The Real Reason for Number Two

The past few days have given the blogosphere much to talk about in regards to the Supreme Court, and in due time I plan to get to the ones I care about. The one that I care the most about, Heller, is the main focus of this post.

For the past 28 hours or so, I have seen plenty of status updates from friends who are upset by the ruling, wishing that it could have been decided after some of Obama's appointments were on the Court. Completely disregarding the chickens-hatching time quandry presented there, I can't help but ask my friends where they put their copy of the Bill of Rights. In case you lost it, the words "shall not be infringed" are still there.

One columnist in northern Indiana posed this question: "If our forefathers lived in 21st century America - with its ungodly crime and murder rates, its wealth of deadly weaponry, and its attempt to interpret a document written more than two centuries ago - would they be celebrating or castigating Thursday's landmark ruling?"

I'm fairly certain the answer to that question is an obvious "celebrate, but with hesitation". Yes, they would have been quite pleased with the outcome of the case. They would have been less pleased that an originalist believed that there are some acceptable firearm regulations.

Certainly the Second Amendment refers to a militia, like the National Guard in New York, or the entire population in Indiana. Taking weapons away from a militia would be counter-productive and wonderfully ironic. The concept of a universal (all free white men) militia can be traced back to at least 12th century England. But the more vital American interpretation of the right to bear arms became abundantly clear during the years preceding the American Revolution.

The British government couldn't help but notice those pesky colonists arming their militias while talking about how much they disliked the Crown. Parliament sought to disarm their militias, despite the Declaration of Rights and the common law right to self-defense. Conveniently, they had no problem with the right to self-defense (in fact, John Adams used the defense in the Boston Massacre trials), just with colonists possessing firearms.

It was those very firearms that allowed Americans to throw off the chains of British rule. The newly formed United States owed their freedom to their firearms. So they enshrined their right to firearms in their most important document, the Constitution.

This leads me to my main point, that the real reason for the Second Amendment was not solely to arm and regulate a militia. Yes, we wanted our citizens armed in case Britain, or Canada, or Mexico, or anyone else, tried to invade (indeed, this may have been the primary reason Congress passed the Second Amendment). But the reason the States ratified the Second Amendment was because they remembered the oppression of the last all-powerful government. Their firearms were the only thing that saved them.

Yes, the main reason to support the Second Amendment is because, if and when our government becomes too oppressive, our firearms will be the only thing stopping them from crushing us. When the firearms go, so too does the rest of the Bill of Rights. The Second Amendment is the one the ensures the rest.

Freedom to Spank your Brats

On Tuesday, the Indiana Supreme Court ruled in Willis v. State that parents have the legal right to discipline their children physically, even if it leaves marks or bruises. In the case, the defendant was a mother of a son who had a history of lying and stealing. The boy stole some of his mother's clothes and gave them away at school. As a punishment, the mother struck him five to seven times with a belt. The school nurse saw the bruises, the son told the nurse from where they came, and the nurse called the police, who charged the mother with battery, a D felony.

Corporal punishment is sometimes acceptable. The Model Penal Code says so. The Second Restatement of Torts says so. Blackstone says so. Heck, the last four thousand years of human history says so.

It is a sad state of affairs that any time a parent tries to punish a child, the state thinks it should come to the child's aid. How long has this been going on? When did we become a nation of wimps? The sad truth is that American kids feel entitled to do whatever they want, and they have been too eager to complain to authorities when they get a spanking. Is it any wonder that, as the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette reports, Indiana is 6th in the nation for juveniles locked up? When parents don't punish appropriately, the law will eventually have to.

I don't mean to suggest that child abuse is acceptable. I have seen many CHINS cases this summer, and there are some parents that really are doing it wrong. And punishment that leads to permanent or severe injuries should be, and is still, illegal. But I am glad to see that Indiana is taking a step back in the proper direction of letting parents punish their children as they see fit.