 Hey guys Dylan Schumacher citadel defense and today we're going to talk about the Second Amendment and what it means So we're going to go through three P's on the Second Amendment here We're going to go through the purpose of the Second Amendment the prominence of the Second Amendment and the prose of the Second Amendment so First of all the Second Amendment right a well-regulated militia Being necessary to the security of the free state the right of the people to keep and bear arms Shall not be infringed So what is what is the purpose of that amendment? Why was it put in there? The purpose which you know to be fair I make fun of people for not knowing this but to be fair I don't think I knew this until I was an adult and I started to Get into guns and understand liberty a bit more But the purpose of the Second Amendment is not to preserve the right to hunt geese or ducks or deer or Whatever animal you want to hunt which is a very valid and wonderful pastime that I don't participate in but you can The purpose is not to protect yourself from from from a street robber or home invasion Although I own guns for that very purpose and I carry guns for that very purpose The purpose of the Second Amendment is to protect the Nessus it's necessary for security the free state right the purpose of the Second Amendment is to protect the people and to protect their liberties and rights That is the purpose of the Second Amendment that the founding fathers envisioned a people That were armed to the teeth and able to fight wars in order that if they needed to They could arise to forcibly defend their liberty from foreign invasions And enemies foreign and domestic right that that's that's how we look at it So from a foreign invasion right which again if you want to invade America good luck You got to get through those 19 aircraft carriers and then you actually have to land on America where we have more guns than people so Come on over the waters just fine Which is nice, I like being able to say that I like being able to brag that any country will have a very fun time invading America and Enemies domestic right so that if tyranny was ever to arise within our own ranks that the people would have a means of Defending themselves from said tyranny The people who wrote this amendment people who wrote the Constitution just got done fighting a war for give or take eight years My math isn't exact on that one. So I apologize So obviously they didn't want to go through that again and they only won that war because of the people themselves Were armed and continued on themselves throughout the conflict and that is one of the ways of course which you win wars It's very hard to win wars when you're not armed So that's the purpose of the second amendment now I'm just going to read you a couple of my favorite juicier quotes of the founding fathers on the second amendment I will post the link to where I'm pulling these from below in the description And you're of course more than welcome to go read all of them However, I'm just going to pick out some of them the Constitution of most of our states and of the United States Asserts that all power is inherent in the people that they may exercise it by themselves That it is their right and duty to be at all times armed Thomas Jefferson letter to John Cartwright 5th of June 1824 a strong body makes the mind strong as to the species of exercise I advise the gun while this gives moderate exercise to the body It gives boldness enterprise and independence to the mind games played with the ball and others of that nature are too violent for The body and stamp no character on the mind. Let your gun therefore be your constant companion of your walks Thomas Jefferson letter to Paul Carr August 19th 1785 No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms Thomas Jefferson Virginia Constitution draft 1 1776 a free people ought not only to be armed but disciplined George Washington first annual address of both houses of Congress January 8th 1790 I ask who are the militia They consist now of the whole people except a few public officers George Mason addressed to Virginia ratifying convention June 4th 1788 Before a standing army can rule the people must be disarmed as they are in almost every country in Europe The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword because the whole body of the people are armed and Constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops No Webster The guy who no Webster dictionary an examination of the leading principles of the federal Constitution October 10th 1787 Besides the advantage of being armed which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation The existence of a subordinate governments to which the people are attached and by which the militia officers are appointed Forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition more Insurmountable than any which a simple government of any form can admit of James Madison federalist paper number 46 January 29th 1788 The right of the people to keep in their arms shall not be infringed a well-regulated militia Composed of the body of the people trained to arms is the best and most natural defense of a free country James Madison first annals of Congress 434 January 8th 1789 Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants It is the creed of slaves William Pitt the younger speech in the House of Commons November 18th 1783 That one has more to do with The encroachment on your rights than outright guns to be fair, but it was cool. I want to include it in here anyway A militia when properly formed on fact the people themselves and Include according to the past and the general usage of the states all men