Note to Kansas City Star: No One Is Ignoring ‘Well Regulated.’ We Just Know What It Means

Op-eds are a constant source of content for us here at Bearing Arms, in part because newspapers will run them from a wide variety of sources, and a lot of them include people who don’t know what they’re talking about.

Think of the people you see on social media who are experts in whatever topic is huge at the moment. They were all experts in foreign policy after Trump and Zelensky got into it in the Oval Office, for example, while being experts on tariffs in recent weeks. There were small submersible experts when the Titan sub imploded. They’re experts in everything, and a lot of these people write op-eds.

But it’s funny how many of them like to opine on what we think or what we understand, while also being very clear that they’ve never actually talked to any of us.

Take this particular op-ed from the Kansas City Star, for example. It laments the return of the Second Amendment Preservation Act, and the author eventually gets to this little bit:

Regardless of the exact legislation being considered, the issue always boils down to less regulation — loosening any and every legal control over firearms. As the Second Amendment is quoted, everyone ignores the words “well regulated” when invoking its language. The fight is always centered on less regulation. Please remember that no right guaranteed by the Constitution is limitless.

We’ve never ignored “well regulated.” We just understand what it meant at the time of the nation’s founding.

The term may sound like a clear call for gun regulation to some in the modern audience because we don’t use it like those who ratified the Second Amendment often did. “Well regulated,” back then, simply meant that a thing was properly functioning. A well-regulated militia was a militia that could do what was asked of it, in the time and manner it was asked to do it in.

That’s it.

It was never a call for gun control. It was never a message from the Founding Fathers that our rights were subject to whatever limits that future rulers wished to impose on our ability to defend ourselves and our country, even from those rulers.

We don’t ignore it. We understand it.

What people like the writer and folks who think similarly is the phrase “shall not be infringed.”

That particular word, “infringe,” hasn’t really changed much in meaning. We don’t use it as much, but it still means the same thing. An infringement is an encroachment on one’s rights, which gun control does quite regularly.

Now, I ask the author this: If our Founding Fathers intended for us to regulate gun ownership, why would they say that the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed? Those two things run counter to one another. That’s especially true when you remember that the militia bit is included in an introductory clause, which cannot stand on its own. You remove it and the rest makes sense. 

On every level, the whole “well regulated militia” thing doesn’t mean what the author wants it to mean.

Gun rights supporters know this. 

We’re not ignoring it. We just understand it.