Is totally different from it's current interpretation, but this is something I have gone into ad nauseum.
That a well-regulated militia, composed of the body of the people,
trained to arms, is the proper, natural, and safe defense of a free
state; that standing armies, in time of peace, should be avoided as
dangerous to liberty; and that in all cases the military should be under
strict subordination to, and governed by, the civil power.
Virginia Declaration of Rights, 1776--written by Thomas Jefferson.
Pretty much all the quotations taken out of context by people who want to trash the Constitution in the name of "original intent" point to this being the concern. Far more primary source material backs me up.
For example, if one actually reads the speech where patrick Henry says "The great object is that every man be armed. Everyone who is able may have a gun."
On the other hand, this is the actual speech:
The Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal
Constitution (3 Elliot’s Debates 384-7)
Virginia, Saturday, June 14, 1788.
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/amlaw/lwed.html
Mr. HENRY. Mr. Chairman, in my judgment the friends of the
opposition have to act cautiously. We must make a firm stand before we
decide. I was heard to say, a few days ago, that the sword and purse
were the two great instruments of government; and I professed great
repugnance at parting with the purse, without any control, to the
proposed system of government. And now, when we proceed in this
formidable compact, and come to the national defence, the sword, I am
persuaded we ought to be still more cautious and circumspect; for I feel
still more reluctance to surrender this most valuable of rights.
As my worthy friend said, there is a positive partition of power between the two governments.
To Congress is given the power of “arming, organizing, and disciplining
the militia, and governing such part of them as may be employed in the
service of the United States.” To the state legislatures is given the
power of “appointing the officers, and training the militia according to
the discipline prescribed by Congress.” I observed
before, that, if the power be concurrent as to arming them, it is
concurrent in other respects. If the states have the right of arming
them, &c., concurrently, Congress has a concurrent power of
appointing the officers, and training the militia. If Congress have that
power, it is absurd. To admit this mutual concurrence of powers will
carry you into endless absurdity— that Congress has nothing exclusive on
the one hand, nor the states on the other. The rational explanation is,
that Congress shall have exclusive power of arming them, &c., and
that the state governments shall have exclusive power of appointing the
officers, &c. Let me put it in another light.
May we not
discipline and arm them, as well as Congress, if the power be
concurrent? so that our militia shall have two sets of arms, double sets
of regimentals, &c.; and thus, at a very great cost, we shall be
doubly armed. The great object is, that every man be armed. But can the
people afford to pay for double sets of arms &c.? Every one who is
able may have a gun. But we have learned, by experience, that necessary
as it is to have arms, and though our Assembly has, by a succession of
laws for many years, endeavored to have the militia completely armed, it
is still far from being the case. When this power is given up to Congress without limitation or bounds, how will your militia be armed?
You trust to chance; for sure I am that nation which shall trust its
liberties in other hands cannot long exist. If gentlemen are serious
when they suppose a concurrent power, where can be the impolicy to amend
it? Or, in other words, to say that Congress shall not arm or
discipline them, till the states shall have refused or neglected to do
it? This is my object. I only wish to bring it to what they themselves
say is implied. Implication is to be the foundation of our civil
liberties, and when you speak of arming the militia by aconcurrence of
power, you use implication. But implication will not save you, when a
strong army of veterans comes upon you. You would be laughed at by the
whole world for trusting your safety implicitly to implication.
The argument of my honorable friend was, that rulers might tyrannize.
The answer he received was, that they will not. In saying that they
would not, he admitted they might. In this great, this essential part of
the Constitution, if you are safe, it is not from the Constitution, but
from the virtues of the men in government. If gentlemen are willing to
trust themselves and posterity to so slender and improbable a chance,
they have greater strength of nerves than I have.
Note that Henry says:
To Congress is given the power of “arming, organizing, and disciplining
the militia, and governing such part of them as may be employed in the
service of the United States.” To the state legislatures is given the
power of “appointing the officers, and training the militia according to
the discipline prescribed by Congress.”
This is an exact quotation ofThe United States Constitution, Article I, Section 8, clause 16, https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/artI-S8-C16-1/ALDE_00013673/. The current interpretation of the Second Amendment wouldn't do very much to stop violation of the Second Amendment by Congress's interpretation of it in the above cited article.
In fact, the founders would find current the US Military to be far more of a violation of their intent in the Second Amendment as exemplified by the Henry and Jefferson.
Furthermore, there is no Constitutional authority for Judicial Review.
That comes from the case of Marbury v Madison, 5 US, 1 Cranch 137 (1803). Marbury v Madison, which also deals with clauses in the Constitution:
It has been insisted at the bar, that, as the original grant of
jurisdiction to the Supreme and inferior courts is general, and the
clause assigning original jurisdiction to the Supreme Court
contains no negative or restrictive words, the power remains to the
Legislature to assign original jurisdiction to that Court in other
cases than those specified in the article which has been recited,
provided those cases belong to the judicial power of the United
States.
If it had been intended to leave it in the discretion of the
Legislature to apportion the judicial power between the Supreme and
inferior courts according to the will of that body, it would
certainly have been useless to have proceeded further than to have
defined the judicial power and the tribunals in which it should be
vested. The subsequent part of the section is mere surplusage -- is
entirely without meaning -- if such is to be the construction. If
Congress remains at liberty to give this court appellate
jurisdiction where the Constitution has declared their jurisdiction
shall be original, and original jurisdiction where the Constitution
has declared it shall be appellate, the distribution of
jurisdiction made in the Constitution, is form without
substance.
Affirmative words are often, in their operation, negative of
other objects than those affirmed, and, in this case, a negative or
exclusive sense must be given to them or they have no operation at
all.
It cannot be presumed that any clause in the Constitution is
intended to be without effect, and therefore such construction is
inadmissible unless the words require it.
So, the US Supreme Court has decided that the first part of the Second Amendment is "mere surplusage" despite the word that a "Militia" is "necessary to the Security of the Free State".
Then I say why not ignore the rest of Marbury v Madison since some of the complaints of the revolting colonists concerned the abolition of legislatively enacted laws by an unelected official:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
The Justices would do well te remember that they are not acting under authority of the US Constitution, or US History, when they abolish gun laws using a misnterpretation of the Second Amendment.
