Second Amendment doesn't endorse coups d'état

To the Editor:

In his letter today, Mr. Michael Dow made the common false assertion about the Second Amendment that we hear all the time from people who almost never vote Democratic and almost always vote Republican. (Whether they call themselves Republican or not, they're Republicans by default.)

The Second Amendment is not, as Mr. Dow writes, "all about American citizens being able to defend themselves against an overreaching and tyrannical government." Nowhere does the Second Amendment mention overreach, tyranny or government. It's about a "well-regulated militia," which it does mention. Notice the word, "regulated." Who would do this regulation? The government, of course.

The proof that the Second Amendment is not about being able to make war on our own government and that the government has regulatory authority over the militia lies in Article I, Section 8, Clauses 15 and 16. There, the U.S. Constitution grants the U.S. Congress power to regulate the militia and command it.

Article I, Section 8: "Congress shall have power ..."

Clause 15 states, "To provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the union, suppress insurrections and repel invasions;" and Clause 16 states "To provide for organizing, arming and disciplining, the militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States, reserving to the states respectively, the appointment of the officers, and the authority of training the militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress."

Any organized attempt to "defend" against an allegedly tyrannical federal government would become an insurrection, and Congress has the constitutional authority to use the militia, provisioned with arms by the Second Amendment, to put it down. Any unorganized attempts would simply be assault and murder, which are just all-too-common crimes.

This is what we've been reading for a long time from the National Rifle Association with its right-wing talking points. What the NRA has done with its rhetoric is to convince supporters that the purpose of the Second Amendment is to exercise coups d'tat whenever the Republican Party loses elections, which we can expect to continue for at least two more four-year cycles with the election of Hillary Clinton. Doesn't that mean that the right's anger will only continue to mount? In the context of their misguided Second Amendment theories, it's a strong indication that at a certain point, which has yet to be determined, some of them are really going to think that it's time to act like Timothy McVeigh.

Mr. Dow wrote that we should "read the Constitution, know the Constitution and learn from the Constitution about (our) civil rights." He should add the word "understand" and then take his own advice. The theory of the Second Amendment that he endorses is unconstitutional. In the context of American elections, it's virulently antidemocratic. It's intended to reverse voting results. It's also inimical to public order and dangerous to innocent people.

Stephen D. Clark

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Second Amendment doesn't endorse coups d'état