Some politicians are calling for new regulation and restrictions
on firearms, but why and how does the Second Amendment
strengthen liberty? In a thoughtful post at the Carolina Journal
today, Troy Kickler offers this historical assessment: What did
early jurists and constitutional commentators say regarding the
Second Amendment? St. George Tucker in View of the Constitution
of the United States (1803), the first systematic commentary on
the Constitution after its ratification, describes the Second
Amendment to be “the true palladium of liberty.” As the
preservation of the statue of Pallas in mythological Troy — the
Palladium — needed to be protected for the ancient city’s
preservation, so the Virginian believed that the amendment
ensured liberty’s protection in the United States. If the nation
had a “standing army” — Revolutionary era-Americans’ description
for a full-time, professional army — while individual Americans
were denied the “right to keep and bear arms,” then “liberty, if
not already annihilated,”