mr. johnson, mr. kris, we appreciate your testimony today. please submit to us what else will be helpful including the official recommendations that we referred to a few moments ago. with that, we're adjourned. ..

>> >> my name is robert churchill, i'm professor at the university of hartford, and tonight, we are going to talk to you a little bit and then discuss and maybe do a little debating on the history of the second amendment and the issues of gun rights and

gun control and a concept known as the insurrectionary idea or what happens you could call it differently, insurrectionary politics. i would like to introduce to you now the first speaker for today, that is joshua horowitz. joshua horowitz is the executive director of the coalition to stop gun violence. he is a visiting scholar at john hopkins bloomberg school of public health and he is the co-author with casey anderson of "guns, democracy, and the insurrectionist idea." >> my name is josh horowitz, thank you very much for having me tonight. as professor churchill said i'm the co-author of "guns, democracy and the insurrectio insurrectionist idea." i am very pleased to be here and i want to thank professor

horowitz for being here, this is his brain child and thank you very much for doing that. i wrote -- casey and i wrote this book and we tout about this book as a critique of the idea that unfettered access to firearms keeps us free, so today in this debate, we're not necessarily talking about the right to conceal-carry, the ability to own assault weapons. what we're talking about is the idea that political violence is authorized -- with arms is authorized under the constitution, is that part of our second amendment legacy and then of course, is that something that's healthy and good for this country? my idea is that i believe it's a state with strong democratic institutions like the rule of law courts, voting, is a key to individual freedom and liberty,

although i've been very concerned over the last 10 years or so, i've really noticed and this is the impetus for this book, that the gun lobby has been taking up a lot of what i call the insurrectionist idea, but they've disstilled it into slogans, for instance, we heard freedom isn't free, and most reseptemberly, the guys with the guns make the rules, with these slogans, they're articulate ago theory and a relationship between the ideas of freedom and liberty and the unfit at thed access to firearms and freedom. i think to me, this is a very broad reading of the second amendment. it's a view that protects individual freedom from government oppression and tierney. individuals have the right to protect themselves with firearms against government oppression and i think we've seen an example here of what i'm talking about.

when i started writing the book people said that's a big issue. it's a big issue not only from an intellectual pursuit but a real world pursuit and the example we've seen recently in connecticut is the example of a former lobbyist who was very upset with this legislation having to do with the catholic church, that was recently arrested after threatening some lawmakers and asking gun owners to in effect, kill people with their firearms, but what i thought was interesting about that, was that he did it in a constitutional context, which was obey the constitution or die i think was his language. this is part of -- that idea is i think, a symptom of the bigger idea, and i'm not -- i want to make this very clear, i am not saying that all people that have the insurrectionist idea are out there going to kill somebody. i'm saying that some people wi

will -- are going out and will use, but i think it's a minority but as far as a political idea, it's a very dangerous idea for our determines. i think one -- for our democracy. it attempts to portray our government as inept and a threat to individual rights. the government is seen often if you read some of these readings as an alien force, something that is not of the people, something that is sort of different. my view is that -- first of all, my view is that abuses by the government must be dealt with, not without protest but if a non-violent manner. i think that that means that we have to do the tedious and hard work of citizenship by being involved, we have to be engaged with our fellow citizens. i want to point out that my history has not always been and will not be as a defend of the government in all circumstances. i think the government has been

involved in horrendous abuses. my personal background, many years ago before i did this, i was involved as a civil rights lawyer and i represented people who have been wrongfully injured by the government, who have been wrongfully imprisoned, threatened with death by the government, but i think what we want to do is we look for that balance and i believe that that balance of protecting liberty, is not -- is not at the barrel of a gun. i do believe that insurrectionism, the need to have firearms as a fail stop against government tyranny is an idea that must be taken seriously and as i said when i wrote this book, people said to me, this is really silly, no one ever thinks this. i think professor churchill's writing is great testimony, this is a serious intellectual idea and engaging in this debate, discussion is very, very important, but i think it's been popularized by the gun lobby

