Prominent gun control activist David Hogg tweeted Sunday that Americans “have no right to a gun,” saying that the right only applies to members of the military. The Second Amendment states, “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.” What Hogg fails to understand is that the only things that is mentioned as ‘regulated’ in the amendment is the militia. The people have the power to regulate or even overthrow tyranny which is present in government or a militia by having the right to bear arms, and that power ‘shall not be infringed.’ Hoggs tweet read:
You have no right to a gun. You are not a militia. When you’re talking about your second amendment rights you’re talking about a states right to have what is today the national guard. The modern interpretation of 2A is a ridiculous fraud pushed for decades by the gun lobby.
— David Hogg 🟧 (@davidhogg111) February 26, 2023
Breitbart offered their own rebuttal:
Founding Father James Madison used Federalist 46 to explain that the American citizenry had within itself the authority to band together for purposes of repelling tyranny. He clearly stated that “ultimate authority … resides in the people alone.” And he explained that even a federal government fitted with a standing army will find itself unable to overcome the people, armed and banded together: “Extravagant as the supposition is, let it however be made. Let a regular army, fully equal to the resources of the country, be formed; and let it be entirely at the devotion of the federal government; still it would not be going too far to say, that the State governments, with the people on their side, would be able to repel the danger.”
Madison continued:
The highest number to which, according to the best computation, a standing army can be carried in any country, does not exceed one hundredth part of the whole number of souls; or one twenty-fifth part of the number able to bear arms. This proportion would not yield, in the United States, an army of more than twenty-five or thirty thousand men. To these would be opposed a militia amounting to near half a million of citizens with arms in their hands, officered by men chosen from among themselves, fighting for their common liberties, and united and conducted by governments possessing their affections and confidence. It may well be doubted, whether a militia thus circumstanced could ever be conquered by such a proportion of regular troops. Those who are best acquainted with the last successful resistance of this country.
In other words, the right to keep and bear arms is intended as a surety that the militia will always pose enough resistance to keep the state free.
