The Second Amendment

Securing the Individual's Inalienable Right to Self-Defense to Bear Arms

The following information related to the individual’s right to bear arms comes from a Twitter thread that I first started on March 28, 2023.

Tweet 1:

Self-defense is an inalienable and natural right; thus, a person has a right to bear arms to exercise this right.

What weapon do you choose to defend yourself from an individual with a firearm?

What weapon do you choose to defend yourself from a government with weapons of war?

Tweet 2:

In the end, it is the People who are to be armed over the government, since it is their duty and responsibility to defend themselves and the state. The military and standing armies are dangerous and should be "governed by, the civil power."

Tweet 3:

An individual has the right to bear the same arms in defense that are used against them in offense to repel this attack, "Force with Force".

Tweet 4:

"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." ~ The Second Amendment

Tweet 5:

The Second Amendment is meant as a means for the People to defend themselves from tyrannical government, based on the patterns of history. Clearly, governments have become corrupted through their power, which has led to injustice and oppression.

Tweet 6:

The People in a free state have a duty and responsibility to be armed and trained in those arms for the purpose of defending themselves, their land, and their rights, if needed.

Tweet 7:

The ability to defend oneself is one guarantee of the individual's freedom, and it is a protection against arbitrary government.

Tweet 8:

A freeman is armed, a slave is disarmed.

Tweet 9:

Those who lost their right to self-defense and to bear arms lose their rights to free speech, to assembly, to protest, etc., etc., etc.

Tweet 10:

Robert J. Cottrol and Raymond T. Diamond, "Public Safety and the Right to Bear Arms", (1993), p. 73.

Tweet 11:

The framers' view of the right to bear arms and the rights of Englishmen tradition.

Robert J. Cottrol and Raymond T. Diamond, "Public Safety and the Right to Bear Arms", (1993), p. 73.

Tweet 12:

12/ Sir William Blackstone and the right to bear arms as one of the five auxiliary rights of English subjects.

Robert J. Cottrol and Raymond T. Diamond, "Public Safety and the Right to Bear Arms", (1993), p. 74.

Tweet 13:

13/ Total Number of U.S. Military Personnel (in members): 2,133,050.

There are more than 800,000 sworn law enforcement officers now serving in the United States.

According to the 2019 ASPEP survey, there were 19.7 million people employed by state and local governments.

Before a standing army can rule, the People must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom of Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the People are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops that can be, on any pretence, raised in the United States. [Noah Webster]

Tweet 14:

Remember Americans, tyrants and criminals will always prefer that their victims are unarmed and vulnerable. They will have no problem with gun free zones, because either they will always be armed, and/or have armed petty tyrants and criminals surrounding them.

O sir, we should have fine times, indeed, if, to punish tyrants, it were only sufficient to assemble the People! Your arms, wherewith you could defend yourselves, are gone; and you have no longer an aristocratical, not longer a democratical spirit. Did you ever read of any revolution in a nation, brought about by the punishment of those in power, inflicted by those who had no power at all? [Patrick Henry]

Tweet 15:

How does one prepare to meet an enemy in their individual lives to produce peace without the liberty to bear arms for self-defense? And what types of arms does their enemies keep and bear to produce chaos and harm against them?

There is nothing so likely to produce peace as to be well prepared to meet an enemy. [George Washington]

Tweet 16:

Rep. Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts, Spoken during floor debate over the Second Amendment, Annals of Congress, August 17, 1789.

Whenever governments mean to invade the rights and liberties of the People, they always attempt to destroy the militia, in order to raise an army upon their ruins.

Tweet 17:

Simeon Howard to the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company in Boston, June 7, 1773.

Not only does the individual have right to bear arms, there is good reason as to why they should keep and train with them for defense.

A people who would stand fast in their liberty, should furnish themselves with weapons proper for their defence, and learn the use of them. It is indeed an hard case, that those who are happy in the blessings of Providence, and disposed to live peaceably with all men, should be obliged to keep up the idea of blood and slaughter, and expend their time and treasure to acquire the arts and instruments of death. But this is a necessity which the depravity of human nature has laid upon every state. Nor was there ever a people that continued, for any considerable time, in the enjoyment of liberty, who were not in a capacity to defend themselves against invaders, unless they were too poor and inconsiderable to temp an enemy.

Tweet 18:

Thomas Jefferson, Eighth State of the Union Address, 1808.

Who is the militia? It is the People.

Who destroyed the militia system?

Who wants to disarm the People?

Who has established a large, long-standing army? Who is the best secured today?

Who is free?

For a people who are free, and who mean to remain so, a well-organized and armed militia is their best security.

Tweet 19:

Simeon Howard to the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company in Boston, June 7, 1773.

The individual has a duty to keep and bear arms to secure their rights and the rights of others, so as to ensure that freedom prevails, and to thwart the encroachments towards slavery.

