Why didn't they make the 2nd Amendment the 1st Amendment?

[kentuck]

If it is the most important part of our Constitution, as some seem to believe?

Why would not the right to bear arms be the 1st Amendment? Is it more important than freedom of speech or freedom of religion?

If you didn't have those rights, what good would a gun be to you?

[NewDem17]

1. Does the order matter?

Like, did they design it in order of importance?

Maybe they felt that you need to have something to protect and made that free speach?

I'm just guessing.

[kentuck]

2. No.

I think they considered the First Amendment to be first in significance. That is my interpretation.

[Caliman73]

7. The Second amendment was not made to protect the First

That is a right wing trope. The Second Amendment was made to establish a citizen militia in place of the standing armies of European nations. The heads of government in the newly formed USA, had just fought a war with presumably the strongest military power in the world at the time, the British Empire. German Hessian soldiers fought for the British. The US allied with another imperial nation France, whom colonists, including the first President, Washington had fought against just 10 or so years earlier.

Though I do not think that they are ranked in order of importance. I do think that the founders wanted to bring the right of citizens to redress grievances against the government without fear of retaliation to the fore. They wanted to spell it out. They also wanted to spell out the right of the people to defend themselves without having to rely on an army separate from themselves that might ultimately be used to oppress rather than defend. That would have been the mindset then, but we most certainly have a standing army now, and formalized state militias in the form of state national guard units. Through Heller and other Supreme Court decisions however, the right has been interpreted as separate from formal militia service. That is what we need to address.

[former9thward]

8. There is no evidence from the debates over the amendments

which support your theory. Actually just the opposite. Madison wrote the 2nd amendment and when Madison initially introduced the various proposed amendments that would later become the Bill of Rights, he proposed to insert the bulk of them, including what would later become amendments one through five, part of the sixth amendment, and amendments eight and nine, into Article I, Section 9, between Clauses 3 and 4. This is the portion of the Constitution which limits Congressional power over individuals.

Madison did not propose to place the second amendment in that part of the Constitution that governs Congress’s power over the militia. The obvious reason is that Madison was seeking to protect an individual right to keep and bear arms, not some undefined right of the states to arm or control militia members within their borders. Indeed, it was Madison himself who coined the phrase “Bill of Rights” to refer to the amendments he was proposing, including what would become the second amendment. States do not have rights. They have powers. Individuals have rights. In any event, the second amendment guarantees in its own words a right of the people, not a right of the states.

Madison's speech to Congress on the topic can be read here if you are interested:

https://www.usconstitution.net/madisonbor.html

[jmg257]

9. Excellent - and you beat me to it! Nt

[jmg257]

10. The 2nd was meant to protect the peoples'

Right and duty to compose the state militias already codified in the constitution. Entities which already existed, and had for decades - most recently under the AoC.

Those militias had to be effective, and they had to be armed. Only a restriction on the new govt protecting those rights (of the people) could help alleviate the fear re: powers given to the new govt.

[jmg257]

3. It was actually the fourth article put forth to the

States for approval.

The 1st 2 were not ratified.

Don't discount the importance of the militia clauses - the freedom of us all depended on them. The role of the people/militias were vital, and primary, in the keeping the Goals laid out in the Preamble and the guarantees made in the constitution.

[kentuck]

4. That was before we had an army and a marine corps.

They were our militia.

[jmg257]

5. That is mostly correct. The role of the constitutional militia

Has been pretty much obsoleted as the congress usurped power to redefine/recreate the militias as they became ineffective, and the people lost fear in large standing armies being the arm of a tyrant.

[world wide wally]

6. It's the only Amendment they know.

Ask the what the 7th Amendment is and you will get a blank stare.
Maybe we should just change it completely to the Bill of Rights