Deliberately different.
Reader comment on: Clue for the Court?

Submitted by Professor Joseph Olson, Nov 26, 2007 12:22

The Second Amendment is deliberately different from the Massachusetts constitution regarding the very phrase you mention. On September 9, 1789, the US Senate specifically rejected a proposed amendment that would have added the words "common defense" into the Second Amendment after "arms." This rejection precludes any reading that the right of the people was restricted to those acting in "common" by serving in the militia or otherwise under government control.

As James Madison repeatedly made clear, the Bill of Rights, if adopted, would thwart the passage of proposals aggrandizing state powers, not reengage the battles won by the Federalists in the original Constitution. The Second Amendment therefore does not restrict the military power fully allocated to the Congress (and removed from the states) as set forth in the militia clauses of Article I, section 8, clauses 15 and 16. The Second Amendment doesn't re-empower the state militia, it merely preserves the infrastructure from which a citizen militia can be drawn, the armed citizen. The "right of the people" to own and use weapons was preserved, there is deliberately no mention of any new "right of the state." Like all the other "right[s] of the people" in the Bill of Rights, it is a meaningful individual right. Yours, mine, and ours but not the state government's.

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