This Day in History: November 21

Resolved, That a Declaration of Rights, asserting and securing from encroachment the great Principles of civil and religious Liberty, and the unalienable Rights of the People, together with Amendments to the most ambiguous and exceptional Parts of the said Constitution of Government, ought to be laid before Congress, and the Convention of the States that shall or may be called for the Purpose of Amending the said Constitution, for their consideration, previous to the Ratification of the Constitution aforesaid, on the part of the State of North Carolina.

DECLARATION OF RIGHTS...

That the people have a right to keep and bear arms; 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. That standing armies in time of peace are dangerous to Liberty, and therefore ought to be avoided, as far as the circumstances and protection of the community will admit; and that in all cases, the military should be under strict subordination to, and governed by the civil power.

It seems pretty clear what the North Carolinians thought they were signing into, and they seemed to have no problem whatsoever reconciling the separately declared individual nature of the right alongside the cooperative rationale for a militia.

Anyone who maintains this is not what the Founders understood the Second Amendment to mean is quite simply a damned liar. Let us hope that no more than four damned liars are currently seated on the Supreme Court.