If I could offer advice to our Founding Fathers, other than to ditch slavery right away, it would be to just skip the militia clause of the Second Amendment. While I understand they were explaining why the right to keep and bear arms needs to be preserved, they didn’t foresee the legions of morons who think that clause means the exact opposite of what we know their intentions were.
But now the anti-gunners’ efforts to use that clause are going to backfire on them, as the Indiana State Rifle and Pistol Association notes on its website.
The Indiana State Rifle & Pistol Association has joined as an amicus curiae in Viramontes v. Cook County, Illinois (No. 25-238) and Grant v. Higgins (No. 25-566), two cases now before the Supreme Court of the United States on writs of certiorari from the Seventh and Second Circuits. ISRPA stands alongside the New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, the Ohio Rifle and Pistol Association, the Virginia Shooting Sports Association, the Vermont Federation of Sportsmen’s Clubs, Gun Owners of Vermont, the New Hampshire Firearms Coalition, Florida Carry, the Montana Shooting Sports Association, the Oregon Firearms Educational Foundation, and Rights Watch International — eleven organizations joined by seven individual amici, including members of the NRA Board of Directors, a decorated retired Army colonel, a Marine combat veteran, and a former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Alabama. The brief was filed by counsel of record Kenneth T. Cuccinelli, II, with Earl N. “Trey” Mayfield, III.
Why This Case Matters
The question presented is as stark as it gets: whether the rifles and magazines most suitable for militia service — and therefore the arms most clearly protected by the Second Amendment — may be banned on precisely that account.
That’s an interesting point, which might not be new, but cannot be ignored, either.
Contrary to what some believe, the militia was not the National Guard, where the state maintained armories in every community and the militia simply reported in. They kept their own weapons and a small store of ammunition, along with other accoutrements for using those guns, such as a powder horn, flints, etc.
In other words, it was an individual right.
But after years of pushing the militia clause’s relevance, now they find themselves having to deal with the ramifications of their own deeds. If the Second Amendment only applies to the militia, then the individual right to keep and bear something like an AR-15 should be sacrosanct precisely because it’s the most fit firearm on the market for militia service.
And yes, private citizens are still part of the unorganized militia. We aren’t likely to be called into service, but that doesn’t mean there are no cases where that would happen. Look at Ukraine, for example, or Israel on October 7th. Stuff happens, and just because we’re currently the big dog on the planet doesn’t mean we always will be.
It also doesn’t mean that we won’t be called upon because of some foreign invaders.
The reason for the militia clause was to explain why the Second Amendment was needed. It’s also the reason why guns like the AR-15 and similar firearms can and should be unbannable in this day and age.
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