American Dialogue: The Founders and Us

by Joseph J. Ellis

In 1792, soon after the first ten amendments were ratified, Congress passed the Militia Act. It required every able-bodied white male citizen between the age of eighteen and forty-five to enroll in a state militia. It also required them to purchase a gun as well as a complete outfit of equipment essential to perform their military duties, thereby making gun ownership not an individual right but a legal obligation. For those disposed to unpack the Second Amendment for the original meaning of “bear arms,” it has collective implications that lead not toward the right to own a gun, but toward mandatory national service. In that sense, both Madison and the critics he sought to appease were living in a world forever lost to us.50