The Second Amendment has nothing to do with the National Guard.
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.
I keep hearing the anti-gun people saying that the folks who wrote the constitution meant for the Second Amendment to ensure that the National Guard were able to keep and bear their arms. I've been wondering about this for a while, so I did a little research. Here is what I discovered.
In 1792, the second Congress of the United States passed a law called the Militia Act of 1792. This law clarifies the definition of “Militia”. Since it was passed in the day and age of the writers of the Constitution (it was probably written by a few of them), we can determine what the writers of the constitution had in mind when they used the word “Militia” in the Second Amendment. According to this law, the Militia consisted of “each and every free able-bodied white male citizen of the respective States, resident therein, who is or shall be of age of eighteen years, and under the age of forty-five years.” Thus, the Militia was all the menfolk. Thus, the Second Amendment was intended to protect the menfolk's right to keep and bear arms.
The National Guard was not created until 1903, when Congress passed the Militia Act of 1903. Although the National Guard, according to their website, claims to be the “the oldest component of the Armed Forces of the United States and one of the nation's longest-enduring institutions,” celebrating “its 370th birthday on December 13, 2006”, the truth is, that it is just shy of 100 years old.
In fact, the current law says the exact opposite of what the National Guard claims. U.S. Code : Title 10 : Section 311 says “(a) The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age and, except as provided in section 313 of title 32, under 45 years of age who are, or who have made a declaration of intention to become, citizens of the United States and of female citizens of the United States who are members of the National Guard. (b) The classes of the militia are - (1) the organized militia, which consists of the National Guard and the Naval Militia; and (2) the unorganized militia, which consists of the members of the militia who are not members of the National Guard or the Naval Militia.” So the militia is still essentially the same as it was in 1792, and in fact, the National Guard is, by law, a part of the Militia. The National Guard is not the Militia, it is merely a part of it.
So my conclusion is this: The Second Amendment originally gave individual people the right to keep and bear arms, and since the National Guard is now a part of the Militia, they have the right to keep and bear arms as well. So I guess, the Second Amendment really does have to do with the National Guard, but not in the way that the anti-gun folks would have you believe.
Now for my second rant... keep AND bear... AND! Why is open carry against the law in so many places? I'll leave it at that.
