Misinterpreting the constitution.

Thursday, March 13, 2025

Misinterpreting the constitution.

What would you say if I told you that there is a constitutional obligation of the States to address the topic of domestic violence?

It's in the Constitution at Article 4, Section 4:

The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic Violence.

Of course, domestic violence in the constitutional sense isn't a battered spouse. Instead the founders knew that danger might arise from internal forces, It is the constitutional obligation of the people in the federal government to use whatever power is necessary to deal effectively with both threats. So, it is the federal government to “protect” the people from “domestic violence” as well as from “invasion.”

Yet another tenet of the gun rights crowd shot down since the constitution is pretty clear that it deals with matters of the common defence and insure domestic tranquility. Can't have armed bands running around threatening the constitutional framework. After all, Shays' Rebellion was one of the reasons for the adoption of the Constitution.

The war for independence was a pyrrhic victory in that it left the "United States" in disarray and heavily in debt. The founders could have just said, "fuck it, we made a mistake, let's not bother with starting a new nation." Each state would go its own way.

But the mythology is that it was the colonists themselves threw out the British at Lexington, Concord, and Bunker Hill. Nevermind that the War for Independence went on for eight more years with a lot of help from foreign powers, particularly the French. And with that myth came the belief in "god, guns, and guts" made the US great.

But the War for Independence wasn't really the start of the colonists' aspirations, the glorification of the War for Independence leaves out that it was a reaction to receiving the bill for the French and Indian War. A war that led to British Troops being stationed in the colonies. It was their presence which led to these complaints in the Declaration of Independence:

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.

The founders understood the right guaranteed by the Second Amendment as relating to the Militia and the Common Defence, in particular the powers given to Congress under Article I, Section 8, Clauses 15 & 16. I would refer you to the analog to the Second Amendment created by Thomas Jefferson in the Virginia Constitution of 1775.

What got me to write this was someone did a youtube video about American's love for guns which totally misstated the facts and presented the mythology of guns in the United States. We wouldn't be in the mess we are if it hadn't been for a radical reinterpretation of the US Constitution, in particular the Second Amendment, for a fantasy version of that text.

So, if you want to ask me "what don't I understand about 'Shall not be infringed'"? I have to ask if you believe that acts of domestic violence should be addressed by the state government?

The ultimate answer is that asking what I don't understand about "shall not be infringed" removes the Second Amendment from its historic and consitutional context. One which needs to be read as a whole since Marbury v Madison said that such an interpretation is "form without substance" it makes the section is mere surplusage -- is entirely without meaning -- if such is to be the construction since 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.

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