I get asked about this a lot, and I find myself continually surprised at the lack of knowledge that the world in general, and specifically; Americans, have in regards to this vital component to the American constitution. There is an almost pathological misunderstanding on both sides of the people who choose to argue over this topic. People tend to forget very quickly that ‘the Bill of Rights’, the first ten amendments to the American Constitution nearly split the country before it even got started. Yet, they were deemed so important that the battle in congress was waged, and they were included with good reason. All ten of them. I consider the second amendment to be the most important of all of them. It allows for the defence of all the others.

Before I go any further, I must remind everyone that I have indeed become a pacifist. I know very well what BRAS means. I don’t ever want to have to do it again. I have no desire to go out and buy a firearm, and I wouldn’t be bothered at all if I never pulled a trigger again. I don’t believe that violence is an effective solution. At its very best, violence is only a stop-gap means to get a situation back under control. Violence, if it is ever used, must be used with surgical precision.

I also believe wholeheartedly in the second amendment, as did the likes of Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson. I believe that the founding fathers of America were intelligent people who thought out, as best they were able, a democratic and fair means of government that truly held in its heart the best interests of the people living under it. I believe that the founding fathers were idealists. There is no doubt that they were revolutionaries. They had just finished a war proving so.

The founding fathers were men who had set out to create an independent nation that gave its people an opportunity for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. They organised a rebellion, created, trained, and equipped an army, and led it into war against what was their government by law. They knew what they were doing was illegal, but they held certain ideals in such high regard that they felt they had no more choice in the matter.

These were highly intelligent men, who studied electricity, and were successful business owners. These were master craftsmen, and officers in the British army. These were men who stood to lose everything they had, and their lives on top of it if they failed. These men did not enter into war lightly. No one of intelligence enters into war lightly, especially a long-standing veteran with combat experience. Ask the next one you meet, and he will tell you why. The simple answer is that there is too much to lose. The complex answer is a test of your soul.

The question is, then, why would people do this? Why enter into a nearly impossible war, and why strike out against what was then the most powerful nation on the planet? The simple answer is, as always, money.

The American colonies had been given the right to print their own currency. The American colonies were rich, and sitting on top of what were limitless resources at the time. The American colonies made Britain rich.

The American colonials were often shipped over from Britain at someone else’s expense, because they couldn’t afford the cost of the voyage themselves. They worked for a number of years, typically five, as virtual slaves in order to repay that debt. They were then given their release from indentured servitude, and allowed to make their way into unclaimed land and hold it for their own. All they had to do was carve it out with their own two hands. All they had to do was have the knowledge and the ability to survive, and they might just prosper. If not, they either died or found a patron in the cities. The frontiersmen were, men and women, people who entered into the world and had nothing to offer it but what they could do with their two hands and their minds. They didn’t contract their homes, they built them. They didn’t buy their groceries and their soap on the frontier. They made them. When they needed supplies that they couldn’t make themselves, they went into the trading posts, towns, and cities, and bought them with banknotes issued from their respective colonies.

When the crown rescinded the right of the colonies to print their own currency, their money became immediately worthless. The Currency Act immediately put the colonies and the colonials deep into debt, with no effective way to solve that dilemma. They had to wait on money that was lent to them by the banks in England.

This in addition to being forced to house soldiers in their private homes.
This in addition to representation in the British parliament being withdrawn, denying them any say in what laws were passed with regards to their ways of life.
This in addition to an ever increasing level of taxation that was draining them of all of the rewards of their life’s labour.

The colonies were immediately put into debt at the stroke of a pen. It had been decided by some bastard in England that they didn’t deserve their money any more, and it had been forcibly taken from them. What do you do when you can’t trust your own government? Who will help you protect what you have earned when the government rules against you?

The founding fathers created a rebellion. They fought with indignation against what constituted crimes against humanity, and led the colonies in a war against a tyrannical and oppressive government. The fought because the powers-that-be had ceased to be just. They started with nothing more than their own rifles. They went into battle armed with pikes. The expression that is often used relating to such situations is: it was like throwing biscuits at bears.

