First muster of the Massachusetts Bay Colonial Militia, spring of 1637
A couple of AR-15s
From Robert Whitcomb’s “Digital Diary,’’ in GoLocal24.com
It says something about the current state of the gun-obsessed Republican/QAnon Party that Rhode Island’s Republican Conservative Caucus is raffling off firearms, including an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle, to raise money to elect more alleged “conservatives’’ (translation: far-right “populists’’) to the state’s General Assembly.
The quote below is from the then-retired U.S. Chief Justice Warren Burger (1907-1995) in 1990. The Second Amendment interpretation by this true conservative judge was generally the one held by the Supreme Court until far-right appointees of Republican presidents, in league with the gun lobby, began to take over the court. He was chief justice in 1969-1986.
“The Gun Lobby’s interpretation of the Second Amendment is one of the greatest pieces of fraud, I repeat the word fraud, on the American People by special interest groups that I have ever seen in my lifetime. The real purpose of the Second Amendment was to ensure that state armies – the militia – would be maintained for the defense of the state. The very language of the Second Amendment refutes any argument that it was intended to guarantee every citizen an unfettered right to any kind of weapon he or she desires.’’
The Second Amendment:
“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.’’
Note that the Founders wrote not only “Militia” but also “well regulated,” in those days before assault rifles….