with the nra in the lead, it's also -- we see that in the sloganized as freedom isn't free and the guys with the guns make the rules, but you know, it's been taken up by academics, by legal academics, and of course the supreme court recently in the heller decision which overturned the d.k.c. gun laws which is a ban on gun laws, reached back to some of the language and found that part of the protections here is a right to protect against government tyranny. and he i think justice scalia who wrote that opinion said that, you know, that citizens are entitled to arm themselves, and to connect to others, other citizens to counter government tyranny and it was very specific that he said other citizens and not just the state-based militia, which is where i disagree with that. i think if there is -- i think that any of these -- any of the types of these political rights have to be exercised in

conjunction, at a minimum -- that the real argument to mow is whether you have political rights to sort of violence against government at all and if it is, the only way it ever could be conceived, it was conceived by the anti-federalists was within a state-based type of system. i think there's sort of three mythologist that infuse the insurrectionist idea and being i'm not going to get into all of them but being the revolution and the constitution, the drafting of these was probably, you know, the mythology, it's more the mythology, there may be effective law, of course, in the constitution, but i think the movement itself is infused with sort of three different ideas at least, and many more, but one is that the -- that we formed a revolution and we still have some of those rights. i think the other myth is the aftermath of the civil war and reconstruction, that if only

african-americans had more firearms, that the reconstruction and jim crow then would not have occurred. i'm not going to spend too much time there other than to just address that in that in my view, you know, that's a debate between federal power and not federal power, i think federal power in that circumstance is -- the lack of it in fact led to jim crow. i'm not going to spend too much time to that argument but the third one is the nazi myth and if jews had more firearms that they would have been able to stop the third reich. so i'm going to spend a little time with the first and third. i'm happy to answer questions about the second but i have a limited amount of time. i believe that the insurrectionist idea was rejected by the founders, i think it was advanced by those who were on the losing side of the constitutional debate. i believe that the constitution was specifically framed to address the inherent weakness in

the national government, the articles of con federation didn't give washington enough power. washington's army almost starved to death, the army that was weak had to rely on the state milit militia. and i think shay's rebellion was one of those things that was central, which was of course nearby in western massachusetts to the framing of the constitution and it was -- you know, shay's rebellion was the kind of thing that gave the founders hives. they didn't have the tools to deal with it, it was anarchy, people were saying they were self-styled militias, and people had to be put down and at the time of the constitution was being drafted, fear of disunion, and anarchy ran very high and i believe that's the reason george

washington came back to public life. i know oliver ellsworth has written about coming to public life because of that, but i think we saw in the constitution, it was a revolution in favor of government, not against government. i think the idea that we had lived the revolutionary ideals for 13 years, or for a while, and my math is not so good and it was too much. we had to create a strong central government because you couldn't govern by revolution, we couldn't have a perpetual revolution. some of the evidence i find for that is the crime of treason is specified if the constitution, and that the constitution itself calls out, authorizes the calling out of the militia to put down, not ferment insurrection. i believe that the second amendment was a federalism provision, that once these militia clauses were put into the constitution, that there was certainly some fear that, you know, the states would lose

power over their own militia. i think that madison made that very clear in the virginia debates that what the power in the constitution would be shared concurrently with the states, and i believe that the second amendment solidified that, codified that so that the state militia would be there to protect the state from all different things. i think the idea that the state militia was there to protect against federal tyranny i think may be the least important of those ideas. i think if you look at the virginia ratification debates it was clear that slavery and slave patrols -- people felt militias were needed for that. i could go on about this, but i think that it's clear to say that the insurrectionary idea was rejected by most of our founders. i think madison, hamilton, washington, jefferson at various times, both during the framing of the constitution and the framing of the bill of rights and immediately there after found that the insurrectionary

idea was too dangerous and it was really not a form of government. i -- this is maybe not the best quote to use, but i like to go to lincoln for some verification and backup on this and i could go to some of the founding quote, but i will say that i like lincoln from his first inaugural address. i hold that in contemplation of universal law and of the constitution, the unity of states is perpetual. perpetuity is implied, if not expressed in the fundamental laws of all national governments. it is safe to assert that no government proper ever had a provision in its organic law for its own termination. continue to execute all the express provisions of our national constitution and the union will endure forever, it being impossible to destroy, except by some action not provided for itself. it follows from these views that no state upon its own mere motion can lawfully get out of the union. that resolves an ordinance to

