In 1729, famed author Jonathan Swift (perhaps better known for Gulliver’s Travels published an essay titled “A Modest Proposal.” In it, he proposes to simultaneously solve the contemporary social issues of poverty and overpopulation in the United Kingdom by killing and eating children from poor families in Ireland. The piece is a work of satire, obviously; by presenting such an outlandish idea in the dry, sober tone one would use in a serious political treatise, Swift hoped to increase public awareness of those issues and provoke discussion toward real solutions. In other words, he jokingly proposed a radical idea to get people thinking about more serious ones. While I lack Swift’s gift for rhetoric, and my own modest proposal is much less extreme than his, I can try my hand at doing the same.
Opponents of the right to keep and bear arms use several specious arguments, some of the most popular of which fall within what I dub “Collective Right Theory,” to support their position. It’s a textualist claim: The story goes that because the Second Amendment doesn’t protect people’s right to keep and bear arms per se, but rather the state governments’ power to raise National Guard units. The National Guard didn’t really exist in its present form until 1903, but I propose that we concede the broader point and allow that the Second Amendment grants each state the power to raise a “well-regulated militia.” To that end, I propose the Militia Act of 2027, outlined below.
To make sure we really get it right and follow the Second Amendment’s militia clause exactly as it would have been understood at the time that it was passed, the Militia Act of 2027 recycles and slightly updates the provisions from the Militia Acts of 1792, the first such laws passed after the Bill of Rights was ratified. Selected provisions of the new bill are outlined below.
Every citizen aged 18 through 44 is to automatically enrolled in the militia of his or her state of residence, unless disqualified or exempted. Disqualifying factors include having a significant physical or mental disability, having been convicted of a violent crime, or currently serving out a criminal punishment such as prison time or supervised release.
Within six months of enrollment, you must provide yourself with an adequate self-loading rifle chambered for a round at least as powerful as 5.56×45, a suitable bayonet, a spare bolt and firing pin, an internal-frame pack, web gear with pouches containing at least 120 rounds in loaded magazines for the rifle. Whenever called upon by your state militia’s commanding officer to participate in exercises or duty, you must bring all the aforementioned equipment. Exercises and equipment inspections occur at least once per year.
The president can call up the militia to defend the country against current or imminent invasion or insurrection or to respond to emergencies of similar severity. During militia service, you receive the same pay and benefits, and are subject to the same regulations, as a regular soldier of equivalent rank. If you’re wounded in action, the government will cover your healthcare and recovery costs. You cannot be compelled to serve for more than three months out of a year or longer than your battalion’s rotation.
This legislation concerns an individual mandate, rather than a right, to keep and bear arms. If opponents of that right want to contend the Second Amendment was only ever intended to support the militia system, we can have it their way. That means we’re all required to own military-grade small arms equipment and we get trained to use them on the government’s dime. It also means the conscripted militiamen of at least one in five companies receives additional training as specialist troops (“grenadiers, light infantry, or riflemen” in the 1792 original).
There’s a contingent of the anti-2A movement who think the right to keep and bear arms only applies to the types of arms they own. I’m talking about the “I’m a gun owner but…” types who think their .22s and hunting guns are the limit of what ordinary people should be allowed to own, and who actively campaign to ban, for example, AR-15-type rifles. They’ll be out of luck. Under the Militia Act of 2027, their Remington 700s and Marlin 60s won’t qualify as “bearable arms;” they’ll have to go out and buy M4geries and chest rigs.
Is any of this realistic? Doubtful. The DOD would balk at the idea of its line officers and NCOs having to babysit civilians instead of professional junior enlisted servicemembers. Republicans in Congress would never be willing to slash the military’s manpower budget, and many of their Democrat colleagues would be equally reticent (if not more so) to so greatly expand gun ownership.
All of that said, though, as far-out as the Militia Act of 2027 seems, it’s far more believable than Swift’s joking proposal for upper-class Englishmen to dine on human flesh. There’s a strong argument to be made that such a bill, including its mandate for most able-bodied adult citizens to own and train with military-grade weaponry, is completely in line with the founders’ intent. This isn’t as antiquated an idea as one may think, either—the Supreme Court’s 1939 Miller decision upholding the NFA relies on the reasoning that 1. its restrictions fell within Congress’ power to tax and 2. the weapons at issue, short-barreled shotguns, had no suitable military purpose. We live in a different world now, one in which explosive devices and automatic weapons are standard-issue and guided munitions are the norm. Would Collective Right Theorists suggest that those are implicitly protected for civilian ownership?