capable of bearing arms to preserve liberty It is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms and be taught alike Especially when young how to use them Richard Henry 3 former farmer number 18 January 25th 1788 guard with jealous attention the public liberty Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel Unfortunately, unfortunately, nothing will preserve it, but downright force Whenever you give up that force you are ruined. The great object is that every man be armed Everyone who is able might have a gun Patrick Henry speech to the Virginia ratifying convention June 5th 1778 The Constitution shall never be construed to prevent the people of the United States Who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms? Samuel Adams, Massachusetts ratifying convention 1788 So I could go on and read more of those again. I'm gonna post that link below But I don't want to read them all here. I think you get the point It's pretty clear that the purpose of the second amendment is that people should always be armed and that they should do So in the defense of their liberties, okay? second prominence So when I say prominence, I mean its placement in the Bill of Rights The second amendment is the second amendment because it's you got it second in the order Therefore it is the second most important thing that the founders of this nation wish to impart to us The first most important thing, of course, is the freedom of speech the freedom of assembly the freedom of religion Which is our defining principle you go anywhere else in the world and nobody has that like we do People will say oh well, they have freedom of speech in other countries. No, they don't They certainly don't have it to the degree that we have it and most I know of no other place in the world that has freedom of speech If you would like to argue about that, please leave a comment and we can find where they have hate speech laws The prominence of the second amendment is especially important because people will say well, we don't need that anymore about grown it It's not that important etc. etc. etc However, it was the second most important principle of our government The second most important founding principle of our government is that we the people should have to keep and bear arms Think about that for a second. This was important You're writing the founding document of a country and you're gonna make some changes to it right after it's ratified and The second thing that you can that everybody agrees on that wholeheartedly no one argues with is that everybody needs to be armed That's significant. That should strike us in a very important way Our government today obviously would never be able to agree on anything to that nature, right forget guns Just just anything there we'd be split left and right center all the way through But all these people just got done finding a war for the independence and they all agreed that yeah We should keep our guns. I think that's a significant thing. This is not some side project that they had this is not a simple Idea that they said oh, well, you know, maybe we can just throw this in No, this was the second most important principle of government for the people who made this country And it's easy to lose sight of that especially because we don't treat the other amendments Like we treat the second amendment and what I mean by that is the amendment that says shall not be infringed Which we're going to get to that in a minute is of course the most infringed amendment in our current State government that the currently the way that the government in the United States runs the right that is trampled on the most by Far is the second amendment. I would argue that the one that is trampled on Maybe the strong rival be the fourth amendment that would be the next one that's trampled on However, the second amendment I would argue by far is trampled on the most and I can point to several different laws and gun control acts To prove that point So that's prominence. It's a very important thing It was very important thing in the founding fathers minds and it should be a very important thing in our minds as free Americans If we wish to maintain that liberty We need to understand the purpose of the second amendment and therefore give it its proper prominence I'm not arguing for more prominence than it deserves. I'm not putting it above the first amendment I am putting it in its proper prominence as the second most important thing in the Constitution Furthermore it is the thing that protects the rest of the Constitution one of the quotes I read you of course talked about the people needing to defend themselves and the only way you can do that sometimes is by force the Only way to preserve your liberty sometimes is by force and that's of course why we were given and why we were entrusted with and Why we must keep and protect and cherish our second amendment because without it We have none of the other rights Lastly of course is the pros For those of you who aren't familiar that of course means language, right? So the language structure So we're gonna go through and note a couple key words in the second amendment Now the first one we're gonna note is well regulated and well regulated militia People like to argue about what this term means they will say things of course like it means Regulation and I can understand how some people can come to that conclusion However, that's a pretty historically lazy way to interpret that Considering the time it was written in well regulated there does not mean laws against guns It can't possibly mean that because the second half says shall not be infringed. We'll get there in a minute Well regulated means