During India’s time as a British colony the English were concerned with the number of venomous snakes and created a program in which anyone could bring the head of a dead cobra and receive payment for killing it. The intent of the program was to reduce the number of nuisance snakes that were maiming or killing people. In response people started breeding cobras and killing them for the bounties. When the British discovered this they cancelled the program and the snake breeders, having no more use for the snakes, simply released them into the wild leading to more dangerous snakes being present than before the program was implemented.
There is a lot of debate among historians whether this actually happened or not but whether its history or parable, its incredibly believable. “Easy money for dead snakes? Heck I’d breed them too if I had the chance.” This is an example of the intent of a policy not playing out after it has been implemented. There are many true modern day examples of this happening. For example during the pandemic the US government started handing out Paycheck Protection Program loans to businesses. The idea was that the government would subsidize the paychecks of small business employees allowing small businesses to stay afloat during the latest financial crisis and allowing their employees to maintain income. Instead, the pandemic and its financial consequences led to an immense upwards redistribution of wealth with this loan money going into and staying in the pockets of the wealthiest people in America.
These both are examples of new policies being implemented in a way that was abusable, but what of the reinterpretation of old laws? The second amendment reads as follows:
- 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.
Gun rights advocates say that this law simply grants the right to possess and bear weapons, specifically firearms, to the common citizenry without infringement by feature bans, type bans, licensing requirements, or other hurdles that would limit ownership. Gun control advocates argue that this grants citizens the right only to form citizen militias for the protection of the state. This would limit the right to gun ownership only to those that are members of a militia, reducing the number of legally owned firearms, in turn reducing the amount of gun violence. Were this alternative interpretation of the law play out, what would actually happen?
Currently gun owners only gather in the same way any other hobbyist group would. Board game players meet up at the game shop to play games. Fishers make day outings to the lake to cast their lines. Gun owners go to the range to poke holes in distant pieces of paper. If suddenly the only way to legally keep your guns is to join a militia many people would quickly find themselves actually joining a structured paramilitary organization to avoid turning in their weapons.
Why are militias such a bad thing?
Our founding fathers likely included the right to form a militia alongside the right to own firearms because they had just come out of a war with a global superpower and feared that the British would return for round two to reclaim their lost colonies. Since then United States soil has been attacked twice: Once during World War 1 when a German U-boat ineffectually shelled Cape Cod and the September 11, 2001 attacks. In both cases a militia would not have been able to contribute to the defense of the homeland. Militias are so unnecessary that every state has either constitutional text or a law which prohibits the formation of a paramilitary group or militia. Again though, why are militias so dangerous that every single state would independently write and pass a law to ban their existence?
Many background checks, especially checks done for government employment ask if you have ever been a part of a militia. Answering yes is a negative when considering you for employment. The US armed forces prohibits active duty members from also being members of a militia. In the wake of January 6, 2021, the bulk of the FBI’s investigative efforts were placed upon the Oath Keepers, a militia. In the news, “militia” is synonymous with “domestic terrorist organization”. The government considers militias to be a threat against its supremacy and against its people.
Militias in general have cultures that are consistently revolutionary and often white supremacist or fascist. Not all of them are, of course. There are communist militias, There is also the Three Percenters. The name “3%” refers to the American War for Independence in which it only took three percent of the population to galvanize all of the people into revolution. They do not allow (overt) fascism or racial supremacy in their ranks. They have themselves reported to the FBI their own members they believe are planning terror acts. They keep the early culture of federalism and militias alive in the modern day. Rather than calling for revolution they call for non-seditious reform. Despite this they are still labeled as a domestic terrorist organization by the US federal government.
How would it actually play out if we changed our interpretation of the Second Amendment?
Any state law prohibiting the membership or formation of a militia would be nullified. Rather than being discouraged from joining a militia (seriously, who wants to write their own name down on a terror list by joining?), militia membership would be strongly encouraged as it is the only way to keep your guns. Hundreds of new militia organizations would be formed. Membership of already active militias would swell dramatically. The culture of militias wouldn’t change much. Gun owners would quickly change from regular people who occasionally go to the range to partake in the harmless hobby of shooting guns in a safe environment to engaging in real training. Militias usually offer not just shooting training, but training in squad communication and tactics, combat first aid, room clearing, SERE, urban and forest combat, handling explosive materials, etc. Suddenly the average gun owner would change from being just that- average- to someone being exposed to antigovernmental ideals and being trained in effective means that can be used against the government. Reinterpreting the second amendment in this way would lead to real threats against the sovereignty of the American state.
I think if gun control advocates understood the longer ramifications of reinterpreting the second amendment they would probably realize it’s not the win they thought it was.