The Second Amendment was part of the original Bill of Rights added to the Constitution as a condition of its ratification. 

The Bill of Rights is considered important because it prescribes rights reserved to the people collectively and in some cases individually which are inviolate and which the Federal Government cannot take away. 

The rights are in part inspired by the Enlightenment concept of natural rights and in part a result of the bloody way the Americans just fought to achieve national independence.

The Second Amendment reads "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." 

Arguably the most grammatically challenged of the amendments, it has become the product of a lot of political debate in the past 30 years or so. If you take out the dependent clauses, the original meaning is more clear—”A well regulated Militia shall not be infringed”—and in the context of the period it makes a lot of sense. 


Throughout the 19th century and even into the 20th, the second amendment only came up a handful of times in cases before the Supreme Court and the legal consensus was that it protected the collective right of the people to organize Militias. Militias are also referenced in other parts of the constitution and their relationship is defined vis-a-vis the Federal Army. 

The conclusion was drawn from the legal documents of the day, the previous drafts of the document, as well as other state constitutions that have similar language.

Militias were part of the local defense groups that helped win the revolution and it was commonly believed that local militias were preferable to large professional standing armies because the latter were more likely to be corrupt, expensive, disconnected from the people, and to engage in tyrannical behavior. 

At the time, it was generally assumed that “the people” (really white men) could own guns, but with gun ownership came a certain responsibility—you had to be a member of the local militia and subject to conscription if need be and that these gun owning militia members could be “well regulated” as could their weapons. 

Over time, however, it became increasingly obvious that militias weren’t the most reliable and after the civil war, the importance of a national army became more obvious, this militias were gradually phased out and replaced with what we call the National Guard.

Although many Americans were gun owners over the course the 19th and 20th century, there was never a “debate” about the second amendment like there is today. It was generally assumed that people could own guns, but also assumed the government had the right to regulate them. It has only been in recent years that this has become an issue. 


In 1968, following the assassination of Kennedy, King, and the rise of militant groups like the Black Panthers, the Weatherman, etc. the Federal Government passed a law which regulated the interstate sale of weapons and restricted sales to felons and the mentally ill. The NRA blocked some measures of the bill which required national licensing and a national registry, but in the end felt the final bill was acceptable. This was the first time that the NRA and the gun manufacturers flexed their political muscle to stymie gun control regulation, and apparently they liked it.

Since then, the “gun debate” was become political fodder, with the second amendment constantly invoked as the reason to prevent any further gun legislation. The Republicans picked up the mantle and have argued that liberals are trying to take away people’s rights by taking away their guns. This has been largely a way to secure white, often times, rural voters who might otherwise vote Democratic on economic issues. 


Recently, the Supreme Court (Anthony’s Scalias “Heller” decision) stated that the second amendment does protect the individual right to own a gun, not the collective right to form militias. This ran counter to over 200 years of legal interpretation. I would suggest reading Justice Steven’s dissent, it’s a good read. This was the product of about 40 years of legal efforts by the NRA, gun manufacturers, and the Republicans to change public opinion and ultimately the law on this issue.