Sometimes, in our eagerness to make our point, we misrepresent the
views of others. I know that I'm always sorry when I do it...and get
caught. But take a look at what the socialists have to say about the
Second Amendment.
Carl Jarvis
********
March 2018 Daniel Shays
Daniel Shays appears on the left of this newspaper drawing made after
his capture in 1787.
By GARY BILLS
We are republishing an article that appeared in the print edition of
Socialist Action newspaper in May 2007. The article is pertinent to
the widespread
discussion on gun control today, when some are calling for repeal of
the Second Amendment.
After a horrific gun crime like the one at Virginia Tech [32 people
were killed in a shooting there on April 16, 2007], it is inevitable
that many people
start calling for gun control. At such times, it is important that
socialists weigh in on this debate.
Socialists would love to see a society free of violence—but we live
today in a world steeped in violence. We believe that the fountainhead
of violence
is the ruling class, which must resort to force and violence to
maintain its minority rule. They seek a monopoly on that force and
violence.
Socialists see "guns" as an important issue but as a secondary one
when seeking tools for social change. Throughout U.S. history it has
been massive, action-oriented
social movements that have served as the real mechanism for the
defense of the oppressed—and such movements are generally designed to
be peaceful, as a
necessity.
In the future, however—as happened in certain periods of extreme
social crisis in the past—the oppressed will most likely need access
to guns for defense,
since the ruling class can be counted on to use all manner of violence
to prevent any revolutionary change that would mean their overthrow.
Socialists
believe in the inalienable right of exploited and oppressed people to
self-defense "by any means necessary," as Malcolm X put it.
Quite understandably, the ruling class really wants "gun controls."
But the overwhelming majority of those who express the desire for gun
controls, as
reflected in the media, are liberals—including people who hold
progressive positions on many other social issues.
Nevertheless, the changes they want to see put them squarely up
against the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. This amendment
was the product of
revolutionary times. Because of the fight against British domination
that was undertaken by local militias, as well as the popular
Revolutionary Army,
the issues around guns and who wielded them were keenly honed.
The Second Amendment reads, "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."
We can note two items in this amendment that are compatible with the
thinking of socialists. The first is that of an undiluted right of the
people to have
access to arms and to use them. The second is the principle of the
people in arms as a militia.
This second principle is the one the gun controllers always screw up.
Being a little legalistic for a moment, we can see that the right of
the people to
keep and bear arms is supposedly in consequence of the need for a
"well regulated militia," necessary for the "security of a free
State."
Liberals pounce on this interpretation to say, "See, citizens do not
have a right to keep and bear arms unless they are part of a "well
regulated militia!"
Socialists reply, "Fine! Let's take a real look at what constituted a
militia, well regulated or not, in the revolutionary times that shaped
the Second
Amendment!"
As you read the Second Amendment, you may be struck by the clumsy
wording of it. It's clumsy because it is the product of many
committees. There was an
intense debate over this Amendment —as there was over the Constitution
as a whole. This debate reflected a terrific clash of competing class
interests
involving the wealthy merchants, large landowners and slaveholders,
small farmers, urban craftspeople, and others in the early republic.
The class structure of the United States in the late 1700s was much
different than it is today. Only about 5 percent of the population
consisted of wage
labor, whereas today it is upwards of 90 percent. The colonial ideal
was to be your own boss and have your own farm.
Among small property owners, farmers in their huge mass, there was a
rough equality, which led to a measure of democracy. It followed,
therefore, if an
armed force needed to be mustered to meet a threat, the armed force
would have a democratic character. This was the character of a true
citizens' militia.
However, those with more means and ambitions, the emerging ruling
elite, kept pushing for the formation of a coercive force to further
their interests.
They wanted to collect taxes for the repayment of the public debt
incurred during the Revolutionary War, debt which they held, and for
"public works";
they wanted to protect their property; they wanted to mediate all
manner of commercial conflicts. In short, they wanted governmental
power and coercive
power that they controlled!
Howard Zinn, in his "Peoples' History of the United States," has a
great section that talks about how the urban interests, through tax
courts, would form
armed bodies to go into the countryside to shake down the small
farmers. The small farmers weren't too happy about this and mustered
to form militias to
confront the tax courts' armed bands. Shays's Rebellion (1786-87) took
place when one of these ad hoc militias even went into Boston.
Shays's Rebellion
Daniel P. Shays had been a captain in the Revolutionary Army. He was
motivated to form a rebellious militia when he and other local leaders
were angered
by the tax courts' seizure of small farms and the throwing of small
debtors into prison.
