Bill O'Reilly Is Killing The Second Amendment

Bill O'Reilly's Historical Error On The Second Amendment

This blog normally examines and documents historical errors of dissenting Supreme Court justices and professional historians who file briefs supporting gun control in Supreme Court cases such as Heller and McDonald. It does not normally address erroneous current comments on television shows relating to the Second Amendment because time is precious and one could spend their entire life trying to correct all the erroneous statements about the Second Amendment that appear regularly. However, since the Second Amendment is under continuing and heavy attack at the present time, and Bill O'Reilly has a connection to American history, this post is an exception. Bill O'Reilly's background includes teaching history, and he has an extensive series of history books, the Killing series, which hopefully are based on historical reality rather than just his personal opinions. His books are widely read and likely accepted as historically accurate, and his large number of regular viewers are apt to accept his personal views on other historical subjects as if actually based upon some documented historical evidence he has researched.

On the June 14, 2016 O'Reilly Factor, Bill had this to say regarding the Second Amendment in his Talking Points, entitled Acceptable Losses:

"the Second Amendment clearly states the government has a right to regulate militias, made up of individuals."

In reality, the Second Amendment states no such thing. Instead, it clearly states:

"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."

[Taken from Thomas Jefferson's authenticated official imprint of the amendments proposed by Congress and ratified by the states reprinted in The Founders' View Of The Right To Bear Arms, p.221]

Bill O'Reilly has the Second Amendment, a U.S Bill of Rights provision written in 1789, confused with Article 1, Section 8 powers relating to the militia written in 1787. This Bill of Rights provision was intended to limit the powers of the Federal Government, and both of its clauses were based directly on existing state declaration of rights language intended to limit state governments. The Second Amendment is like the other enumerated rights of the first eight amendments to the Constitution that were reenactments in the U.S. Bill of Rights as limits on power at the Federal level based directly on limits upon state governments taken from state bills of rights. There is nothing stated in the Second Amendment giving any government power to regulate any thing.

Mr. O'Reilly, or one of his producers, should spend a little time studying the actual historical evidence regarding Second Amendment development and purpose rather than relying solely on the host's personal opinions because the historical evidence regarding this matter is extensive, conclusive, easily available, and it directly contradicts what Bill O'Reilly believes and states on the show. A good start would be to examine The American Revolutionary Era Origin Of The Second Amendment's Clauses, a short, fully documented historical article from the 2011 Journal On Firearms And Public Policy that can be found online by clicking the above link.

Or, they could take a look at the book cited above, The Founders' View Of The Right To Bear Arms: A Definitive History Of The Second Amendment, which traces and fully documents the Second Amendment's predecessor language, authors, and historical development back through the Ratification Era into the Revolutionary Era and beyond into Colonial Period usage of terms.

Hopefully, at some time in the relatively near future, Mr. O'Reilly will correct the misinformation he broadcast on The O'Reilly Factor on June 14, 2016 regarding what he believes the Second Amendment "clearly states".

The Purpose of the Second Amendment - What was the Original Language, Who Wrote It, and Why?

     The "well regulated militia" language of the Second Amendment, which has confused so many for so long, is relatively easy to trace back to its earliest American author and bill of rights usage. Here is why. Congress based the first clause of the Second Amendment on an exact quote taken from the 1776 Virginia Declaration of Rights. [The Origin of the Second Amendment, p.748] Virginia's Second Amendment related language was America's first in a state constitutional level document. So what exactly was the language Congress relied upon?

"that a well-regulated militia, composed of the body of the people trained to arms, is the proper, natural, and safe defence of a free state;" [OSA, p.459]

     Why was this language relied on by Congress as an amendment to the Constitution? The ratifying conventions of Virginia and North Carolina adopted proposed bills of rights quoting Virginia's earlier bill of rights language. [OSA, pp.459, 505] New York's convention included virtually identical language, which itself had been based on Virginia's language. New York described a well regulated militia as "including the body of the people capable of bearing arms". [OSA, p.481]  It is clear that these bill of rights "well regulated militia" references related to the body of the people, not to a government formed select militia like the modern National Guard as has so often been claimed by proponents of gun control.

     So who wrote this original language back in 1776? George Mason, [The Founders' View of the Right to Bear Arms, p.62]  and he used virtually the same language prior to the beginning of the Revolutionary War to describe a voluntary defensive association in Fairfax County, Virginia. It was formed so the people could protect their rights and the existing constitution from violation by government officials and the military forces raised by them. The language that the Second Amendment was directly based upon was intended to protect against unconstitutional and rights violating actions of government carried out by force.

