"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."
There are plenty of arguments used in favor of regulating the right to bear and keep arms. These arguments take actual relevance in the aftermath of massacres, like the resent one in Tucson, Arizona. Many say that this right only endangers the life and security of average Americans, as mentally unhealthy persons carry, and sometimes use arms to perpetrate massacres. The anxiety caused by this right is intensified by school shootings, like Columbine (1999) and Virginia Tech (2007), which takes the life of youth and children. Especially for mothers, the right to bear and keep arms usually represents a threat to their children. Another current argument is the regulation of this right in order to combat crime, particularly gangs in big cities. Usually violence caused by firearms is the main reason used by liberals to regulate them. Recently I even heard the argument that the Second Amendment should be repelled by another amendment, so to end the debate in favor of disarmament.
Now, I'm not gonna follow the recurrent conservative answer "guns don't kill people; people kill people", because it has almost turn into a fetish; a pill argument to simply end the conversation. Instead of trying to convince the liberal, or making her understand the reasons for it, we just simply alienate ourselves from the other. And democracy cannot survive without debate and a level of agreement between the parts. Such a defense is mediocre, and it doesn't even tackle the real and valuable reasons why the Second Amendment should and must prevail.
Let us start by analyzing the content of the written text and its meaning. The first part of the amendment reads: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State...". The reason is already given. It implies that the survival of the freedom of the political community, the people composing it must be minimally organized in order to defend it. The goal is preserving freedom. It also implies aggression: external or internal threats to the constitution of freedom. We are before the most republicanist of arguments; freedom demands from its citizens the duty to defend it. Militia is the technique. This means that the United States cannot solely depend on a standing professional army to defend it. The citizen must also be engaged in the defense of their country and its institutions. How could he ever do this, fulfill this duty, if his right to bear and keep arms is infringed?
It is warranted to ask, why would the citizens have to engage themselves in the defense of their country if a standing professional army is already in place? To know the answer to this question we must go back to the times of the Founding Fathers. The American Revolution must also be understood as a rebellion against European power and ideas. But in this amendment we see a rebellion against one of the core characteristics of the European Modern State that was developing since the 17th century, but that was theoretically explained by 20th century German sociologist Max Weber: the monopoly of the legitimate use of violence. Weber discovered that the European State in its modern form expropriates all its individual and grouped members from any kind of use of violence, and by creating a monopoly of its means it claimed legitimacy over them. This policy was advanced by both monarchical governments, as by latter parliaments and republics in Europe. The result was an all powerful State that claimed the right to declare war and suppress sedition without opposition. Only the State would guarantee the defense of its citizens, leaving them defenseless from the State itself. The virtual link between people and democratized State helped hide this charade; because, if the State was the political abstraction that represented the people, the State would be the people, and the individual and grouped citizens wouldn't have to be armed without being defended.
The Americans thought differently. Their experience showed that the republic, and the liberty that springs from it, cannot be preserved without its citizens being actively engaged in certain duties. Among them the duty to defend the constitution against aggressors. One thing that the Europeans neglected, and that, thank God, Americans still preserve, is the common wisdom that the State is also a potential threat to the freedoms established in the republican constitution. State and Republic are not the same. Republic is freedom, State is planing and organizing. Republic is an idea of free community, State is a human machine of administering public policies. If the State claims a monopoly of the means of violence (of the means of self-defense), not always, but usually, it can use that monopoly to end the Republic; especially and mostly if the State has at its disposal a professional standing army. Quoting European, Hispanic-American, Asian and the Russian examples of this phenomenon are so abundant that it would be sterile trying to. How defenseless Americans would be if one day, and let us pray that day may never come, a tyrant usurps the power of the State and the citizens lack the weapons to defend the Republic against him. That would be a certain tragedy!
Today Americans rest comfortably on the security of their constitution. More than two centuries of the republic's success have blind them of the ever existing dangers against freedom. Many still carry this wisdom within their hearts. But an increasing minority has lost perspective of the value of the Second Amendment. Recent tragedies expressed by the shootings of civilians have turned their attention toward a social problem (which is reasonable and warranted), but they forget the political meaning of the right to bear and keep arms, without which no free State can be secured, and which infringement puts its survival at jeopardy.
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