Kerri,
Congratuations on Flyover
– great program. One fact, which I have yet to hear mentioned in the discussion
of the tomorrow’s question, is the medieval restriction of arms to the upper
classes. Like wearing fur, riding horses, and hunting, carrying a sword was
forbidden to the peasants. Only the King, his Knights and later the gentry were
permitted to bear arms. This is not commonly remembered now, but it surely was
in the 18th Century. I propose that is how the importance of an
individual right to bear arms got into our national DNA: it was the sign of a free and equal citizen, not necessarily
of an insurrectionist mentality.
As Mr. Justice Breyer has pointed out, the historical
context of the Second Amendment is a widespread fear that the new Federal government
would suppress the state militias. Mr. Justice Stevens (in his dissent in District of Columbia v. Heller) argued
that the phrase “to keep and bear arms” referred to these militias and to the
legal requirement of 1792 that men keep a rifle for that purpose. As the nation
expanded to places where the rule of law was unreliable, the private bearing of
arms became a matter of self defense. This frontier mythology, much celebrated
in the movies, is now also in our nation DNA,
unfortunately.
