WHY GUN OWNERSHIP IS A RIGHT : Civilian Defense Is Time-Honored : The right to self-protection, whether against a foreign tyrant or a street mugger, has held for 200 years.

The view that the Second Amendment’s guarantee of a right to arms applies only to state militias, not to individuals, is an invention of 20th-Century gun prohibitionists. It was unknown to the Founding Fathers or any 18th- or 19th-Century interpreter of the law. The only interpretations before Congress when it adopted the amendment explained it as guaranteeing people “their own arms,” “their private arms.”

A modern historian who neither owns guns nor cares about the gun-control debate explains that the amendment’s intent embodied “two distinct principles: Individuals had the right to possess arms to defend themselves and their property; and states retained the right to maintain militias composed of these individually armed citizens. . . . Clearly, (the Founders) believed that the perpetuation of a republican spirit and character in their society depended upon the freeman’s possession of arms as well as his ability and willingness to defend both himself and his society.”

Of 36 law-review articles on the amendment published since 1980, only four disagree. Three of them were written by employees of anti-gun groups, one by a politician. All appeared in minor law reviews. In contrast, 12 articles supporting the individual-rights position appeared in top law reviews. Among the authors were leading liberal constitutional scholars who don’t own guns and never desired the conclusions the evidence forced upon them.

Basic to interpreting the Constitution’s first 10 amendments--the Bill of Rights--is understanding that they were enacted as one document and are judicially interpreted as such. In the First Amendment, the “right of the people” is judicially interpreted as an individual right. How can the same phrase just 16 words later in the Second Amendment mean a right of the state? In the Fourth and Ninth Amendments, the same phrase is always understood and judicially interpreted as an individual right. And the 10th Amendment specifically distinguishes the state’s rights from those of the people.

Unable to explain this away, gun prohibitionists point out that the courts have upheld federal laws banning gun possession by some people--felons, minors and the insane; if these are not violations of the Second Amendment, then neither is extending the ban to everyone. This argument is specious. Cases upholding such laws prove only that, like other basic rights, the Second Amendment has reasonable limits. Felons, children and the insane have no more right to arms than to vote. Courts should also uphold licensing requirements, but only those designed to exclude the criminal or irresponsible without delaying or denying access to defensive arms by law-abiding adults. There also should be leeway for local laws targeting local problems that may be more sweeping than national laws.

The Supreme Court’s only extended discussion of the Second Amendment’s right to bear arms (in United States vs. Miller, 1939) recognizes that the “militia” it mentions is not some formal military organization like the National Guard, but the colonial system of all trustworthy adult “males physically capable of acting in concert for the common defense . . . bearing arms supzplied by themselves.” The court rejected the state’s-right theory, which was expressly urged upon it, instead allowing the defendants to invoke the right. While recognizing that some arms of ordinary citizens are protected, the case limits the protection to high-quality militia-type arms. This would include handguns, rifles and, yes, “assault rifles,” but not poorly made “Saturday-night specials.”

Anti-gun arguments reflect baseless, illiberal distrust in the people. It is falsely claimed that murderers are ordinary people who kill in moments of rage. Criminological studies show murderers to be aberrants with life histories of felony, substance abuse, injurious motor-vehicle accidents and violent attacks on those around them. Certainly, these aberrants should be disarmed. But, far from endangering the public, widespread gun ownership by good citizens permits resistance to crime.

With the military overseas, government mustered gun owners to patrol against sabotage during both World Wars. But for anti-gun myopia, properly trained citizens today would routinely receive licenses to carry guns and be mustered to provide services under police supervision (as they do in Israel). Of course, armed citizens cannot substitute for measures alleviating poverty and despair, which are at the root of so much crime. But they can aid police efforts in the short term. Nor can a society that fails to either reduce crime or protect people from it complain about them protecting themselves.