     There is extensive historical evidence that "well regulated militia" did not refer to a government regulated or authorized militia, but rather to locally organized defensive forces. Mason's early 1775 well regulated militia references applied to self-embodying, self-organizing, self-officering, self-training, and self-arming associations of all the free men for local defense against a current danger - British government officials and forces. [FVRBA, pp.45-50] No such local defensive associations could have existed unless the men possessed and knew how to use their own arms. The historical sources indicate that government officials and forces were taking every measure possible to limit the ability of Americans for self-defense by decreasing the availability of arms and ammunition. [FVRBA, pp.36-43]

     This historical information makes the Second Amendment's language and meaning much more clear. Claims of ambiguity about the Second Amendment evaporate once the stated meaning of its terms and the historical background of their use are known. We find that what advocates of gun control have always said about the Second Amendment's intent, that it was not intended to protect individual rights, is diametrically opposed to reality and extensive period historical evidence. Individuals voluntarily associated for defense against unconstitutional and rights violating actions of force by the government in 1774 and 1775 prior to the formation of any new American governments or any hostilities of the Revolution. This activity was based upon fundamental, unalienable rights that Americans subsequently protected against government violation in their state and federal bills of rights.

     For further and much more detailed information about the Second Amendment's development and purpose, read The American Revolutionary Era Origin of the Second Amendment's Clauses, my short, documented online history.

Second Amendment Intent / Right to Keep and Bear Arms Explained

Updated January 6, 2013

Visitors looking for facts about Second Amendment history and intent can read the results of my research online in several articles and posts, which are described and linked below. The facts of American history can end the never-ending dispute over Second Amendment intent, but only if they are understood and deployed to undermine the error based belief system of gun control supporters.

First, the shortest and most detailed account of Second Amendment history and intent is found in my article, The American Revolutionary Era Origin of the Second Amendment's Clauses. As noted in the prior post, this was printed in The Journal on Firearms & Public Policy's 2011 issue. It traces the well regulated militia and right of the people to keep and bear arms language of the Second Amendment back in history to their earliest American bill of rights usage and authors. Then in goes back earlier in American history to the actual events from which such usage developed. The article amounts to an online crash course in Second Amendment history and intent.

Other online articles include four analyzing briefs supporting Washington DC in the Heller case for extensive historical errors. These demonstrate that those supporting gun control are entirely off base in understanding American history and rights. Such historical arguments were presented in briefs of fifteen professional historians (written by Stanford's Jack Rakove), the city of Chicago, a large group of civic organizations, and three professional linguists. The first analysis, of the historians' errors, Why DC's Gun Law is Unconstitutional, was published by History News Network on February 17, 2008.

Three other articles were published at the Origin of the Second Amendment website. The Windy City's Heller brief attempted to sway the Supreme Court by repeated use of the term "federalism". My article, Chicago Re-Writes U.S. Bill of Rights History, examines and documents historical errors in Chicago's brief.

An extensive founding era document section was presented as an appendix in the Heller brief filed by numerous civic organizations. The Second Amendment as Militia Law, or, Bill of Rights? What Bill of Rights?, is the article examining the off-track historical interpretation presented within it.

Historically oriented analysis of the linguists' Heller brief is found in Professional Linguists Provide Half a Loaf with No Bill of Rights Ingredients.

A common theme runs through the historical Heller briefs of gun control supporters - lack of American Bill of Rights history, context, and intent. What this means in general terms is that they are all wrong, a fact documented at this blog in extensive analyses of the Heller professional historian amici entitled, Root Causes of Never-Ending Second Amendment Dispute, which consists of 24 posts. The gun control advocate view of the Second Amendment is a house of cards - nay, a rather extensive castle of cards. Removing the foundation, which consists of factual errors, causes the whole to crumble. I strongly recommend those wanting to fully grasp the historical import of these posts read them in order starting from part 1 (linked above), because the errors of fact build upon each other. The posts are documented and very detailed (read boring), but the payoff in essential historical knowledge is priceless.

The same suggestion is offered for two other series of six blog posts, each dealing with professional historians' mistakes about the Second Amendment intent. In the Supreme Court's McDonald case, which dealt with the Fourteenth Amendment issue of whether the Second Amendment was intended to apply to state and local governments, some of the same professional historians returned to re-argue Heller related historical issues. This was probably an attempt to get one justice to change a vote. Once again, there were significant historical errors and attempts to divert away from American Bill of Rights history in the two briefs analyzed. The first series, Historians Try to Sell Brooklyn London Bridge to U.S. Supreme Court, attempts to divert to English history for understanding an American Bill of Rights provision. The second series, Historians Try to Sell Brooklyn London Benjamin Franklin Bridge to the U.S. Supreme Court, deals with Pennsylvania history. It was in Pennsylvania that "the people have a right to bear arms" language originated in American bills of rights.

Don't forget to share this post or the above links with those interested in protecting their rights.