orderly in good working order That things are going to work and are organized discipline. That's what well regulated means I would like to read you from Federalist paper number 29 by Alexander Hamilton It requires no skill in the science of war to discern that Uniformity in the organization and discipline of the militia would be attended to with the most beneficial effects Wherever they are called into service for the public defense It would enable them to discharge the duties of the camp and of the field with mutual intelligence and concert An advantage of peculiar moment in the operations of an army For those of you don't understand 300 year old English the people need to know what they're doing They need to have it there. They need to have it together. They're ducks in a row and they need to be organized That's well regulated. That's what they're saying when they say well regulated militia It does not mean that there are laws that can be passed to restrict guns We know that especially because of the second part which we're going to get to the second part I would like to talk about is the word militia now unfortunately in our current time That's become a dirty word, right? It usually means some kind of right-wing psycho group. That's what a militia means Unfortunately, we've kind of lost the heritage of that word a little bit and the founding fathers did not believe in a standing army They thought it was dangerous to liberty Think on that for a second Considering we have the largest military in the world by far so The founding fathers thought a standing army was dangerous to liberty and therefore they wanted to have a militia Militias were state by at the state level groups of people ordinary citizens You mean everybody else who would get together in time of need to form a fighting force in order to do and defend and Fight what they had to do that was the idea behind a militia Like I said, unfortunately, we've lost the meaning of that word and people kind of look at it as this Backward thing that shouldn't exist anymore and we don't need it We've outgrown it and all these other things because we somehow think that we're not humans anymore with Defects and sin and that we've somehow evolved past that and are able to be better than that This of course is a simple idea that it does not match well with reality So I think we need to understand the word militia and understand that the idea there was a group of people Ordinary everyday citizens who are called in to be a fighting force when needed and they were well regulated Means that they trained regularly together meaning they drilled regularly together meaning that they understood how to use their weapons Effectively so they could go out on the battlefield and do what they needed to do and win and come back home and Farm their cabbage or cobble their shoes or do whatever it was that was their normal full-time job Our next word here is necessary. Notice that they considered it necessary a militia They well regulated militia wasn't something that was a nice to have or a good to have it was something they considered as necessary To the security of the free state in order to keep the state free you have to have a well-regulated militia It's not something that was a nice to have or a maybe if we don't have this We won't have a free state again Think about that because we've lost the heritage of militia and our freedom has certainly declined since we became the sole Superpower in the world. Excuse me and our freedom has certainly declined since we've become The superpower in the world following World War two and the rise of the state and spy Organizations and all the government welfare programs and on and on and on as that has risen and government power and influence has risen Of course our rights have decreased and one of the things that we lost in there of course was the militia Because we've no longer considered it necessary. However, the founding fathers considered a militia a well regulated militia Necessary in order to maintain a free state Security the word security here Obviously means that it's meaning to keep it secure, right? It's something that needs to be protected Liberty is a concept that needs to be protected and is not something that should be taken for granted So it is necessary to have a well-regulated militia for the security something that has to be protected and cherished Not something that should be taken for granted The free state Obviously they didn't get done fighting a war a very long brutal difficult conflict to come up with a not free state The idea of freedom and liberty was very prominent in the minds of the people who wrote the Constitution who found out this country who Served as its first order of presidents and congresspeople and senators Liberty and the idea of a free state was prominent in their minds They of course did not envision some kind of anarchist dystopia like So many of us have fallen into these days to think that somehow anarchy be better anarchy would not be better It's a terrible idea and you should get rid of it However, the idea of a free state is a fantastic one and we should work towards that end the right of the people The right of the people to keep their arms shall not be infringed notice that the right is Tied to the people the right is not tied to the militia someone could come back and say well You know you're not a member of the militia which again the militia includes everybody who could bear arms If you look at those quotes down below in the link you'll find that but that aside the right of the people The right does not belong to you have to be a militia You'd have to be whatever the right belongs to the people the