The argument started to the effect that right to bear arms was not subject to any judge’s interpretation. It was immoral to take away the right on an innocent person just because the court said it was allowable. This is a version of universality of rights without limits or limitations a standard no court has held them to. To which my answer would be to ask them to reconsider their opposition to any such laws as breaking those law would result in two penalties being imposed on top of any jail sentence. As a convicted offender; 1) they would lose the right to carry a firearm, forever. 2) They would also, forever, lose the right to vote, depending on what state they were in. They would lose their right to self defense. And that got me thinking. Follow me down this rabbit hole. Does the right to bear arms originate in the concept of self defense? Or does it come from somewhere else? Does it mean one thing or many things and what does this distinction mean for gun control?

District of Columbia v. Heller: “The Second Amendment guarantees an individual’s right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia, and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home.“ (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_of_Columbia_v._Heller)

The key phrase I am looking at is “…Such as self-defense.” Without a gun James Shaw Jr rushed a killer and disarmed him, thus prevent further loss of life in a Waffle house shooting on April 24, 2018. He did not need a weapon to act in self defense to protect himself and others. He had no need for a weapon to express successfully his right to self defense. So if the ownership of a gun and more broadly, in historical terms, a weapon, is not only thing needed for or can be used for self defense then what could it also mean for the right to bear arms? What are the implications if it means other things besides the narrow, limited application for self defense? Without a weapon you can go hand to hand, use anything that comes to mind, in fact anything at all to protect yourself. A gun need not be involved at all. So you are never, entirely, without some means to protect yourself when you do not have a weapon in your hand. British common-law says a criminal may not own a weapon. Similar legislation is present in any modern legal code. Also keep this distinction in mind, that in practice only nobility may own a sword, the best weapon for fighting at the time. The people in the middle, not the middle class but the bulk of the population, who were not criminals or nobility, would have to have use whatever they could as weapons such as tools that can be found at hand. Just as the people of Okinawa used farm implements and turned them into weapons of war seen in our modern martial arts as needed, so too did Europeans. The ax, for example, is needed for chopping wood and trees, to make household repairs and to defend against predators like wolves and bears. But what you can use on a wild animal can be used on the human ‘wild animal,’ as well. In fact, the whole of European culture is based on this fact. The Romans meeting the Germanic tribes in the early CE called them ‘The Franks,’ a name that has descended to today’s modern name for France, same word origin if not the same word itself. The name refers to two things, 1) the name of a weapon, the ax in the bundle of the Fasces, ancient Imperial Roman symbol; a bundle of sticks featuring an ax thus deriving a name for it. So this evidence fits in with the notion of a weapon being for self defense. It is a tool on hand that can be used for other things but also used to protect oneself.

There is something else associated with the name Frank, that of a person who is free of obligation. In other words, this person is not a serf and has no lord, master or nobility to answer to. They are free, plenipotentiary, and sovereign in and of themselves. The “Franks” were a free people. A symbol of their freedom is in that they openly carry weapons and do not seek to hide them from other equals. Whereas open carry of a weapon was frowned upon beyond the mainstay of a dagger used mainly for eating.

Boil this down to two concepts, archetypes in opposition to the other. We have the gun as a means of self defense and we have the gun as a symbol of freedom. Therein lies the problem in and of itself.  See if you follow the logic, as a means of self defense, it matters not what I use to defend myself from my hands, an ax, and a dagger to a pistol, up to a machine gun, as it is a means of protecting myself. The goal is the protection of my body, my physical form and not some metaphysical statement.  As such, what it is, that gives me the means for self defense is therefore mutable, subject to change from one thing to another, from a gun to an ax to hand to hand. Under law therefore it can be amended, changed altered or remanded according to the legislation. Therein lies where the courts took the 2nd amendment, in part in Heller, into something with reasonable, legitimate, legal, and lawful limits. Now consider the second meaning, that of the symbol of freedom or of a free person. Any infringement of this freedom is an assault on all of it. You cannot limit the nature of the unlimited in any meaningful way and still call in unlimited freedom. So it matters not what part you are attacking or prohibiting or repealing, it is an attack upon the global symbol of my person and my freedom. It cannot be compromised, or infringed upon and still be fall freedom. If it could be thusly so infringed, it would not be a right, it would be a mere privilege. Thus you have two camps. Those who say self defense can be mutated, legislated and contained. As opposed to those who say it cannot be. Therefore, there will be an inevitable collision and clash between the two positions as both cannot exist side by side without running afoul of the other. One side will have to bend the other side will have to break. One side by definition cannot bend for to do so without breaking would be impossible by definition. This is where the problem inherent in the gun debate resides. Are weapons, means of self defense or are they a symbol of freedom? Where you agree is what side you stand on this debate. It is also where we stand now as a society when dealing with school shootings and other massacres.