that effect are legally void and that acts of violence within any state or states against the authority of the united states are insurrectionary or revolutionary, according to circumstances. originally if his original draft, lincoln did not have revolutionary, he had treasonable. so i think it gives you an idea how he viewed taking up arms against the united states. i'm going to be brief, i'm taking por time than i should. but i want to briefly address this idea about one of the ideas that infuses the insurrectionist movement is the idea that nazi gather many is a warning against the evils of gun control. i think that we look at the historical record, you will find that after world war i, germany was an incredibly weak state. everybody, almost all the parties were looking for it to fail. and it had a very limited -- and it did have gun control laws, but it did have a limited amount to enforce those laws.

its army was limited by the treaty of versailles to 100,000 people. what gave rise i think to naziism and hitler was the inability of the german state to control that private militia, and i think that private militia took its reins of a pod earn state and i think had the government been stronger, not weaker, and had it had commitment to the rule of law, and had it had the ability to disarm the s.s., the s.a., that germany may not have gone down that path, but with the political violence that was easily accessible with the firearms and the other activities, the states was too weak to prevent that and of course it disrupted all the other parties. so i think insurrectionary should be taken seriously that we should keep states weak and individuals with a firearms as a check on that is a very dangerous idea. i want to briefly talk about some things that are not historical, but i think are

more -- i think are more of the insurrectionary idea, just a really bad idea. my -- you see this on the internet frequently and you see the idea, you've seen the slogan, vote from the rooftops. it's basically an idea that things don't go the way you want, you have the ability to, you know, to use your firearms to produce the results that you want. i think this is what you saw with this person in connecticut, i think this idea was rejected, and should be rejected, because a government that does not have the force to protect its own laws, protect its own votes is not a government. it's some type of other state, but it can't protect -- with you think about what protects our rights today, it's our vigilance, it's our bill of rights, but it's also the ability of the government to vindicate part of toes rights, to protect those rights. you can think of things like trial by jury. you just can't do that in a courtyard, you have to have the government involved.

i think when you know about the rule of law, and the right of redress, we've seen -- we've seen recently that people who i represent, who have lawsuits against firearms manufacturers, for instance, have been thrown out of court bylaws that congress has passed. my feeling is that is something that congress -- that -- at the gun lobby's request, we've weakened governments, i think those rights need to be protected by the government. i think the government balancing those rights is very important, and i think the idea that we're -- we should have an ability -- that we should have an ability, people should have an ability to vindicate their own personal rights or even maybe a community right by force of arms, i think creates something that's not a state, that is not a democratic process. i'm going to end now. i'll probably say a few more words and i think we'll get into a discussion of this, but i've gone 15 minutes, i want to give

professor churchill some time up here. is. >> professor robert churchill is speaking next. he's associate professor at the university of hartford. he's the author of several scholarly articles on gun ownership and violence in america. ames the author of "to shake the guns in the tyrant's face." i want to say that he's also someone that i may not agree with all the time, but i think that professor, you're absolutely asking the right questions and that the discussion we're having tonight is at the core of what should be discussed if the gandhi bait and it's such a pleasure to have you up here tonight. >> thank you very much, josh, and thank you for coming all it way. i really appreciate it. i guess i want to say i come at

this from a different direction than josh does, because i'm an academic, so i'm not sort of down in the political trenches trying to make policy and to a certain extent, that means that the kinds of questions you ask are different and perhaps it gives me a little bit of idea to come to conclusions, that as a political animal i don't particularly like sometimes. the other thing is that as an academic, and i don't mean this as a shot, but as an academic, i'm not big on the concept of dangerous ideas. and that some of it strains the insurrectionary idea can be dangerous, but i think it's really important to differentiate between a bunch of different discourses on the right side of american politics,

