Where, then, did anyone get the idea that the right to arms was linked only to militia duty, and not to the individual right of self defense?
This mistake is a modern one.
The earliest court decisions–Kentucky in 1822, Indiana in 1833, Georgia in 1837, to name only a few–recognized an individual right to arms. The Georgia Supreme Court in particular noted that the second amendment protected “the right of the whole people, old and young, men, women and boys, and not militia only, to keep and bear arms of every description.”
Only in 1905 did a Kansas court invent (without any historical examination) the idea that the right to bear arms was meant only to protect the organized state militia.
Since there is no question that the right to arms clause was more important to the Americans who demanded a bill of rights–prior to Virginia’s convention, few proposals even gave the militia a mention. There had been framers who stressed the militia–but they were appeased by the first part of the second amendment; its right to arms clause was meant to answer entirely different critics, seeking an entirely different principle.
In any event, few anti-gunners would really want to restore the militia system, which made gun ownership mandatory.
“The militia is the natural defense of a free country against sudden foreign invasions, domestic insurrections, and domestic usurpations of power by rulers. It is against sound policy for a free people to keep up large military establishments and standing armies in time of peace, both from the enormous expenses with which they are attended, and the facile means which they afford to ambitious and unprincipled rulers, to subvert the government, or trample upon the rights of the people. The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered, as the palladium of the liberties of the republic, since it offers a strong moral check against usurpation and arbitrary power of the rulers; and will generally, even if these are successful in the first instance, enable the people to resist and triumph over them.”___ Justice Joseph Story, United States Supreme Court, 1811 - 1845
The right of a citizen to bear arms, in lawful defense of himself or the State, is absolute. He does not derive it from the State government. It is one of the ‘High Powers’ delegated directly to the citizen by the United States Constitution, Amendment II, and “is excepted out of the general powers of government”. A law cannot be passed to infringe upon it or impair it, because it is above the law, and independent of the law-making power. ___ Texas Supreme Court Decision, Cockrum vs State of Texas, 1859
“The right of self-defense is the first law of nature. In most governments it has been the study of rulers to confine this right within the narrowest limits possible. Whenever standing armies are kept up, and the right of the people to keep and bear arms is, under any color or pretext whatsoever, prohibited; liberty, if not already annihilated, is on the brink of destruction.” _____ Justice George Tucker, Virginia Supreme Court, 1803
“Arms in the hands of individual citizens may be used at individual discretion…in private self-defense.”_____ John Adams, Second President of the United States, 1787-1788
“False is the idea of utility…that would take fire from men because it burns, and water because one may drown in it; that has no remedy for evils, except destruction of liberty. The laws that forbid the carrying of arms are laws of such nature. They disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes…such laws serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man.”_ Thomas Jefferson, ‘Commonplace Book’, 1775
