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NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Wednesday, August 16, 2017, 12:27 PM

The armed encampment formerly known as the idyllic college town of Charlottesville showed the world what a gun-happy nation looks like: a toxic mix of armed white supremacist alt-right Neo-Nazis and KKK members protesting the removal of a statue of Robert E. Lee, counter-demonstrators, some of whom were armed, Charlottesville police, Virginia state National Guard and other so-called militias private citizens armed and outfitted in military garb who claimed to be there to keep the peace.

This confrontation revealed two epic American blunders: the idea that arming hostile groups somehow improves public safety, and the parallel notion that so-called private militias are a legitimate expression of Second Amendment rights.

To its detriment, Virginias lax gun laws allow for open civilian gun carrying and easy gun access to virtually any kind of hand-held firearm, including assault weapons. While Virginias law enforcement has been criticized for not intervening more effectively between the opposing groups, the situation was only complicated by the presence of self-styled militias, including representatives from the Pennsylvania Light Foot Militia, who claimed to be there not to take sides-although they were initially invited by the white supremacists but to help keep the peace (although theres no evidence they did anything of the kind).

According to a typical news account, these unofficial paramilitary groups . . . have long thrived across America due to the second amendments directive: 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.

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America and the rest of the world need to know that this is false: the Second Amendments right to bear arms does not protect, much less encourage, private citizens to form their own armed para-military groups.

From the colonial era on, Americans organized as militias did so and sought to do so-under the recognition and control of the state or national governments. The Bill of Rights had just been ratified when Congress enacted the Uniform Militia Act of 1792, a law designed to bring greater uniformity and control to the nations militias, which at the time were central to national defense.

In a little-known Supreme Court case from 1886, Presser vs. Illinois, the court made clear why private militias are not, and cannot be, militias under law. In ruling against the right of an armed paramilitary group to march in Chicago, the court explained that Military organization and military drill and parade under arms are subjects especially under the control of the government. . . . They cannot be claimed as a right independent of law.

To deny the government the right to restrict or outlaw such private groups would be tantamount to denying the government the right to disperse assemblages organized for sedition and treason, and the right to suppress armed mobs bent on riot and rapine (looting).

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As the court said then, the only legal militia is the National Guard. That is no less true today.

Every state in the union, including Virginia, has laws against private armies, but law enforcement is often reluctant to press the matter with armed private militias for fear of provoking an armed response. And when anyone can carry guns openly, law enforcement finds itself boxed in.

Too bad that Virginia has missed the lesson of Americas actual gun law past: by the end of the 19th century, every state but four had enacted laws to restrict civilian gun carrying, especially in the cities and towns of the old West. The best way to keep trouble from escalating, they knew, was to require everyone entering town to surrender their firearms, to be retrieved only when they left.

In the upside down world of todays gun laws, at a time of record low crime, places like Virginia seem to say the opposite: bring your guns! Carry them openly!

Our countrys forebears knew that hostilities could only be made worse when antagonists were armed, and that law enforcement was best left to the professionals. And as for private militias, if they really want to serve their country, the National Guard is still taking applications.

Spitzer is distinguished service professor and chair of political science at SUNY Cortland, and the author of five books on gun policy, including Guns Across America.

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Armed private militias like Charlottesville's offend the Founding Fathers' intent: This is not what the Second ... - New York Daily News