded
to the alarm when the fighting began. In short, April 19th was a victory of
preparedness. It was not the product of spontaneous enthusiasm. The militiamen
of Massachusetts knew their strength, and, more important, they knew they had
the ability to use that strength effectively. [Fleming, The First Stroke, at
92-93.]
Apparently,
history is repeating itself today, at least in part. In the manner of General
Gage, present-day rogue politicians are systematically constructing a
national police state and testing its mechanisms—experimenting to
discover how much of the gall and wormwood of oppression ordinary people will
swallow, and otherwise creating uncertainty, self-doubt, mutual distrust and
recriminations, fear, apathy, and resignation among the populace.
Simultaneously, they are expanding Americans’ personal economic
dependency upon the corrupt political system—the apex of which abjection
will arrive with the amalgamation of national health care, on the one hand,
and control of the food supply by a cartel of gargantuan agribusinesses, on
the other, so that from day to day every ordinary American’s very life
and death will be in the unclean hands of rogue politicians and the special
interests that pull their strings.
But,
in stark contrast to 1775, while all of this is going on, the Militia are
exerting no deterrence whatsoever. Not because, of course, there are no
“embattled farmers” (or men and women of every occupation and
socio-economic class who suffer from oppression) today, but because today there are no Militia.
Deterrence
is the first and most important line of defense. It is the essence of
prudence, and of good strategy, too. As Sun Tzu taught, “to fight and
conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence
consists in breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting. Thus the
highest form of generalship is to baulk the enemy’s plans[.]” [Sun Tzu on the Art of War
(Taipei, Taiwan: Literature House, Lionel Giles translation, 1964 reprint of
the 1910 edition), at 16.] Yet deterrence must be real, such that the enemy
cannot believe in its ability to project power everywhere without fail,
cannot imagine how to maintain its control over society (let alone regain the
power it has lost), and cannot hope for final victory—so that, thus,
the enemy finds itself psychologically defeated before it has begun to fight.
To
provide deterrence sufficient for “the security of a free State”
the size of the United States requires collective effort on a massive scale,
not “individual rights” individually exercised in isolation.
Also, in a constitutional republic, deterrence against aspiring usurpers and
tyrants requires legal authority, which individuals generally lack except
when exercising their absolute right of self-defense. The Constitution tells
this country that “[a] well regulated Militia” is
“necessary”. Not just desirable—but necessary. And the
Constitution provides “the Militia of the several States” with
all the authority they need. Under today’s conditions, only through the
Militia could sufficiently large numbers of patriots be organized legally,
economically, politically, and otherwise outside
of the deceptive control-structures the Forces of Darkness use to maintain
their illicit power. Once “well regulated Militia”
are revitalized in enough States, they will far outnumber all of the thugs
any unconstitutional police state could possibly deploy. And, knowing that,
both rogue politicians and their myrmidons would have to think twice, thrice,
and more about the harsh consequences to themselves of attempting to clamp
down on the people.
Admittedly,
at first such a situation might amount to no more than a Mexican standoff
between the Forces of Darkness on one side and the American people on the
other. But at least it would be a standoff—and that should suffice for
starters. For Americans do not enjoy the luxury of even a standoff now.
Rather, they are on a one-way street with the flow of traffic running against
this country at an ever-accelerating speed. While deterrence provided a
standoff, millions upon millions of outraged Americans could take political
action, using the Militia as their focus, to reassert popular
sovereignty—rationally, steadily, and above all constitutionally and
peacefully.
One
thing is certain: Without such deterrence, there will be trouble. As monetary
and banking crises continue and worsen, the big cheeses and special-interest
groups will sacrifice average Americans in order to save themselves, their
wealth, their political positions, their social status, and all the other
excessive perquisites and abusive privileges they have stolen, embezzled, or
otherwise connived to obtain at this country’s expense. You will be
taken to the cleaners, or worse, for all you are worth—through
hyperinflationary depreciation of currency in order to lessen the real burden
of debts, or through increased taxation, or through seizures of
individuals’ property under “eminent domain” in order to
transfer it to favored creditors of the National and State governments, or
through some other scheme by which the powerful crime families in big
business, high finance, and gangster politics contrive to loot the common man
while casting the blame on someone else. And if you complain too vociferously
as these “reforms” impoverish you, or if the whole rotten system
suddenly implodes when the pressure of this economic madness becomes too
great for it to bear, aspiring usurpers and tyrants will attempt to crack
down with police-state repression. So, revitalizing “the Militia of the
several States” is not optional—unless your and your
family’s security, and this country’s survival as a free and
prosperous republic, are merely optional.
Doomsayers
and defeatists will contend that any recommendation to revitalize the Militia
is merely academic or nostalgic, because the Militia are now
“outmoded”. How or why, though, are the Militia
“outmoded”? Simply by the mere passage of time since the late
1700s? Can time alone negate the constitutional principle that “[a]
well regulated Militia” is “necessary to the security of a free
State”? Does not the mess in which America finds herself today, coupled
with the absence of the Militia, prove the wisdom of that principle, and the
foolishness of having let so much time pass without putting it into practice?
Are the Militia “outmoded” simply because Americans are not now
properly organized, equipped, and trained for Militia service? With the
proper will to do so, cannot the people organize, equip, and train themselves
to whatever level they need? Who, after all, is paying for the huge
police-state apparatus rogue politicians are now constructing? If Americans
can afford to pay for their own oppression, cannot they afford to pay a
little more for their own liberation? What choice do they have? Will they not
be forced to pay a crushing price, unto their utter destitution, if they fail
to act before it is too late?
If
the Militia are “outmoded” today in fact—because Americans
are unorganized, unequipped, untrained, and undisciplined—that is the
fault, first, of rogue politicians in Congress and the States’
legislatures; and, second, of the voters themselves, who elected such
subversives or incompetents. This sorry state of affairs cannot be attributed
to the concept of “[a] well regulated Militia” as the Founding
Fathers handed it down—or to anything else in the Constitution, which
provides sufficient power to accomplish, and affirmatively commands, the
proper result. In the last analysis, that America is treading water in
History’s septic tank is We the People’s own responsibility. But,
as well, that situation lies within We the People’s ability to correct
right now. And everyone reading this commentary knows it to be true.
Nonetheless,
if you are not yet ready to help in revitalizing “the Militia of the
several States” in your own locality through peaceful, constitutional
means while time still remains on your side—if you stubbornly insist on
your “individual right” “to keep and bear Arms”, but
refuse to understand what that “right” really demands in terms of
civic duty and collective action, even as your world comes tumbling down
around your own head—then at least learn something practical that may
prepare you for the certainty of an uncertain future. Take an NRA firearms
course (or, better yet, several such courses)—“First
Steps”, “Basic Pistol”, “Basic Rifle”,
“Basic Shotgun”, “Personal Protection in the Home”,
and (for those who qualify) “Personal Protection Outside the Home”—from
NRA-certified instructors in your own home town. Then learn to be a real
rifleman by participating in an “Appleseed” program. See appleseedinfo.org for full information and
scheduling. So that, when Destiny finally summons you to exercise the
“individual right” that you imagine is more valuable (and
certainly less tiring) than revitalizing the Militia, or to go under
altogether in the dustbin of History, you will at least be minimally prepared
to do the one rather than the other.
Edwin
Vieira
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