people at large the right of the people to keep their arms Notice also that it's a right the the founding fathers considered rights inherent in your humanity Meaning that your rights came from God and they did not come from anything else Most of the founding fathers some of the founding fathers were Christians most were not Most and all that I can think of were at least theists meaning they believed in a God or a higher being outside of themselves and therefore they received Things rights because of their humanity that came from something outside of them a government does not grant rights that idea Of course is found nowhere in the founding documents or the minds of the people who found this nation Rather our rights come they're external they're imputed to us Right rights come from God because you're human because you're mating God's image you therefore have a certain degree of rights That is an idea of course that is inherent in all the founding documents So it's a right that was invested in the people that they have and that this document this amendment this document Secures it does not make it it does not provide it it rather secures what you already have So it is the right of the people inherent within them Keep I take this one up. I take this word up and I pointed out particularly because We are allowed to keep arms meaning you can have whatever kind of gun you want That's what that means now with the rise of gun control per particularly since the NFA act in 1934 I believe There have been less arms. We are allowed to keep right there are certain arms in this country Especially if you go to states like California or New York or New Jersey where you are not allowed to keep arms of any kind If I were to go into New Jersey I would be an instant felon because of the arms that I am currently keeping just being in possession of them would Make me a felon clearly a violation of my constitution right, but again No, right is trampled on as much as the Second Amendment right so we have the right to keep arms That means in your house on your person. We're going to get to that in a minute But you have the right to keep arms to keep whatever kind of arms you want Bear bear of course means to bear in one's person For example, there was a law in New York They recently withdrew because it was gonna get challenged in the Supreme Court and I think it's going there anyway that said Unless you are taking your gun directly to a gun range to shoot it You are not allowed to take your gun outside your home This of course would encroach on your right to bear arms when the founding fathers said keep and bear arms They meant to keep whatever guns you want of course and then be able to bear them Which means to carry them on your person now? I think we're up to 11 states in this country that have constitutional carry They call it constitutional carry because it's in line with the Constitution They which constitutional carry means is you can just strap up and go you can put your gun on you can keep and bear arms And you don't need to ask anyone's permission Which is exactly what this amendment means the second amendment is my permit I'm sure we've all heard that and yes, it's kind of funny. However. It's also true We have the right to keep and bear arms meaning you can carry your gun and you should not need a permit You shouldn't need a background check You shouldn't need any of that because this doesn't mention any of that it mentions you have the right to keep and bear arms So when certain states will say you can't open carry or you can't carry this type of gun or whatever That is of course contrary to what we're allowed to do which is keep and bear arms Everyone's favorite part shall not be infringed By this point, of course, you've garnered that it means exactly what it says it means it means it shall not be infringed There are should be no laws made to infringe upon your rights to keep and bear arms Because those arms are necessary to keep the state free and that's why we have a well-regulated militia It's a second amendment in reverse for you all gun control laws are Unconstitutional because any gun control law Necessarily infringes on your right. That's why they're called gun control laws so we don't need to be enamored or or Lulled to sleep with the terms like common sense gun safety Because what these laws of course mean is that they are going to Restrict and infringe upon your current rights people of course will say things like I love the second amendment But or we can pass these laws and not infringe anyone's rights This of course is not true The necessity of passing the law is infringing on your rights because it will therefore restrict your right to keep and bear arms and Ultimately, and this is the key point make you less safe This whole second amendment exists to protect your freedoms and your liberties our civil liberties keep us safe If we lose our right and if our right is infringed upon we become less safe That's important because of course the play that they make is we need to pass these laws so that you can be safe However, we are safe right now having the laws that we have your law will actually make us less safe So that's it guys That is the second amendment as I read it and as I break it down I put this out here because I think it's important to have a really firm understanding of what the second amendment says and why it says what it says So that when we hear unconstitutional laws or when we hear things that of course don't make sense We're able to refute that in a reasonable and reasoned manner This is our liberty. This is our right that has been entrusted to us to protect. So let's protect it Do brave deeds and endure