Men are also bound, individuals and societies, to take care of their temporal happiness, and do all they lawfully can, to promote it. but what can be more inconsistent with this duty, than submitting to great encroachments upon our liberty? Such submission tends to slavery; and compleat (sic) slavery implies every evil that the malice of man and devils can inflict.

Tweet 20:

James Madison, First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1809.

Who is the militia?

It is the People.

"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."

Always remember that an armed and trained militia is the firmest bulwark of republics - that without standing armies their liberty can never be in danger, nor with large ones safe.

Tweet 21:

Congress shall never be authorized to infringe upon the peaceable individual's inalienable right to self-defense to keep and bear arms.

Tweet 22:

It would appear that Americans have forgotten their advantage that they have over almost every other nation; and government is showing that they are afraid to trust the peaceable People with arms today.

Tweet 23:

Considering that the U.S. has a large standing army that seems to be continually in conflict with other nations around the world, now is not the time to give up our inalienable right to self-defense and to keep and bear arms.

In a general view there are very few conquests that repay the charge of making them, and mankind are pretty well convinced that it can never be worth their while to go to war for profit sake. If they are made war upon, their country invaded, or their existence at stake, it is their duty to defend and preserve themselves, but in every other light and from every other cause is war inglorious and detestable. [Thomas Paine]

Tweet 24:

We the People are the militia.

A militia, when properly formed, are in fact the People themselves…and include all men capable of bearing arms. [Richard Henry Lee]

Tweet 25:

It is the People's right to bear arms, while the "unlimited power of the sword" is not to be "in the hands of either the federal or state governments."

Tweet 26:

The People cannot preserve the spirit of resistance if they do not have arms to bear.

Tweet 27:

"The Right to Bear Arms is Still a Check on Tyranny".

Tweet 28:

If we cannot disarm the entire world of arms, to include all the governments and all the criminals, then there will never be a safe balance. To secure life and peace, the individual needs to keep and bear arms to meet force with force to bring balance & order to our society.

The supposed quietude of a good man allures the ruffian; while on the other hand, arms like laws discourage and keep the invader and plunderer in awe, and preserve order in the world as well as property. The same balance would be preserved were all the world destitute of arms, for all would be alike; but since some will, others dare not lay them aside…horrid mischief would ensue were one half of the world deprived of the use them. [Thomas Paine]

Tweet 29:

George Mason & Richard Henry Lee on the Right to Bear Arms.

Tweet 30:

The People's right to bear arms is "a barrier against the enterprises of ambition."

The ultimate authority…resides in the People alone…the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the People of almost every other nation…forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition. [James Madison]

Tweet 31:

Individual's have a right to self-defense of their own lives and a duty to defend their land. They are also the militia, and must defend our liberty from tyrannical government and their standing army. Gun control laws are designs that can lead to the People's ruin.

Tweet 32:

The People's right to bear arms for self-defense is meant to defend their lives from murderers, their property from thieves, and their liberty from tyrants through their standing armies and foreign invaders. The latter duty is when the People become the militia.

Tweet 33:

It is a violation of the individual's right to bear arms by striping away their power to defend themselves from those will criminally use their arms in an attempt to take away the individual's life, property, or liberty from them. Who do you trust with these arms?

Are we at last brought to such a humiliating and debasing degradation, that we cannot be trusted with arms for our own defense? Where is the difference between having our arms in our possession and under our own direction, and having them under the management of Congress? If our defense be the real object of having those arms, in whose hands can they be trusted with more propriety, or equal safety to us, as in our own hands? [Patrick Henry]

Tweet 34:

When the citizens of a nation are disarmed, they will not be able to protect themselves from the standing army that a tyrant will raise up against them to remove their rights and liberties.

Thomas Jefferson, Letter to unknown recipient, February 25, 1803.

None but an armed nation can dispense with a standing army.

Tweet 35:

More reasons why the People, who are the militia, are to keep and bear arms.

"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."

The militia is the natural defence of a free country against sudden foreign invasion, domestic insurrections and domestic usurpations of power by rulers. It is against sound policy for a free people to keep up large military establishments and standing armies in time of peace both from the enormous expenses with which they are attended and the facile means which they afford to ambitious and unprincipled rulers to subvert the government or trample upon the rights of the people. The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered as the palladium of the liberties of a republic since it offers a strong moral check against the usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers and will generally even if these are successful the first instance enable the People to resist and triumph over them [Justice Joseph Story]

Tweet 36:

The militia was not the National Guard during America's founding, the militia was the People, who had the inalienable right to self-defense and to keep and bear arms. If our citizens are not armed and not fulfilling their duty as the militia, how free are our citizens today?

