The Second Amendment

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

It is often a waste of time to get into arguments about things that really bear down into the level of people’s identity. The second amendment certainly qualifies as this for many people. There are those who see this Amendment as the most important statement of the Constitution, even though it is an amendment to the document. Some have made the Constitution into a pseudo-religious document seeing it as something divinely inspired. For some people, this means the document is a symbol of their core identity, even if the actual document, its history, wording is not understood. Identity doesn’t deal with rationality after all. Identity is about beliefs, values, affiliations, and more. It’s like the flag — it becomes a symbol in which people can place whatever meaning they want on it.

But words have meaning. The language of the second amendment has a meaning — it’s not just defined however you want to define it. This is true of all the language of the Constitution — including all the amendments.

Now, I’m not Constitutional scholar. But I do have a background in political science. And I’m a writer — words matter and have meaning. I often talk about the meaning of words that show up in Scripture in order for people to have a better understanding of what the words and verses mean and how they apply to our lives, what the context is, and what God is saying.