Follow us on social

Shutterstock_1746869879-scaled

The Second Amendment and soldiers in the street

Trump unsurprisingly got some things wrong when he invoked the right to bear arms in his speech threatening to send the military to quell protests around the country.

Analysis | Global Crises

President Trump, supported by Sen. Tom Cotton, has raised a major controversy by suggesting that active duty troops be used to impose order in the streets of American cities. The Trump administration made moves toward implementing that suggestion, including dispatching part of the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division to locations just outside Washington, DC.

The response in opposition by former senior military officers — with former defense secretary James Mattis’s statement being the most eloquent — has been heartfelt and appropriate.

As part of Trump’s guns-and-toughness posturing, the president has conflated the notion of Army troops confronting American citizens in American cities with another favorite part of that posturing, which is the “gun rights” issue invoking the Second Amendment to the Constitution.

Trump made that conflation explicit in the Rose Garden speech that he delivered shortly before his attorney general ordered the use of stun grenades and tear gas to clear a path to Trump’s photo op at a church.

In the speech, Trump stated, “I am mobilizing all available federal resources — civilian and military — to stop the rioting and looting, to end the destruction and arson, and to protect the rights of law-abiding Americans, including your Second Amendment rights.”

Trump’s further rhetoric on this assortment of issues has been contradictory. He has shown no fondness for public order when egging on protestors who have resisted the authority of governors while threatening violence and brandishing assault rifles in state capitol buildings. Moreover, invoking the Second Amendment in the same breath as threatening to put active duty military into the streets involves another contradiction, as a matter of law and history.

The Second Amendment is about well-regulated militias. It says so right in the first line of the amendment itself (“A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State…”). For over two centuries the courts did not regard it as limiting the power of states and localities to enact laws regulating individual ownership of firearms.

Then in 2008, lobbying spearheaded by the National Rifle Association finally got five Supreme Court justices in Heller v. District of Columbia to abandon any semblance of original intent and construe the Second Amendment as a basis for striking down gun control laws that have nothing to do with militias, let alone well-regulated ones.

When the Bill of Rights, of which the Second Amendment is a part, was written, militias were in good odor among Americans of all political persuasions. Militias, after all, deserved much of the credit for standing up to the British Redcoats during the American Revolution.

After independence, militias became an important part of two over-arching political issues. One was the issue of how much power the new federal government would have relative to the authority of the states. Enactment of the Bill of Rights, including the Second Amendment, was a concession by the federalists to the anti-federalists who considered it vital to restrict the powers of the federal government and keep it out of the business of the states, including the business of preserving local order.

This subject was closely related to the second big and relevant issue, which was a general antipathy to standing armies. As much as militias were in good odor among Americans of that day, a full-time military under the control of a central government was in bad odor.  (After the almost complete demobilization of the Continental Army at the end of the Revolution, this attitude was reflected in U.S. policy until increased tensions in the 1790s, first with Britain and then with France, led to restoration of a small standing military.)

The strong pro-militia statement the Second Amendment makes was a statement against any federal army butting into the states’ business. The “right to bear arms” was made universal out of a fear that the federal government might butt into the states’ business not only through the deployment of a federal army but also by limiting the size of a state’s militia. Baron von Steuben, the Prussian officer who became George Washington’s inspector general during the Revolution, had suggested just such a limitation.

In short, the Second Amendment embodies opposition to the very use of federal troops that Donald Trump and Tom Cotton are talking about. The authors and early champions of the amendment would be appalled to hear it invoked by those arguing that a federal army should be used to corral and coerce American citizens in the streets of American cities.

Useful context is provided by the Third Amendment, which protects citizens against having to quarter soldiers in their homes. The Third Amendment, like the Second, is a statement against standing armies getting involved in the local lives of Americans.

Today no one is talking about restoring that kind of military housing arrangement, and the Third Amendment is perhaps the least-cited portion of the entire Constitution. But reading it — as well as that first line of the Second Amendment — would aid understanding of the underlying issues.


Military policemen form a line in front of White house. Many protesters gathered around in front of White House in Washington DC on 5/30/2020. (Photo: bgrocker / Shutterstock.com)
Analysis | Global Crises
ukraine war
Top Photo: Diplomacy Watch: Trump's 'gotta make a deal' on Ukraine
Diplomacy Watch: Trump's 'gotta make a deal' on Ukraine

Diplomacy Watch: Here comes Trump

Regions

Donald Trump’s nominee for U.S. secretary of state said this week that he wants the war between Ukraine and Russia to end.

“It is important for everyone to be realistic: there will have to be concessions made by the Russian Federation, but also by Ukrainians,” said Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) during his Senate confirmation hearing on Wednesday. “There is no way Russia takes all of Ukraine.”

keep readingShow less
Gaza
Top image credit: Anas-Mohammed / Shutterstock.com

The Gaza ceasefire likely won't last

Middle East

The ceasefire agreement regarding the Gaza Strip can be welcomed as a modest reprieve from the immense suffering that the residents of that territory have endured for the past 15 months.

The Israeli military assault on the Strip has inflicted deaths that according to the official count has passed more than 46,600. This tally likely undercounts actual deaths by more than 40 percent, with the majority of fatalities being women, children, and the elderly.

keep readingShow less
Netanyahu , biden
Top photo credit: US President Joe Biden meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for a bilateral meeting in the Oval Office at the White House on July 25, 2024 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Samuel Corum/Sipa USA)

Who should take credit for the ceasefire? Netanyahu.

QiOSK

It is an official: Israel and Hamas have agreed to a ceasefire.

It would appear to be based on the text already made available by the Associated Press, which is very much like the deal brokered by the Biden administration in May 2024. That agreement was never ratified by either side and was never implemented.

keep readingShow less

Trump transition

Latest

Newsletter

Subscribe now to our weekly round-up and don't miss a beat with your favorite RS contributors and reporters, as well as staff analysis, opinion, and news promoting a positive, non-partisan vision of U.S. foreign policy.