The safety of these states and everything dear to a free people must depend in an eminent degree on the militia…this arrangement should be formed, too, in time of peace, to be the better prepared for war. [James Madison]

Tweet 37:

"The right of self defense rests upon a law of necessity....It does not depend upon any law of society."

- Elliott Anthony, A Treatise on the Law of Self Defense, Trial by Jury in Criminal Cases, and New Trials in Criminal Cases, 1887.

Tweet 38:

The case of the Commonwealth of Mass. v. Thos. O. Selfridge of Boston, for the killing of Charles Austin, a student in Harvard College, in 1806.

- Elliott Anthony, A Treatise on the Law of Self Defense, Trial by Jury in Criminal Cases, and New Trials in Criminal Cases, 1887.

Tweet 39:

A pre-American Revolutionary War quote about the importance of the militia, and the reason for the People to keep and bear arms for their defense. In 1776, the thirteen colonies declared themselves "free and independent states", not one single unified nation either.

Tweet 40:

The militia, or the People, are not "machines" for government armies; the American militiaman is "an individualist, a freeman, and a property owner." They are also a check against standing armies and government misuses of power.

- Murray Rothbard, Conceived in Liberty.

Tweet 41:

Patrick Henry, Speech of June 14, 1788.

“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.”

The great object is, that every man be armed…every one who is able may have a gun.

Tweet 42:

"All power is inherent in the people," and "it is their right and duty to be at all times armed."

- Thomas Jefferson, Letter to John Cartwright, June 5, 1824.

The constitutions of most of our states assert that all power is inherent in the People; that they may exercise it by themselves, in all cases to which they think themselves competent, (as in electing their functionaries executive and legislative, and and deciding by a jury of themselves, both fact and law, in all judiciary cases in which any fact is involved) or they may act by representatives, freely and equally chosen; that it is their right and duty to be at all times armed; that they are entitled to freedom of person; freedom of religion; freedom of property; and freedom of the press.

Tweet 43:

"The right of self-defense never ceases."

- James Monroe, Second annual message to Congress, November 16, 1818.

The right of self-defense never ceases. It is among the most sacred, and alike necessary to nations and to individuals.

Tweet 44:

“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.”

- Samuel Adams, in Phila. Independent Gazetteer, August 20, 1789.

That the said Constitution shall never be construed to authorized Congress to infringe the just liberty of the press or the rights of conscience; or to prevent the People of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms.

Tweet 45:

Here is James Madison's original language for the Second Amendment. This gives a clearer picture of his perspective regarding the individual's inalienable right to bear arms.

Tweet 46:

The following is what Anthony J. Dennis wrote in his article, "Clearing the Smoke From the Right to Bear Arms and the Second Amendment", in the Akron Law Journal (July 2015), about James Madison's original language of the Second Amendment, which can be found in tweet #45.

Tweet 47:

According to Madison, the right to bear arms is just one of the many "private rights" of the individual.

Source: Anthony J. Dennis, "Clearing the Smoke From the Right to Bear Arms and the Second Amendment", July 2015.

Tweet 48:

An additional excerpt from the article written by Anthony J. Dennis:

"Madison's good friend and ally Tench Coxe, writing as 'A Pennsylvanian' in various newspapers of the day, referred to the Second Amendment as..."

Tweet 49:

According to John Adams, the individual has a natural right to self-defense to protect their life, limbs, and property. This right cannot be surrendered.

The individual defends themselves through bearing arms.

Tweet 50:

Many of the Founders were lawyers trained in the English common law tradition. The right to bear arms for one's own defense was a well established natural right before they penned the Second Amendment in the U.S. Bill of Rights.

Tweet 51:

The right to bear arms was spoken of in ancient Greece.

Tweet 52:

According to Aristotle, the tyrant will "keep his subjects poor, so that they may not be able to afford the cost of protecting themselves by arms" through work and taxes.

Source: The Politics (1962)

Tweet 53:

One should be skeptical of any government that pushes for a suppression of the People's inalienable right to self-defense through the bearing of arms, since this is a trait of tyranny.

Tweet 54:

The individual has a natural right of self-protection.

Tweet 55:

The individual has the natural right to defend their life, liberty, and private property.

Tweet 56:

The Founders used the word "arms" when securing the inalienable right of the People to defend themselves. In the late 18th century, arms were defined as weapons for offense and defense. This meant all arms, not just firearms.

Tweet 57:

"Destroying Gun Lies," brought to you by Warrior Poet Society.

Tweet 58:

In order to exercise one's inalienable right to self-defense, the individual must be armed, trained in their arms of choice, and have sufficient arms to include enough ammunition for any arms that require it. This is their natural right that supersedes civil law.

Tweet 59:

The People need to be properly armed, not properly disarmed, to exercise their inalienable right to self-defense from their enemies, be they a lone criminal, a mob, a corrupt government, or an invading foe.