They knew that it would take hard work and determination. They had these traits in ready supply. It took them seven years of constant struggle. They lived through seven years of warfare for an independent nation. They weren’t going to lose that investment again easily.

The founding fathers had deep experiential knowledge of what a tyrannical and oppressive government could do, and what tricks it would use to keep the populace enslaved and impoverished. The founding fathers knew very well what a concentration of power in small hands could and would do. This is why ‘the Bill of Rights’ was so important to them. They also knew how easily people forget.

Ben Franklin was asked what sort of government was proposed by the constitution. His reply was, “A republic, if you can keep it.” There was a very large push for a confederacy of states in the early days of American history. It was realised that this sort of government would prove unwieldy, and the republic was established. The American constitution was written as the mechanics with which to organise and run the government of the new country.

Yet memories were still fresh, and fears still ran deep. No certainties for civil liberty were written into the constitution itself. It was for these civil liberties that the war was fought, and to immediately dismiss them was anathema. Many of these guaranteed liberties, such as the right to free speech are things that we take for granted, and are easily understood in a common manner. The right to bear arms ought to be as readily apparent.

It was Thomas Jefferson who said, “The tree of liberty needs to be watered from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.” His words are easily comprehensible with a moment’s pause, and a knowledge of history. Governments have life spans just like any other living organism. The primary instinct of any living organism is the preservation of the self. That includes government. The easiest manner in which to do this is the accumulation of power. With enough power one can strike out at one’s enemies and thereby ensure further survival. It’s an animalistic reasoning, but people are animals, after all.

The founding fathers had just fought a war against such reasoning. The animalism was blanketed by the coat of greed in the form of destructive economics, but the root cause was the same. Greed was destroying the means of survival for millions. Something needed to be done. The Bill of Rights was their attempt to ensure that such power grabbing greed never occurred again. It was their attempt at ensuring some universal humanitarian values. The second amendment gave people a fighting chance. Who is going to protect you when your government turns against you?

The second amendment is more important now than it has ever been. After 9/11, the CIA went to a Belgian company named SWIFT. Most national banks, such as Bank of England, or Bank of Ireland do not do international banking themselves. Instead, they use intermediaries, companies such as SWIFT. The CIA asked, and SWIFT gave, the histories of all financial transactions that they had handled into and out of the United States to the value of $1,000 or more. That’s not a lot of money. Their argument was it was to stop money laundering and the funding of terrorists. If you have wired that sum into or out of America, the CIA has a file on you. There is nothing you can do to stop it.

Under ‘the Patriot Act’, an American citizen can have his home searched without warrant, can have his property seized, can be detained for an indeterminate length of time, and be tried without access to the evidence being submitted against him. The only benefit that being a citizen gives him is that he must be tried by a court, not a tribunal. That’s very small solace.

It is in defence against these sorts of actions that the founding fathers of America insisted that its citizens had to right to own their own firearms. Who is going to defend you when your own government turns against you? I wish to remind you that I am a pacifist and do not advocate violence. I also wish to retain what meagre rewards I have for my life’s work. Theft is still theft, be it by a junkie looking money for his next fix, or a government body using an external threat as an excuse.

There is the argument proposed by many that if you’re dong nothing wrong, you have nothing to fear. When absolute power is put into the hands of the individual, all that individual has to do is not like you. Then you’re fucked. There’s nothing that you can do. We have all met at least one copper who considers himself part of an untouchable gang. It’s an extreme example. But it is still possible. If it were not, then there would be no need for police ombudsmen, and internal investigations.

It is small solace; but it was placed there by intelligent men who did their best to establish an egalitarian and humanitarian government. I agree with the saying that a government should fear its people, not a people should fear its government. I will always support the second amendment. It’s a small way of ensuring good governance.

It is natural and ideal to pursue peace. Constant conflict does not allow for good growth. While one cannot deny that wars always produce a rapid growth in technology which always finds its way into civilian life, GPS being an ideal example, without peace there can be no time for life and growth.

As for the second amendment, well, I don’t think anyone is going to find fault with the statement that all life has a right to defend itself. It would be nice to not have to, but such is life. We do the best we can.