part 3
The Second Amendment and Citizenship

What’s unquestionable is the fact that gun ownership was nearly universal on the frontier and seen as a vital element for both individual, and importantly, community protection. It wasn’t enough to merely rely on the authorities.

The Founders created the Second Amendment with the intent of protecting the individual right to self-defense, but also for the purpose of protecting the responsibility of citizens to protect their neighbors, communities, and country.

As Jay Cost wrote for National Review, the Second Amendment was not simply “a selfish right to bear weapons for oneself, but a public-spirited right to ensure that citizens could defend the polity without recourse to omnipotent, unaccountable armed forces.”
This community responsibility to bear arms played an essential role in the Old West, but it is still in large part understood by the most law-abiding gun owners today.
They fear that gun control measures billed as “common sense” will lead to restrictions on their God-given rights and will make them defenseless in situations of danger.
Far from an example of successful gun control, the Old West is a perfect demonstration of why gun culture is so pervasive in America, and how widespread firearm ownership does not in itself lead to crime and violence.
Crime, including school shootings, is certainly still a problem in modern America, but it’s time we stop laying the blame on guns and gun culture and look for other ways of solving these problems.

It is no mere cliché to say that often the only way to stem evil in a fallen world is to empower free men with the right to bear arms, so they may foster the values of citizenship, self-reliance, and community responsibility essential in a land of liberty.