A differently written Second Amendment?.

If the Second Amendment had been written as follows....

"A well regulated Militia being necessary for the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms FOR THE COMMON DEFENCE in A MANNER PRESCRIBED BY LAW, shall not be infringed"

How would that have impacted the Gun Culture in the United States?.
 
I guess private ownershp of guns would be banned unless you join a militia group authorized by some form of government authority--whether state or federal?
 
If the Second Amendment had been written as follows....

"A well regulated Militia being necessary for the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms FOR THE COMMON DEFENCE in A MANNER PRESCRIBED BY LAW, shall not be infringed"

How would that have impacted the Gun Culture in the United States?.

That's not an amendment, its a tautology.

If the right to bear arms exists only as far as its prescribed by other laws... you're essentially saying one law shall not be infringed on by another law. There's no independent right to defend under that framework. At best, that would prevent states from disarming federal militia or vice versus.
 
If the Second Amendment had been written as follows....

"A well regulated Militia being necessary for the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms FOR THE COMMON DEFENCE in A MANNER PRESCRIBED BY LAW, shall not be infringed"

How would that have impacted the Gun Culture in the United States?.

How about just have a more gun-control Supreme Court interpreting the current Second Amendment in a more restrictive way ? The US constitution can be interpreted in some ways through SCOTUS and only they can only how it is incorporated into case law.
 
If the Second Amendment had been written as follows....

"A well regulated Militia being necessary for the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms FOR THE COMMON DEFENCE in A MANNER PRESCRIBED BY LAW, shall not be infringed"

How would that have impacted the Gun Culture in the United States?.

Thats not how it would have been written. Mainly because it would require an entirely different philosophy on the part of the founders. So, what you're asking is what if the US was not founded on classical liberal ideals.
 
Considering guns were used for hunting, defence, and occasionally recreation I do not see any plausible way to limit gun possession in the early United States.
 
At best, that would prevent states from disarming federal militia or vice versus.
Actually, that was the main concern behind the OTL Second Amendment. Remember that until 1867 (and in effect until the early 1900's because of the Slaughterhouse travesty), the Bill of Rights only applied against the federal government; none of it had any impact on state laws. If a state wanted to ban guns, free speech, or anything else, it might run afoul of its own Bill of Rights, but not the Federal one.

With that in mind, I see this amendment as being somewhat plausible: it's more clearly making the point that the states have the right to themselves provide for the common defense by having their own militias. (Separately, the Founders would be assuming that people can go hunting for themselves, but that's totally a matter for the states they're in.) The interesting question is what the framers of the Fourteenth Amendment would do when they wanted to explicitly protect freedmen's rights against states who wanted to (among other things) disarm them and leave them defenseless against white racists. IOTL, they did that by extending the Bill of Rights against the states as well. ITTL, without an already-existing broad guarantee of the right to bear arms, we might end up with a Fourteenth Amendment that explicitly protects the right to bear arms for self-defense.

(Which might be harder for a racist Supreme Court to read out of existence, so we might have less lynching and other Klan terrorism...)
 
Considering guns were used for hunting, defence, and occasionally recreation I do not see any plausible way to limit gun possession in the early United States.

You could say the same about Canada and Australia for the most part. It seems the only reason more restrictive gun laws developed in those countries later on was specifically because there didn't happen to be any specific constitutional mentions of the right to bear arms.

I don't think gun culture for most of US history would have been so different but in the last 30+ years there would have been the implementation of stricter gun laws than today.
 
Actually, that was the main concern behind the OTL Second Amendment. Remember that until 1867 (and in effect until the early 1900's because of the Slaughterhouse travesty), the Bill of Rights only applied against the federal government; none of it had any impact on state laws. If a state wanted to ban guns, free speech, or anything else, it might run afoul of its own Bill of Rights, but not the Federal one.

With that in mind, I see this amendment as being somewhat plausible: it's more clearly making the point that the states have the right to themselves provide for the common defense by having their own militias. (Separately, the Founders would be assuming that people can go hunting for themselves, but that's totally a matter for the states they're in.) The interesting question is what the framers of the Fourteenth Amendment would do when they wanted to explicitly protect freedmen's rights against states who wanted to (among other things) disarm them and leave them defenseless against white racists. IOTL, they did that by extending the Bill of Rights against the states as well. ITTL, without an already-existing broad guarantee of the right to bear arms, we might end up with a Fourteenth Amendment that explicitly protects the right to bear arms for self-defense.

(Which might be harder for a racist Supreme Court to read out of existence, so we might have less lynching and other Klan terrorism...)

That'd be true... if the law said "to keep and bear arms in the manner prescribed by the laws of the several states" or something to that effect. But it doesn't: it says only that gun ownership for the common defence in a manner prescribed by some other law (unqualified, so ANY law including Federal) is protected. That mean that, so long as said law isen't related to the common defence (explicitly, in this language, expressed as a well-regulated militia), Congress has every right to ban the ownership of guns. After all, that hunting rifle isent "for the common defence" and so isen't protected from Federal legislation.
 
That's not an amendment, its a tautology.

If the right to bear arms exists only as far as its prescribed by other laws... you're essentially saying one law shall not be infringed on by another law. There's no independent right to defend under that framework. At best, that would prevent states from disarming federal militia or vice versus.

By way of comparison, the original Bill of Rights stipulates that "may have arms for their defence suitable to their conditions and as allowed by law", which in practice has made approximately zero difference to British gun control legislation.
 
By way of comparison, the original Bill of Rights stipulates that "may have arms for their defence suitable to their conditions and as allowed by law", which in practice has made approximately zero difference to British gun control legislation.
Don't forget that the United Kingdom has parliamentary sovereignty. Their Bill of Rights is just an expression of principles and constraint on what the monarch can do without consulting Parliament; if an Act of Parliament violates it, it doesn't matter.

But it doesn't: it says only that gun ownership for the common defence in a manner prescribed by some other law (unqualified, so ANY law including Federal) is protected. That mean that, so long as said law isen't related to the common defence (explicitly, in this language, expressed as a well-regulated militia), Congress has every right to ban the ownership of guns. After all, that hunting rifle isent "for the common defence" and so isen't protected from Federal legislation.
Hmm... On the other hand, would the Framers really have a problem with the federal government prescribing the manner in which people bear arms for the common defense? Look at how they wrote into the OTL Constitution that "Congress shall have power... to provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia." I could see them missing how the language could be stretched to ban guns altogether; look at how the General Welfare Clause and Interstate Commerce Clause have been similarly stretched iOTL.

(And also, like I said, there's a huge chance that we'd get some stricter language added during Reconstruction.)
 
John Bingham and Thaddeus Stevens, eager to protect freedmen against the power of mob violence and slaver-controlled state governments? Why wouldn't they?

I think we agree. My point was that the southerners would impose restrictions on second amendment righhts, while the northerners would want to strengthen those rights.
 
Could women bear arms? Until recently women could not join a militia, since only males joined in it. Since the right to bear arms depended on a militia, women would not have have right. We have seen the results of unregulated militias as in Somalia, or badly regulated militias as in Rwanda and former Jugoslavia. There was anarchy in the former and ethnic cleasing in the latter. And both have destroyed security in an unfree state. It was less than ten years before the federal government regulated the militia. They required militia members to attend regular meetings and to elect officers. And they coulld be called by the federal goverment.
 
I think we agree. My point was that the southerners would impose restrictions on second amendment righhts, while the northerners would want to strengthen those rights.
Ah, point. I was assuming there wouldn't be any significant butterflies from this before Reconstruction, given that the federal government really didn't try or want to try any real regulation of guns till then.
 
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