19 Disclosed US History Myths - History Collection

19. Myth: The “Right to Bear Arms” Amendment was always the Second Amendment.

Fact: The Second Amendment was actually proposed as the Fourth Amendment – Congress had something else in mind for the Second Amendment.

When James Madison took the floor of the House of Representatives and presented a list of amendments to the recently ratified Constitution, he presented a list of twelve amendments which he referred to as the Bill of Rights. Though Congress passed all of the amendments proposed, the first two were not ratified by the states, although the second, which dealt with Congress granting themselves a raise, finally was ratified in 1992, having waited 202 years, seven months, and ten days to reach the requisite number of states. It was ratified as the 27^th amendment, though it had been submitted as the second. The other, the first submitted, dealt with apportionment.

So the amendment which is considered sacrosanct by some, and which remains in constant debate over Madison’s intent when he wrote it, went from being the fourth amendment to the second. It was originally written as “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. If the founders’ thoughts on the Bill of Rights are to be considered literally and accepted, the Bill of Rights should include the twenty-seventh amendment, since Madison placed it second in his original document, making it clear that he intended it should be part of the Bill of Rights.

Where do we find this stuff? Here are our sources:

“The American Dream of Captain John Smith”, by J. A. Leo Lemay, 1991

“The $24 Swindle: The Indians who sold Manhattan were bilked all right but they didn’t mind – the land wasn’t theirs anyway”, by Nathaniel Benchley, American Heritage Magazine, December 1959

“Five myths about the Salem Witch Trials”, by Stacy Schiff, The Washington Post, October 28, 2016

“The Man Who Wrote the Pledge of Allegiance”, by Jeffrey Owen Jones, Smithsonian Magazine, December 2003

“Did George Washington Wear a Wig”, FAQs, The Papers of George Washington, The University of Virginia Archives, online

“Supplying Washington’s Army”, by Erna Risch, United States Army Center of Military History, 1981, online

“Paul Revere’s Ride”, by David Hackett Fischer, 1994

“Edgar Allan Poe: His Life and Legacy”, by Jeffrey Meyers, 1992

“Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant”, by Ulysses S. Grant, 2003

“Home is the Sailor”, by Adam Goodheart, Smithsonian Magazine, April 2006

“George Washington, Spymaster”, by George Washington’s Mount Vernon, online