differentiating between those and the discourses that you find among mainstream groups, lobbying groups and differentiating between toes and what is essentially an academic debate, and so i would urge caution when talking about the insurrectionary idea and talking about people and referring to people as insurrectionists, that you don't throw everybody in the same pot, because i think that that's a problem. the -- i'm a historian, so i like to tell stories, and the story that i want to tell today begins and ends with something called wig ideology. and wig ideology is a set of 18th century ideas that motivated the people who founded this country to overthrow their lawful government and i think it's really important to understand what those ideas are and then maybe how they might be

salient today. wig ideology is an ideology that describes a natural process by which liberty decays over time, by which a republic would evolve into a corrupt empire and then finally into a despoddic state, and according to wig ideology, what that process looks like is that a party comes to our we are and it seems -- to power and it seeks to accumulate more and more power in its own hands. it does this by gradually centralizing authority into a national government, and particularly into the executive branches of that government. wig ideology depicts two kinds of villians, the first villian is the corrupt leader who is a would-be dictator. but tears another kind of

villian who is a leader, who is perhaps well meaning, but is manipulated behind the scenes by evil minded courtiers let's say for the sake of argument, a vice-president lurking in the shadows of an underground bunker, in an undisclosed location. fiscal policy is used by the state to reward the followers of this party. in the 18th century, what it looked like was to pass a tax that needed lots and lots of people to collect it and then you get to appoint all of your followers as tax collectors and then you get to pay them out of the state purse and so you enrich your party. i think today you could argue that tax cuts targeted to select groups are a modern equivalent. electoral results are ma nippated to keep the party in

power. we certainly never experienced that. law enforcement become militarized. and law enforcement becomes more aggressive in its -- in the way that it treats the citizens. harsh laws are passed to provoke resistance so that that resistance can be crushed. constitutional safeguards are ignored, sometimes openly, sometimes in secret. and if we think about all of the debate about surveillance and whether we have the right to know whether surveillance took place or what kind of surveillance is taking place today and whether that surveillance is constitutional, it's what it's all about. the regime whips up a foreign or a domestic crisis to rally the populace against a diabolical enemy. critics are denounced as fellow travelers asked perhaps were they hate our freedoms. the regime demands unprecedented emergency powers to protect the

people and the people surrender their liberty in exchange for the illusion of security. now the point is this is not a left wing or a right wing idea. it's an idea that resonated powerfully in the 18th century and is perhaps still salient today but wig ideology leaves us two moral principles as a legacy. the first principle is that the people must be willing to resist tyranny and that they must therefore retain the capacity to do so. and the second principle is that the politics of fear will always undermine liberty. and hence, the politics of fear is a road that we should not go down. now, i want to make three brief historical points and then i want to talk about fear and the way that it resonates in the present. the first historical point is that the right and capacity of

resistance are central to the meaning of the second amendments. the second point is that the right of resistance remains theory through the civil war. and the third is that the fear american politics, the fear that thatxd drivesñr wig ideology ouf american politics is no friend to progressive politics. so here's the first point. what happens in the 18th -- in the 1780's, after the constitution is ratified, is that the anti-federalists engage in what is quite clearly a wig critique of the constitution. they describe it as that classir symptom of the centralization of government. they argue that power would

collect at the federal level and the states would become emfeebled that its taxation powers were too broad and the states would be deprived of revenue and would eventuallyñixd shrivel up andñi die and they argue that this newçó government was insufficiently represented and it would arguably escape the will of the people, but perhaps the most important argument that they made was that the powers or coercion vested in this new federal government would allow it to essentially flout the will of its constituents. they argued that the federal power to create a standing army was dangerous and that the fact that there was power in the constitution to create a peacetime military establishment was wrong. and they argued also that the power granted to the federal clauses of the constitution to organize,ñr arm, and train theçó militia would allowñi the federi

governmentxdmy to deprive the e of the capacity toñr resist the federal government if the federal government turned to despotism. these are the anti-federalists. josh, excuse me, i'm caught in my text. as josh says, they're the losers of this debate, because it is not a debate and what happened is the federalists in the fall of 1887 and the spring of 1788, -- 1787 and the spring of 1887, respond to the federalist critique. because the anti-federalists are basicallylp saying that the constitutionñir remarks a repudiation of the revolution and that's an argument with legs, and if that argument catches on, the constitution willñi not be ratified and so te federalists begin to make

