Racist origins of the Second Amendment | Letters

Published 1:43 pm Friday, January 25, 2013

It has been argued as far back as 1998 that the reason the Second Amendment was created was to maintain a state militia to keep slaves from revolting.

“The militia remained the principal means of protecting the social order and preserving white control over an enormous black population,” Roger Williams School of Law professor Carl T. Bogus in a 1998 law-review article based on analysis of James Madison’s original writings, explaining the South’s obsession with militias during the ratification fights over the Constitution.

The U.S. Supreme Court, in its 2008 ruling on D.C. vs. Heller, turned a blind eye to this analysis of the Second Amendment, but it is apparent that the rest of America must have a serious discussion over what the true intent of the Second Amendment might have been.

There should be no silencing of debate over this issue, nor should the provisions of the First Amendment rights to freedom of speech and expression be abridged by domestic terrorists who would deny a free and open discussion of the Second Amendment.

Karen Hedwig Backman, Federal Way