Many of you are probably aware that there is a YouTube channel by the name of The Young Turks (TYT for short). My first problem with them (besides that they named themselves for the perpetrators of the Armenian Genocide and are Armenian Genocide deniers) is that they are so far left wing that they fall off the side of the plane.

Their YouTube channel has been quite popular, which isn’t surprising considering that there are plenty of angsty 15-year-olds out there to pander to who are naive as to how the world works. Me, I’ve ignored them for a while. However, one of their videos caught my attention. It’s titled, “Read The WHOLE Second Amendment” (please be sure that you have AdBlock Plus on before clicking that link). In it, the host invites viewers to read the Second Amendment of the U.S. Bill of Rights.

I’m for Americans reading the entirety of the U.S. Bill of Rights. In fact, here is a link to do so. It’s not that long. It would only take a few minutes to read.

The host’s argument is that gun rights advocates only read the second part of the Second Amendment, which, when read in its entirety, is as follows:

Article the fourth… 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.

The host makes the case that the right to bear arms only applies to members of the militia, and not to citizens in general, and states that the modern-day equivalent of the militia is the police force, ignoring that there is such a thing as a preface separated by a comma that does not modify the intent of the message.

Like any liberal or otherwise far-left position, the host’s case is an appeal to ignorance. I’ll tell you why: According to the U.S. Code, I’m considered a member of the militia. In fact, you might be too. I left the following in the comment section explaining why:

I made a copy of my comment to share here due to a tendency of liberal fringe groups to eschew protected free expression and instead delete anything they can they don’t agree with (for more information on this, look up “censorship”). That liberal fringe groups engage in censorship in what is supposed to be a free and open marketplace of ideas (the internet) tells you what you need to know about them. History tells us that if censoring all other viewpoints is what’s necessary for a political ideology to thrive, it’s usually because the ideology in question can’t actually withstand intellectual challenge.

The host reads the entirety of the Second Amendment, which isn’t a bad thing, but then he proceeds to engage in word games as to what defines a militia. Whether or not he’s aware of it, the U.S. Code, which is the permanent law of the Federal Government of the United States, clearly states that all males, ages 17 to 45, who are ordinary citizens of the United States, are considered members of the militia.

Here is how it reads:

So, how about that? The host makes the case that the right to bear arms only applies to militia members, when American law defines ordinary citizens as militia members! The host made a pretty self-defeating case, didn’t he? What’s more, the law extends to those who so much as state the intention to become a United States citizen!

This means that the permanent law of the United States, according to U.S. Code, protects someone’s right to bear arms from the moment they state the intention of becoming a U.S. citizen forward!

There are those who would probably think that this is just some quaint relic of a law from the colonial period, perhaps a practical idea at some point, but impractical in today’s modern era. There is a problem with such an assertion: the law was last edited in the 1950s. This means that this law was intended for modern application.

One more liberal argument refuted. Not that that means that we’ll hear the last of it. Liberals and left-wing fringe groups love to prey on ignorance, so they’ll likely try to peddle the argument that TYT made, or some modification thereof.

Still, something about their argument is pretty chilling: the insistence that only police own guns. Are liberals even aware that they are working to create an environment in which dissent can be easily suppressed by force by a powerful federal agency? If such a thing were to come about, it would likely last well beyond the popularity of the liberal ideology in its current state, and come to be employed by an opposing political ideology that would have an equal or greater intolerance for dissent. That’s the kind of thing that the U.S. Constitution and the U.S. Bill of Rights was written with the intention of preventing.

“I ask, Sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people. To disarm the people is the best and most effectual way to enslave them.” – George Mason