Repeal the 2nd Amendment

 Marcus Alden Meredith

November 8, 2021

Repeal the 2nd Amendment

The days of the armed white supremacist must end

When one understands the true origins and function of the 2nd Amendment, you should be hit by the realization that it’s origins lies in slavery, not freedom, as it’s defenders would have you believe. There were myriad reasons discussed in the first Constitutional Convention in 1788 with a few of the northern New England states still remembering their role in the revolution and their subsequent occupation by British forces, but the main reasoning behind the amendment had to do with the protection of white slave owners and their states from slave insurrections (https://www.npr.org/2021/06/02/1002107670/historian-uncovers-the-racist-roots-of-the-2nd-amendment). Now, add to this the ideas that had helped foment the Haitian Revolution against slavery and French rule, the fleeing of whites with their slaves to places like Louisiana, and the Virginians especially were about apoplectic at the thought of slave revolts in the United States. So, James Madison came up with the language of the 2nd Amendment to mollify people like Jefferson and Patrick Henry so that the control of the “well regulated militia” was in the hands of the states because they did not trust the Federal government to be able to act in time to help quell any revolts they felt were coming. 

But the laws around the 2nd Amendment have never been applied evenly especially after the emancipation of black people in the United States during and following the Civil War. And example of this is the Mumford Act in California signed with great fanfare by Ronald Reagan in response to armed members of the Black Panthers who were in response to police brutality against black people that blacks saw rightfully as giving the police a kind of impunity to beat and harass them without cause or recourse. The Mumford Act was designed by a conservative assemblyman with help from the NRA to stop what the Black Panthers were legally doing. You see, there is nothing more terrifying to many white people than the thought of armed black people. It is covert, legalized white supremacy where only white people (christian white men especially) are able to be armed to FORCE their superior status upon society. The best example o this to date may be the Philando Castile case in Minneapolis. Here we have a black man, armed legally, pulled over by a patrol officer, telling the officer that he has a gun, doing ALL the things that an NRA trained gun owner should do, and he is shot and killed any way (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2017/06/18/some-gun-owners-are-disturbed-by-the-philando-castile-verdict-the-nra-is-silent/). To add insult to injury, the officer is acquitted of all charges. It is plain to a trained martial artist (my credentials I’ll give you if asked) for 37 years is that the officer was poorly trained, in fear of an armed man who was black, and should never have been put in that position because he should never have passed the psychological exams to be and officer in the first place. Now, just to round out this tragedy, the NRA, America’s premier gun owning organization, gave only a tepid responses to the incident saying it was a “tragedy.” Well, as would be said by the vulgar crowd, “No shit, Sherlock!” Let’s just put it out there, the 2nd Amendment was NOT meant for black people but, on the contrary, to keep black people and non-white people down. 

But back to the first course… repeal the 2nd Amendment. At the very least, all the circumstances that brought it about have been gone in any justifiable way since the end of slavery with the addition of the 13th Amendment. And so let’s propose language for the 28th Amendment - The Repeal of the 2nd Amendment:

1. The second amendment to the Constitution of the United States is hereby repealed.
2. The sale or possession of any weapon in any state, territory, municipality, or possession of the United States against such laws concerning said weapons is hereby prohibited.
3. All uses of the term ‘militia’ are hereby stricken from this Constitution and ‘National Guard’ are to replace them. All National Guard units are to be governed by such currently active and future legislation as are in their regard in each state and by federal statute therein.
4. The article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by conventions in the several States, as provided in the Constitution, within 10 years from the date of the submission here’s to the States by the Congress.

And now we have the ability for the federal, state, and municipal authorities to control the sale and possession of all weapons in their jurisdictions. Weapons for hunting can be allowed in a way that possession of such firearms may not be conducive the the public safety in a more densely populated municipality. A more rural jurisdiction may feel much more comfortable with such weapons such as the proverbial shotgun in the back window of a pickup truck. But, by the same token, the ability for anyone to possess a concealed weapon without proper registration and and compelling need for such a weapon is now not unreasonable. In other words, the people, through their representatives, can now control their use of firearms and weapons as they see fit. But, with the federal government being supreme, the prohibition of firearms such as those of a military nature designed with the express purpose of killing people as effectively as is possible, can (and should be) relegated to the military powers alone if such legislation were to pass the Congress and be signed into law by the President. We can also then ban any group that would call itself a militia as only the National Guard can be considered as a militia constitutionally and the banning of firearms or other weapons in such groups can be regulated by federal as well as local statute. 

Now this is by no means a panacea that will solve problems with firearms or other weapons in the U.S. but it will be a great step toward such a desired result, I think. Chicago can now eliminate the importation of or possession of any firearm within city limits to combat violent crime more effectively. The ability of the NRA or other groups to argue any constitutional grounds for the possession of such weapons against the local ordinances and statutes will be moot. The 28th Amendment will grant such jurisdictions the ability to make laws for the control of any weapon, full stop. Will this end the ceaseless flow of violence in our society. No. That is a much more complicated issue. But, it may be a start toward a more perfect Union and the realization of the better angels of our nature…