OpEdNews
In the wake of mass shootings like those that occurred at Newtown, Aurora, and now the D.C. Naval Yard, the pro-gun lobby reminds us that the 2nd Amendment was created as a safeguard so that ordinary citizens can protect themselves from a tyrannical government. This rationale, however, is based on myth and ignores the basic facts surrounding the creation of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Although many of the founders waxed poetic about gun ownership, the fact remains that this Constitution of ours was created with incidents of armed insurrection as bookends. It was an angry group of farmers with guns threatening the government of Massachusetts in 1786 that spurned the writing of the Constitution and a similar incident in 1791 reaffirmed the new government's power in suppressing a mob of angry people with guns. In both cases, the angry groups in question were asserting their rights in trying to overthrow or force a change with what they saw as a tyrannical government. Therefore, the 2nd Amendment was not created to protect peoples' rights to overthrow the government, but instead was created to protect the government from those fearful elements of society at the time: farmers with guns in the West, Indians with guns on the frontier and slaves with guns in the south. A "well-regulated" militia was more for protecting the government from "rabble" than it was in giving citizens the right to protect themselves from tyranny.