rhetorical concessions in the debate. and what they argue is that under the constitution, the people still retained the capacity to resist. because they retained their arms and because they retained the institution of the militia. so i'm going to read now a passage from noah webster, who i think puts this particularly plainly. in america, webster wrote in the fall of 1787, the whole body of the people are armed. and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops that can be raised in the united states. a military force at the command of congress can execute no loss, but such as the people perceived to be just and constitutional, for they will possess the power and jealousy will instantly inspire the inclination to

resist the execution of a law which appears to them unjust and oppressive. so what webster is saying is if the federal government should use these coercive powers to try to enforce policies that are unconstitutional and despoddic, the people will simply gather in the militia and use military force to force the government to back down. this is the insurrectionary idea. right? but this is noah webster, who is an ardent federalist and there are half a dozen other federalists who over the course of the next two months articulate very much the same idea, and among those individuals are two we know as alexander hamilton and james madison. so in this debate, what happens is the federalists get forced to concede that even if this new constitutional structure of a

national government fails, even if all of the checks and balances aren't enough, in the last analysis, as a last resort, the militia and the people's arms will be there and that they will avail themselves of them. now, the anti-federalists are not satisfied with with rhetorical concession because it's merely rhetorical and so what happens in the virginia debate is that the anti-federalists ask for concrete assurances that this is the case. and two pieces of text come out of that debate. the first is language that's written by george mason that as josh says, notes that the power of the militia will be concurrent between the state and the federal government.

but the leading anti-federalists in the debate, george mason and patrick henry, are not satisfied with that simple matter of saying that the state still has power over the militia. what they want is they want to ensure that a particular form of militia will be maintained. and that is the militia composed of the body of the people, or sometimes referred to as the universal militia. and they felt that only if everyone belonged to -- belonged in the militia, if everyone was organized in the militia, would the militia actually be able to fulfill its revolutionary function. now what i will argue is the second idea that leads to the draft of the second amendment that comes out of virginia which says the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed and the well regulated

militia composed of the body of the people is a necessary safeguard to freedom. so that's of the first point. if the second amendment is absolutely informed by the insurrectionary idea. the second point is that this idea continues to be an important part of american politics. and it continues to resonate right through the civil war. now, josh mentioned shay's rebellion and he mentions in his book the whiskey rebellion, but the real test of this idea isn't 1787 and it isn't 1794. it's 1798, 1799, because what happens is there's the first real insurrection in the constitution. the federalists pass a package of legislation to prepare the country with a war with france, in other words, we have a war coming and the federalists whip it up into a crisis and they

begin to pass legislation, including a new army and including new taxes, and including laws cracking down on immigrants, and a law that makes criticism of the officers of the federal government illegal. the alien acts are arguably unconstitutional. and so what happens is that the new democratic republican party begins to protest against these laws and what they do is they launch a campaign that is designed to nullify these laws, that is to say, they publicly announce that they will not obey the sedition act and they will not obey the alien act. they argue the alien sedition acts are unconstitutional, they argue that they are therefore void and not obligatory and they warn that resistance to these acts is legitimate. now, here the words i'm about to

read are by evidence ward livingston. edward livingston is it a congressman from new york, so this isn't some joe out -- this is no country bumpkin out in the sticks and this is what livingston says on the floor of the house of representatives in 1998. -- 1798. if we are ready to violate the constitution we have sworn to defend, will the people submit to unauthorized acts? will the state sanction or usurp powers? sir, they ought not to submit. they would deserve the chains for which these measures are for them, if they did not resist. what happens is that democratic republicans up and down the eastern seaboard begin toasting edward livingston's health and passing resolutions announcing that they will not obey the sedition act. this discourse is thus worn into

