Also remember that freedom of the press meant physical printing presses where you had to manually move each piece of type by hand, and physically crank the press; anything more modern than that clearly wasn’t what they intended, and you shouldn’t have it. Like computers; there’s no typesetting on a computer, so you need to get rid of them.
Oh, and freedom of religion? That only includes Judeo-Christian religions. Sorry, Wiccans, no religious rights for you.
To the extent that we should honor their work (as opposed to it being subject for tailoring to our times) could be debated, but for sake of argument I’ll go with extrapolating their intent to the modern era.
For freedom of the press, they wanted the people to be able to communicate. It being even easier doesn’t seem to run counter to their goals, nor does it seem to complicate matters in their view.
For the religion, they did have among their ranks self-proclaimed “heretics”, so no, it wasn’t strictly about Judeo-Christian religions even from the onset.
For the right to bear arms, this one hits differently. What was their goal? It says quite plainly that states should be able to field well regulated militias, and so to do that, they need a good chunk of citizens with weapons ready to go. Those pea shooters were nigh useless except for hunting and as part of a larger force. The idea of a whole town of people self-organizing a militia might have been consistent with their goals, but the concept of a single actor able to pop off dozens of accurate lethal shots at a distance in a couple of minutes is a very distinct consideration that is wholly different than those goals and wasn’t in the equation at all.
It says quite plainly that states should be able to field well regulated militias,
You clearly forget that they extended that right to artillery as well. You were just as legally entitled to own a field cannon loaded with grapeshot as you were a musket. In point of fact, wealthy people that owned ships could and did outfit their ships with cannon either to be privateers under a letter of marque, or to fight off pirates and the privateers of other countries.
But even at that, at the time when the constitution was written, muzzle-loaded firearms were the pinnacle of war-time weaponry. Bayonet charges were common, and swords still saw extensive use in pitched battles. Not only that, but people were legally obligated to own militarily-suitable arms, and they were expected to train on their own. The concept of having a brace of pistols comes from this era; while they didn’t have repeating rifles, they did have pepperbox pistols that could fire multiple times before being reloaded. So this idea that it was not the intent that the people should have access to militarily-suitable weapons simply isn’t borne out by an understanding of history.
I didn’t claim they didn’t want access to military grade weaponry of the time, I said that at the time military grade weaponry was nearly useless without a lot of people. Yes you could have artillery, good luck trying to unilaterally do anything with that without a crew and guard (artillery were very vulnerable without a force backing them up). Good luck with the muzzle loaders when you need to reload without other people to cover
The concept of a lone actor being able to inflict mass casualty just wasn’t in the equation back then.
It wasn’t necessary for it to be in the equation in the way that you think it wasn’t. They could see the past; it was easy to trace the evolution of arms and armor. They could easily see that, in the 1400s, a single knight in armor was more than equal to multiple men at arms, and that the handgonne had entirely changed that equation. Seeing the past, they could easily foresee that the tools of violence would change in the future.
But hey, lets drill down here. The point of the 2nd amendment is twofold; first, the people were intended to be a check against the government, and second, they recognized the common-law right to self-defense that they had taken from English law. Remember that they’d just been through a revolution, and they were well aware that a gov’t could become a tyranny (which is exactly where we are very, very rapidly heading); the idea of the people being armed with military weapons meant that it would be more difficult for a hostile gov’t to subjugate the people. To that end, militarily useful weapons should have more protections against banning than sporting arms. As to self-defense, well, assault rifles happen to be the most effective tool for that job–as far as defense at home goes–along with ‘high capacity’ magazines in handguns for carry guns. So even taking your claims at face value, if the founders somehow didn’t foresee changes in the tools of violence, they hold no water.
Also remember that freedom of the press meant physical printing presses where you had to manually move each piece of type by hand, and physically crank the press; anything more modern than that clearly wasn’t what they intended, and you shouldn’t have it. Like computers; there’s no typesetting on a computer, so you need to get rid of them.
Oh, and freedom of religion? That only includes Judeo-Christian religions. Sorry, Wiccans, no religious rights for you.
To the extent that we should honor their work (as opposed to it being subject for tailoring to our times) could be debated, but for sake of argument I’ll go with extrapolating their intent to the modern era.
For freedom of the press, they wanted the people to be able to communicate. It being even easier doesn’t seem to run counter to their goals, nor does it seem to complicate matters in their view.
For the religion, they did have among their ranks self-proclaimed “heretics”, so no, it wasn’t strictly about Judeo-Christian religions even from the onset.
For the right to bear arms, this one hits differently. What was their goal? It says quite plainly that states should be able to field well regulated militias, and so to do that, they need a good chunk of citizens with weapons ready to go. Those pea shooters were nigh useless except for hunting and as part of a larger force. The idea of a whole town of people self-organizing a militia might have been consistent with their goals, but the concept of a single actor able to pop off dozens of accurate lethal shots at a distance in a couple of minutes is a very distinct consideration that is wholly different than those goals and wasn’t in the equation at all.
You clearly forget that they extended that right to artillery as well. You were just as legally entitled to own a field cannon loaded with grapeshot as you were a musket. In point of fact, wealthy people that owned ships could and did outfit their ships with cannon either to be privateers under a letter of marque, or to fight off pirates and the privateers of other countries.
But even at that, at the time when the constitution was written, muzzle-loaded firearms were the pinnacle of war-time weaponry. Bayonet charges were common, and swords still saw extensive use in pitched battles. Not only that, but people were legally obligated to own militarily-suitable arms, and they were expected to train on their own. The concept of having a brace of pistols comes from this era; while they didn’t have repeating rifles, they did have pepperbox pistols that could fire multiple times before being reloaded. So this idea that it was not the intent that the people should have access to militarily-suitable weapons simply isn’t borne out by an understanding of history.
I didn’t claim they didn’t want access to military grade weaponry of the time, I said that at the time military grade weaponry was nearly useless without a lot of people. Yes you could have artillery, good luck trying to unilaterally do anything with that without a crew and guard (artillery were very vulnerable without a force backing them up). Good luck with the muzzle loaders when you need to reload without other people to cover
The concept of a lone actor being able to inflict mass casualty just wasn’t in the equation back then.
It wasn’t necessary for it to be in the equation in the way that you think it wasn’t. They could see the past; it was easy to trace the evolution of arms and armor. They could easily see that, in the 1400s, a single knight in armor was more than equal to multiple men at arms, and that the handgonne had entirely changed that equation. Seeing the past, they could easily foresee that the tools of violence would change in the future.
But hey, lets drill down here. The point of the 2nd amendment is twofold; first, the people were intended to be a check against the government, and second, they recognized the common-law right to self-defense that they had taken from English law. Remember that they’d just been through a revolution, and they were well aware that a gov’t could become a tyranny (which is exactly where we are very, very rapidly heading); the idea of the people being armed with military weapons meant that it would be more difficult for a hostile gov’t to subjugate the people. To that end, militarily useful weapons should have more protections against banning than sporting arms. As to self-defense, well, assault rifles happen to be the most effective tool for that job–as far as defense at home goes–along with ‘high capacity’ magazines in handguns for carry guns. So even taking your claims at face value, if the founders somehow didn’t foresee changes in the tools of violence, they hold no water.