Taxes were supposed to be paid in money, but the economy of central
and western Massachusetts at the time was a barter economy. If a farm
was seized, the
farmer lost his right to vote, leaving him no political way to fight
back. Many small farmers like Shays knew the injustices done to them
were coming from
urban, eastern, rich speculators led by Massachusetts Gov. James Bowdoin.
Shays's Rebellion shut down the tax courts in a number of towns, and
the movement spread throughout the state. Militias called up by
Bowdoin and his backers
refused to fight Shays's forces or failed even to muster.
Meanwhile, anti-Shays forces throughout the colonies misrepresented
the grievances and aims of the rebels, claiming they were radicals,
inflationists,
levelers who were out to cheat their creditors and redistribute
property. Shays's forces, which were popular, volunteer militias, were
finally defeated
when Governor Bowdoin and Boston-area bankers paid 4400 thugs to
attack them with weapons of war such as artillery.
Guerrilla warfare against the rich went on for a while as Shays and
other leaders of the rebellion sought sanctuary in other states. But
the rebels had
the last laugh as supporters of the rebellion were later elected to
office, such as John Hancock as governor, and they were given amnesty.
Popular rebellions like this deeply terrified the rich elites, and
they started to demand federal armed forces that could suppress small
farmers or any
other group of citizens that challenged their growing power and
wealth. George Washington was especially alarmed, and he and others
used their influence
to push for a new Constitution to supersede the Articles of Confederation.
But there was no way that the Constitution—which had its advantages
for uniting and streamlining a growing new nation, at least
commercially—would be accepted
by the population without a Bill of Rights attached to it that spelled
out protections for citizens against their government.
High on the list of rights the public wanted to protect was the right
to keep and bear arms, a right they already believed they possessed by
common law
and by some state constitutions. The best the privileged interests
could do was to try to moderate that right with the phrase in the
Second Amendment about
a "well regulated militia."
The common understanding about the character of a militia at the time
was that it was composed of ordinary citizens who voted on their
"mission," to use
a current term, and was "officered by men chosen from among
themselves," as James Madison noted. It had nothing in common with the
National Guard and the
standing armed forces of today.
"Well regulated" did not mean that the democratic character of a
citizens' militia could be regulated right out of it for the class
purposes of the rich!
Armed force against workers
A question for the liberal gun controllers of today is this: why don't
you want guns? Sure you don't want guns in the hands of individuals
who might threaten
you, but why do you feel you have nothing to fear from the armed
powers of the state?
Randi Rhodes, a prominent talk-show host on the liberal radio network
Air America, has stated that she believes guns belong in the hands of
the police
powers of the state. She says that the National Guard is the militia
that the Second Amendment speaks of.
Rhodes evidently does not recognize in those armed powers the ultimate
class power of the ruling rich, which has often used force to defeat
strikes and
other struggles of the labor movement. Many workers have died at the
hands of the police, the National Guard, the Army and privately hired
goons.
Sometimes this use of violence by the state and employers has
backfired badly; the result has been like pouring gasoline on a fire.
Workers come to the
defense of other workers instinctively and under certain conditions
they see the necessity of taking up arms for their self-protection,
unlike Rhodes.
The ruling class has made a quiet determination to allow workers to
have small arms and to accept the ugliness of gun crime if the working
class will refrain
from asking for democratic militias for defense—instead of the
National Guard and standing armies, set up to maintain the capitalist
state and to fight
its wars abroad.
Meanwhile, liberal gun controllers continue to whine about gun
violence on a small scale while refusing to demand democratic control
of the huge forces
of force and violence that carry out U.S. foreign policy and that can
be used against us domestically at any time if the ruling class only
dares.
POSTSCRIPT
In a Jan. 4, 1990, speech, Fidel Castro stated: "To some of the
Western countries that question democracy in Cuba, we can say: There
can be no democracy
superior to that where the workers, the peasants, and the students
have the weapons. They have the weapons. To all those from countries
that question democracy
in Cuba we can say: Give weapons to the workers, give weapons to the
peasants, give weapons to the students, and we'll see whether tear gas
will be hurled
against workers on strike, against an organization that struggles for
peace, against the students….
"I believe that the supreme test of democracy is arming the people!
When defense becomes the task of the entire people and weapons become
the prerogative
of the entire people, then they can talk about democracy. Until then,
they can talk about specialized police forces and armies; to crush the
people whenever
the people protest against the abuses and injustices of the bourgeois
system, whether in a Third World capitalist country or in a developed
capitalist
country." —G.B.
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