THE SECOND AMENDMENT AND YOUR CIVIC DUTY - A THOUGHT EXPERIMENT

Let's begin this by presuming that the drafters of our Constitution wrote the Second Amendment to the Constitution to make sure that the citizenry would have the means to keep the federal government honest and defend our national security. Here's what they said:

"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."

Put another way, our Founding Fathers intended that our citizens be able to defend our freedom by force of arms, if necessary. We can reasonably presume this was their intent by simply looking at the history of the times leading up to that Constitution - they'd just been through a terrible shooting war to overthrow a tyrannical government. That war is called the Revolutionary War, and it resulted in the founding of a new country, the United States of America. Without an armed citizenry at that time, that war could not have been fought. There would be no United States of America. So, extrapolating, it's perfectly logical to conclude that our Founding Fathers meant to preserve that same capability for the citizenry of the new country. They meant to preserve an armed citizenry.

But back to our thought experiment: when does it become a civic duty to pick up that musket?

Our Founding Fathers gave us the legal, Constitutional means to do that if necessary, to preserve our freedoms. Freedoms won with blood, sustained with more blood, and promising to cost yet more blood. Does that imply an ugly duty, if necessary? After all, it is the right to keep and bear - emphasis on 'bear' - arms that makes all other rights possible.

Some would tell us that under no circumstances should anyone pick up a musket and join like-thinkers to protect our freedoms from the enemy, be they from abroad or from within. To them your Ostrich Killer says that a citizenry that under no circumstances will pick up their muskets to protect our national sovereignty or our Constitution is one that has already agreed to be ruled, that is tamed and subdued. They would be right at home in North Korea.

Your Ostrich Killer is not sure we're at that point yet, as a citizenry, but wonders what catalyst - or final straw, if you will - would trigger a little house cleaning? It would have to be something massive, obviously, but the possibility has to exist if our employees in Washington are to be kept honest. So is it a civic duty to actually bear those arms, then? That's the question that this thought experiment raises.

Or is your Ostrich Killer missing something here? If you think so, drop me a note and let me know the error of my thinking.

Now, another cup of coffee . . .