Nicolle Wallace: Second Amendment Meant to Fight ‘Foreign Militias,’ Not Have ‘Armed Population’

Earlier this week, Nicolle Wallace offered a novel characterization about the original intent behind the Second Amendment and gun ownership in America.

Wallace held a discussion about gun rights on Tuesday, where she lamented how America seems to “careen from tragedy to tragedy” without taking any kind of legislative action to prevent mass shootings. As Wallace spoke with actress Julianne Moore and gun control activist John Feinblatt, she brought up a prominent op-ed from New York Times columnist, Bret Stephens

“He said the intellectually honest way to have this debate is to say that this isn’t what was intended, that we’re an armed population,” Wallace said. Ok fair enough but then she got herself into some trouble. “This was a right to bear arms against foreign militias.” Of course, the Amendment had nothing to do with foreign militias and was written to protect the right of individuals to own guns as part of state militias right here in the United States. The debate is over whether individuals who are not part of state militias (just about everyone these days), should be able to invoke the Second Amendment to claim a right to own a gun. The Supreme Court has ruled that individuals do have a Second Amendment right but even those critical of that decision would not argue that it had anything to do with foreign militias.

The Second Amendment states that “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.” While foreign militias aren’t the issue, there is still a significant legal debate about the intended scope of those words.

Watch above, via MSNBC.

[Image via screengrab]

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