The Mythic Meanings of the Second Amendment [Hardcover]

Professor David C. Williams (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 11, 2003

The Second Amendment, which concerns the right of the people to keep and bear arms, has been the subject of great debate for decades. Does it protect an individual's right to arms or only the right of the states to maintain militias? In this work David Williams offers a reading of the Second Amendment: that it guarantees to individuals a right to arms only insofar as they are part of a united and consensual people, so that their uprising can be a unified revolution rather than a civil war. Williams argues that the Second Amendment has been based on myths about America: the Framers' belief in American unity and modern interpreters' belief in American distrust and disunity. Neither of these myths, however, will adequately curb political violence. Williams suggests that the amendment should serve not as a rule of law but as a cultural ideal that promotes American unity on the use of political violence and celebrates their diversity in other areas of life.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"This book is well written and provocative. I read it with interest and pleasure." Scot Powe, The University of Texas at Austin

About the Author

David C. Williams is John S. Hastings Professor of Law, Indiana University School of Law, Bloomington.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 416 pages
• Publisher: Yale University Press (January 11, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0300095627
• ISBN-13: 978-0300095623
• Product Dimensions: 9.7 x 6.6 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 1.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,898,084 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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1.0 out of 5 stars Excuse me!? -- Are we from the same planet!? --, February 1, 2011

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This review is from: The Mythic Meanings of the Second Amendment (Hardcover)

There is no indication of who wrote this blurb; but if it is in fact accurate representation of the book, then we are replacing tenured professors who know their fields with uneducated ideologues:
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The Second Amendment, which concerns the right of the people to keep and bear arms, has been the subject of great debate for decades. Does it protect an individual's right to arms or only the right of the states to maintain militias? In this book David C. Williams offers a new reading of the Second Amendment: that it guarantees to individuals a right to arms only insofar as they are part of a united and consensual people, so that their uprising can be a unified revolution rather than a civil war. Williams argues that the Second Amendment has been based on myths about America--the Framers' belief in American unity and modern interpreters' belief in American distrust and disunity. Neither of these myths, however, will adequately curb political violence. Williams suggests that the amendment should serve not as a rule of law but as a cultural ideal that promotes our unity on the use of political violence and celebrates our diversity in other areas of life.
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Unfortunately, those who believe the Second Amendnemnt lie -- that promulgated by the gun industry's private tax-exempt special interest front NRA -- are so obsessed with the issue that there simply is nothing more to the Constitution than the Second Amendment. Er -- correction: the out-of-context fragment, "the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed".

There is actually more to the Constitution than that out-of-context fragment and the false distortions of it. As example, and in view of the fact that the entire Constitution is in effect at the same time, there are several provisions in the Constitution which demolish that "new reading". One is Art. I., S. 8, C. 15., which reads, in full --

"The Congress shall have Power To provide for calling for the Militia to . . . SUPPRESS INSURRECTIONS."

Another is part of the First Amendment, which reads in relevant part,

"Congress shall make no law . . . abridging . . . the right of the people to peaceably assemble . . . ."

As should be obvious to those who can read that, the First Amendment does not prohibit Congress making whatever laws are necessary to prevent and suppress VIOLENT assembly.

Those two provisions are sufficient to make the point: there is no "right of revolution". Nor did the non-law "Declaration of Independence" ever say there is, as is known by those who have actually read it; rathre, it incorporates a precursor to Art. I., S. 8, C. 15, among the complaints against King George III:

"He has affected to render the military independent of and superior to the Civil Power."

It is also the fact that the "Declaration" was a decaration of independence from British rule, not from the gov'ts of those who wrote the "Declaration": those who wrote the "Declaration" had established, and continuously controlled, the colony gov'ts which had sent them as delegates to the Continental Congress, which they also established and controlled.

Moreover, as Constitutional provisions are implemented by means of statutes, the Constitution's references to militia -- of which there are FOUR -- were implemented in the Militia Act of 1792, and subsequent. That Act only continued the unbroken colonial/provincial/state tradition of enacted Militia Acts, by means of which laws the militias were regulated and kept under civilian gov't control. And the consistent tradition, also, of the militia's fundamental purpose to maintain the stability of gov't and laws, that had the governor as commander-in-chief of that military force. There was never any intention that the governor lead the militia in attacks upon himself and the gov't of which he was head.

Let's get over the mythic nonsense, the nonsensical myths, that the Founders were for "revolution". First of all, if "revolution" means "overthrowing gov'ts," then the Founders were not revolutionaries, because they attacked and overthrew ZERO gov'ts. And that is the reality because the only gov'ts available to them which they could have attacked and overthrown were those of their colonies: the gov'ts they themselves founded, and or they themselves operated.

Nor did they attack or overthrow the gov't in London.

And neither did the British attack and overthrow any gov'ts.

That's why it was called "the war for independence" by those not engaged in false propaganda. (The "Boston Massacre" was not a "massacre," Sam Adams' hyperbolically blood-arousing propaganda to the contrary notwithstanding.)

We call the Founders FOUNDERS because they FOUNDED gov'ts. And they FOUNDED gov'ts because they were PRO-gov't.

Alas, in order to retain tenure, professors must publish, and because they must publish, they have to come up with a new theoretical "twist" or else have nothing to say. Thankfully, when it comes to this sort of revisionism -- which must ignore the obvious in order to even begin to get off the ground -- it is a good thing that the requirement of publication in order to retain tenure leaves no time for such tenured professors to teach their confabulated myths about myths to students.