KEEP AND BEAR ARMS

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 18^th 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.