Take the case of Stephen P. Halbrook, one of the central figures in this new literature. His imaginative manipulation of evidence runs to arguments like this, from his 1989 book, A Right to Bear Arms: the Second Amendment cannot be referring only to military weapons, since a Federal-period dictionary (Noah Webster’s), under “bear,” lists “to bear arms in a coat” as one usage, and only a handgun could be carried in a coat pocket.
Mr. Halbrook does not recognize the term “coat of arms,” a decidedly military form of heraldry presided over by the College of Arms (by Mr. Halbrook’s interpretative standards, a medical institution specializing in the brachium).
The quality of the school’s arguments can be seen in the very article that proposes the “Standard Model” as the norm of scholarship in this area. Glenn Harlan Reynolds “proves” that the Second Amendment looked to private ownership of guns by quoting Patrick Henry, in these words (and these words only): “The great object is that every man be armed…. Everyone who is able may have a gun.”
That quotation comes from the debate over adopting the Constitution. It cannot, therefore, be concerned with the Second Amendment, which was not proposed until after the Constitution was in effect. Henry is not discussing the Amendment’s text, which the Standard Model says looks to other weapons than those used by the militias (citizens’ armies) of the states. Henry is talking precisely about the militia clause in the Constitution, which refers only to military weapons (“Congress shall have the power to provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the militia,” Article I, Section 8, Clause 16). Henry argues that federal arming of militias will either supplant or duplicate the states’ arming of their own forces (the arrangement under the Articles of Confederation and in colonial times). He says that, in the case of duplication.
Our militia shall have two sets of arms, double sets of regimentals, &c.; and thus, at a very great cost, we shall be doubly armed. The great object is that every man [of the militia] be armed. But can the people afford to pay for double sets of arms, &c? Every one who is able may have a gun. But we have learned, by experience, that, necessary as it is to have arms, and though our Assembly has, by a succession of laws for many years, endeavored to have the militia completely armed, it is still far from being the case.
The debate throughout is on ways to arm the militia. The “arms” referred to are cognate with “regimentals, etc.” as military equipment. The attempts to get guns in every hand are the result of state laws for equipping the militia. Henry is saying that if the states could not do this heretofore, how is the federal government to do it?
Time after time, in dreary expectable ways, the quotes bandied about by Standard Model scholars turn out to be truncated, removed from context, twisted, or applied to a debate different from that over the Second Amendment. Those who would argue with them soon tire of the chase from one misquotation to another, and dismiss the whole exercise—causing the angry reaction from Standard Modelers that they are not taken seriously. The problem is that taking them seriously is precisely what undermines their claims.