Musings on the Second Amendment

I have a lot of trouble in grappling intellectually with the 2nd Amendment. I tend to read rights expansively. And I believe that the 9th Amendment commands us to read rights expansively. I'm willing to read the word "abortion" into the 9th, 13th, and 14th amendments, so I can't really blame people for wanting to read the 2nd amendment broadly. Is my opposition to "gun rights" anything more than my personal preferences masquerading as constitutional law?

Read broadly, the point of the 2nd Amendment is to make sure that Americans will always be able to throw off the yoke of a tyrannical government the way a bunch of farmers threw off the yoke of the British Empire. But, of course, that's impossible today. If the federal government became a despotism, even popular ownership of assault rifles wouldn't stand up to the US Army. But is that a reason to ignore the 2nd Amendment? Can a right be ignored just because it's impractical or irrelevant? If we can't get the supermajority necessary to remove it from the Constitution, shouldn't we continue to enforce it?

The most obvious response to these questions is the prefatory clause. If the federal government ever did become a despotism, the founders envisioned that the people would be protected by the state National Guards (i.e. "the militia"). The state Guards were envisioned as the real military power in the United States. Congress has the power "provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions." However, the state militias—while technically subject to federalization—would presumably remain loyal to their states. This is why the militia clauses of the Constitution have an important caveat: they "reserv[e] to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia." So, the Constitution envisions a well-trained fighting force, but it ensures that that fighting force can remain loyal to the states. And, in the Second Amendment, it ensures that the federal government cannot disband it.

(Although the Constitution does allow for federal armed forces, it makes them the exception and not the rule. Congress can "raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years." Two years is important here; it means that for there to be a standing army, every Congress will have to vote to reauthorize it, and the founders envisioned this as being a very unpopular vote.)

Of course, the "well-regulated militia" answer has one flaw. The whole point of the 14th Amendment is that the states—presumed in 1791 to be bastions of liberty and freedom—can actually be even more tyrannical than the federal government. The 14th Amendment was designed to protect against state tyranny. So, shouldn't people be allowed to carry their own guns, to protect against state tyranny? Well, not really. The Constitution makes it the responsibility of the federal government to "guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government." When a state is being tyrannical, I have faith in the federal government to sort things out.

So, it's a nicely closed circle. The US Army protects against state tyranny, and the state National Guards protect against federal tyranny. Individual gun-ownership need not enter the picture.