Power & Market

New Video: A Lecture on State Militias and the Second Amendment

Ryan McMaken at Oklahoma State University

The is the second of two lectures I recently gave for the Free Enterprise Society at Oklahoma State University. In this talk, I examine origins of the Second Amendment in the English Civil Wars and how English opponents of absolutism preferred local militias to a national standing army. I look at how the Second Amendment was supposed to serve a similar purpose and ensure that each state possessed enough independent military power to counterbalance federal military power. Unfortunately, the independent state and local militias in America were eventually replaced by the "National Guard" which is essentially now a reserve force for the federal government's enormous standing army. 

The full video is approximately an hour long: 

Remote video URL
image/svg+xml
Note: The views expressed on Mises.org are not necessarily those of the Mises Institute.
What is the Mises Institute?

The Mises Institute is a non-profit organization that exists to promote teaching and research in the Austrian School of economics, individual freedom, honest history, and international peace, in the tradition of Ludwig von Mises and Murray N. Rothbard. 

Non-political, non-partisan, and non-PC, we advocate a radical shift in the intellectual climate, away from statism and toward a private property order. We believe that our foundational ideas are of permanent value, and oppose all efforts at compromise, sellout, and amalgamation of these ideas with fashionable political, cultural, and social doctrines inimical to their spirit.

Become a Member
Mises Institute