In the twentieth of September 1789 the United States congress proposed ten amendments that were later ratified two years later. These amendments are known as the bill of right, which are rights that were created to protect and defend our individual rights and liberties. Of the amendments on the bill of right there is one that seems to constantly be undecided on what it actually means. The second amendment which reads, "A Well Regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." Many believe that the meaning of the second amendment is that anyone and everyone should be allowed to hold and possess as many guns as they please. While others feel that the second amendment only allows that a selected group under the command of their state be allowed to possess arms and only during times where the individual's life is in danger. What Saul Cornell introduces is the idea that the constitution's real interpretation of the amendment was neither and individual right of self – defense or a collective right of the state but a right for citizens to bear arm for until their legal obligation was met. This debate has been going on for centuries but there is yet to be one joint idea on what our fathers really meant when they had written the 2nd amendment. .
In the early times of the American Revolution, before the formal creation of a joint American army. It was up to the minute men to rise up and fight the invading British soldiers. The minute men were nothing more than your average citizens, who when needed would rise up to the call grab a gun and defend the people they loved from the invading by the British forces. The members of the minutemen were never really about being individual but saw that they were a part of a larger group of people who all shared the same goal. What made it a civic obligation for citizens to have to bear arms to defend themselves was that they lived in small rural communities.