mainstream politics, this is the discourse of republican opposition in 1998. it's -- 1798. it's not marginal in any sense. as we all know, the democratic republicans go on to win the elections of 1800, they go on to take power notelets because jefferson and -- not least because jefferson and madison threatened the federalists that if they stay in power there will be civil war and as a result, this idea that the people have a continuing right to face down their governments, that the people should retain a continuing capacity to rise up in arms, should the government turn tyrannyical because the majority of the party for the first half of the century. iin 1826, this is on the 50th 50th anniversary of the revolution of the signing of the declaration of independence, a

militia company in petersburg, virginia, is protesting against what is called the corrupt bargain, whereby john quincy adams had won a majority in the electoral college, even though clearly he had been the loser in those states that toiled molar vote for president in 1824. so this was the toast of the militiamen in petersburg. the people, the only source of legitimate power, they november it and will speak in thunder to those who forget it. they follow this toast with six rounds of gunfire, six cheers and the singing of the marsailles. those rounds of gunfire were their way of demonstrating that they would take john quincy adams on again if he ever tried it again and the very same militia companies will become the core of support for andrew jackson in 1828.

the insurrectionary impulse, this idea of insurrection, as a legitimate part of politics does go away. it goes away in the aftermath of the civil war, but it goes away in a particular way that should give us pause. the idea that the state should hold a monopoly on legitimate violence, and that the hallmark of citizenship -- that the hallmark of citizenship is obedience, and not the willingness to stand up against the government as necessary, did not come into american politics in 1877. the reaction to the trauma of the civil war, but largely it is response to the great strike of 1877, the nation's first labor uprising. it is fear that these striking workers, that gives revolution a bad name in american politics for the first time.

in other words, it is the first stirrings of american anti-communism that drives the insurrectionary impulse out of american politics. now, my book, to shake their guns in the tyrant's face, is about not only how does this impulse get rooted in american politics, how it gets driven out, but the third part of my book is about how this idea comes back into american politics in the 1990's. and i want to just touch on that briefly, because essentially what happens is that the national rifle association in the 1980's went looking for the history of the second amendment. they wanted to make an argument against gun control. they began looking in the history of the second amendment. they began reading all sorts of 18th century text, and lo and behold, they found wig ideology. which nobody had talked about at least outside of academia for

quite a long time. the technological revolution that was happening in the late 1980's and early 1990's created new opportunities for discussing and networking among folks who were part of this discussion and then horrific acts of state violence at ruby ridge and waco created a sense of imminent threat to many folks, particularly on the far right. and the result was the militia movement. which after 1995, was a political response to state violence using 18th century institutions, the militia, and 18th century ideas. and the last thing i want to say to you is that regardless of how fearful militia men and women were of their government, and they were plenty fearful of it, our fear of them may be more dangerous. we talk about in history, we talk a lot about mccarthyism and

mccarthyism is an example of what is called a red scare. that is to say, a panic in which the fear of the left comes to dominate discussion and everybody on the left gets tarred with being an anarchist or a radical. but there's also another kind of scare, which is called a brown scare. and what happens in the 1990's is we get our second brown scare, after of the oklahoma city bombing. where suddenly the militias are in the news and everybody is afraid that is true militias are coming. -- that the militias are coming. suddenly everybody is afraid there's going to be more bombings, we are watching the militias in the movies, we are watching the militia on tv, they seem hungry for violence, they seem very racist. what this does is it paves the way for demands for new government powers to help defend

us against the threat of domestic tyranny and the point that i want to make is that the brown scare in the late 1990's paved the way for the kits course of anti-terrorism after september 11, 2001, right. the patriot act passed so easily in some ways because folks on the left have been arguing that we feed similar powers for a long time and so the move towards greater government surveillance of speech, the move towards greater government surveillance of particular groups who seemed unamerican, what we do is we run right from the brown scare into an anti-muslim scare, and now i would argue that the pendulum is swinging the other way. the anti-muslim scare seems to be dying down and now we seem to be swinging back to an exaggerated fear of the far right.

