Origin of the Second Amendment

On 27 June 1788, the anti-Federalists, fearing creation of a standing army that could eventually endanger democracy and civil liberties, as had previously occured in Britain and Rome, proposed the following amendment to the Constitution:

That the people have a right to keep and bear arms; that a well-regulated militia, composed of the body of the people trained to arms, is the proper, natural, and safe defense of a free state; that standing armies, in time of peace, are dangerous to liberty, and therefore ought to be avoided, as far as the circumstances and protection of the community will admit; and that, in all cases, the military should be under strict subordination to, and governed by, the civil power.(*)

That text, edited down to the Second Amendment, explains its original purpose—to establish a "well-regulated" democratic army of citizen-soldiers instead of a professional army; not to encourage the anarchic proliferation of weapons in civil society.

Second Amendment, as finally worded:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

(*) Ralph Ketcham, ed., The Anti-Federalist Papers and The Constitutional Convention (Mentor, 1986), 221

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