and i simply would say this. the politics of today would no more lead to the politics of fear five years ago and it is time to follow the examples of the fathers and turn away from the politics of fear. thank you very much. [applause] >> let me make a couple of comments and then we'll open it up for comments. i think we have a great crowd and i don't want to take up too much time. i want to make one thing clear with i talk about a dangerous idea, which was professor churchill's first point is that my remedy is not to criminalize ideas. it's to fight them with rhetoric. i think you don't obviously criminalize things until they become violent, but i think it is important that we as citizens understand what i consider the threat of the insurrectionist

idea and especially, it's the idea that it can be personalized, individualized and that we, with our words and with our deeds and with our civic engagement, counter that, because i think if we let that get any further, it's already starting to get into the supreme court jurisprudence, it will b be -- it will lead to a very dangerous future. i think on the idea of the chronology of the second amendment, i think that's an interesting idea and i think it's -- professor, i think it's very well researched and laid out. i will say though, that i think that when hamilton and madison are talking about what will happen in the -- if they have to resist government in the federalists, they are talking about when the constitution is to more. i believe, and i think most historians would agree with me,

that with they talk about these, especially madison, hamilton -- in federalist 40 sick, you can tell the fear in his voice, in the voice, and he's certainly talking about doing it with the affections of governments of their affection, which i think most historians, i would like to hear more about that from professor churchill, but i think the idea that this is an individualized right, certainly there was a threat to that. saul cornell in miss book "the other founders" made the point that there certainly was an individualized right among the radical anti-federalists and there's quotes to that effect, there's no doubt about that, but that the main argument was between the states, which most anti-federalists believe the state was the protector of liberty and they want to make sure that the states had power to protect the liberty that they traditionally had. the virginia ratifying convention, james madison

responding to patrick henry's complaint is from our book, but the new constitution gave too much power over the militia to congress stated there never was a government without force. what is the meaning of government in institution to make people do their duty. a government leaving it to man to do his duty or not as he pleases would be a new species of government, or rather, no government at all. i'm not saying that there wasn't -- ma madison didn't say conciliatory things but as he drafted that amendment, those were the things that were involved and i think the way that he did that and the way that he talks about -- we talked about universal militia service, is that everybody could participate. so that the federal government couldn't usurp that function, and the real -- look, the real threat at that time was not the federal government bein being tyrannical. the state militia said, well, you could just take -- usurp all

our guys and take them into the federal army. they didn't want that to happen and i think saul cornell has made a really cogent argument in his book called "the well regulated militia," because the way you protect the state militia is to treat it like aplite dale right, that the body of the people could participate if the state militia and i think that's the language, that's why they chose that language. i don't find much, just because madison didn't use mason's language, i don't find that very compelling. i think if you look at the language of that time, the body of the people, it talks about a well-regulated militia in the amendment and i believe that that's what they're talking about, it's a right like voting, that people get to exercise, everybody gets to exercise, it's a protected right, but that it's not something that you get to use whenever you want. you can't vote whenever you want. you can't participate and take up arms and militia whenever you want. that's the way i look at it and i agree that it probably does

extend to the universal militia, but i think that's to participate, to protect the state's prerogative in the militias. i think that -- and i don't know why we discount the whiskey rebellion. i think the whiskey rebellion and shay's rebellion, inform the founders like no other. i have no doubt that the history of the nullification document started in 1798 and moving forward was that people did go to that anti-federalist idea and borrow from it and gain -- and take from it, and i have no doubt they did. but i think that that's what led us right into the civil war, the idea that states could nullify federal law and i believe that it was not this sort of anti-communist labor fear that led to getting rid of the insurrectionary idea, i believe it was the civil war, i believe it was lincoln's powerful prose and the amount of people that were killed to say this was not an idea to be trialed with and

it's not an idea we want to play with. a group of states said we don't like this, we want to keep our property. we have a property right and slavery, and they were afraid to lose that, even though they had lost that election through a democratic process, so that's what it looks like, an insurrection looks like. it looks like 600,000 americans losing their lives, so i think it's not something that we trifle with. now, i think to remember, fear of the militia, i think, was triggered in many parts by timothy mcveigh who killed 100 people in oklahoma city. i agree however that people should not be persecuted for their ideas. i think that the idea that right now, we are demonizing a new brown scare and we're demon highing the militia movement. if you want to see tactics of scare, see my e-mail. ewhat's written about me he on the web from parts of these movements. not all of it, but part of it.

it is meant to intimidate me and it's meant to intimidate a lot of other people and this is what i talk about, with civil discourse. we have -- equality is the key to our political discourse. if i don't treat you, if you vote differently than me, i must abide by that. if i don't, and if i think i have the right to nullify your vote with a gun, we don't have a democracy. and on the final point about the idea he that muslim -- anti-muslim feelings are dissipating, many parts of the militia movement and the gun rights movement are fueled by what they call islamic fascism and they use that over and over again to bring people into their movement and say we need to train me to organize because we are the first line of defense in case the -- you know, in case we have an islamic invasion and that's well documented on the web. of course, i don't think it's accurate, but whether you talk about that fear, it's not that we're afraid of the militia

movement. the militia movement uses fear to cow people that disagree with it, and uses the other to swallow its own ranks and to put down political opposition and that's scary. i think we should not tolerate that, and i think we should stand up for equal citizenship and equality for, among our -- equality among our citizens. that's what makes us a democracy, so i'm going to sit down with that and i think we'd love to make your questions. -- take your questions. >> so if people could hold on to their questions until they actually have the mic in their hand, that would be helpful. i'll just -- i'll respond to a couple of things briefly. i mean, the term insurrectionist gets thrown around, and it gets thrown around in the book so

that it refers to timothy mcveigh, it refers to the nra, it refers to david williamson and if they're insurrectionists, then so am i, and so when i say you need to be careful, i think you need to be more careful than you have been in the book, so that's what i'm talking about. the s.e.c. thing is, that there are lots of different flavors of insurrectionary theory out there. lots of different flavors of it in the 1 1790's and there's lots of different flavors today and most of the people, and that would include david williams and justice scalia, when they talk about insurrection, there's not talking about an individual going and shooting his legislature because he doesn't like the laws the legislature is passing, so that again, i think you need to be careful to differentiate the different kinds of strands of ideology that are out there on the far

right. there's no question, there are people out there who are speaking in a manner that is scary and there are people out there who are sending nasty e-mails, but you don't get to make people like david williams and sanford levinson or even anton scalia responsible for them because they're not and i say this because a lot of the historians that you cite in the book and that you mentioned tonight were back in the '90's suggesting that folks like levinson anlevinson needed to ar people like tim at this mcveigh, so that's why i'm cautioning you that we don't need to go back to that. i'm not going to respond about shay's rebellion anymore. better for us to go to people's

questions. you and i could duke it out for hours on that and i would suggest if people want to know about that, you have two great books in the back of the room and we'd be happy to sell them to you. so where's the mic. so if you can bring it over here. >> there's about 300 million people in this country and some percentage of them have firearms. do you see any practical way to take those firearms away? >> iowan to make this very clear. this -- my book is not about firearms possession. in my book, i make it very clear that people who have -- who want guns for self-defense should be able to have them. this is not a book about whether gun control is a good idea, it's not a book about whether we should ban handguns or not. it's a book about whether it's a reasonable idea that people should be able to have firearms to use as a political tool.

and i think -- so i'm not talking about any of those things. >> so what you're saying then is we're stuck with it, is that right? >> well, i mean, you know, if you want to put my policy hat on, we can talk about that, but i don't think that's the debate tonight. i think the debate tonight is whether there's a political right to bear arms and to -- should there be a residual opportunity for people of to have weapons if case of tyranny, so i would like to stay on that topic. i could talk to you about that but that's not what we were talking about tonight. :

me and the reason it resonated for a lot of people in the '90s is that state violence is still a problem today. and, in fact, i think you can make an argument that it's a growing problem today. and, you know, i think, for example, of the fact that 20 years ago, it was unheard of to use pepper spray against a nonviolent demonstrator and today it's standard operating procedure all around the country. in the last 10 years, we have seen for the first time police

departments use rubber bullets against people who are demonstrating nonviolently. and it's entirely possible that that will become standard operating procedure as well. if ruby ridge and waco taught us anything is that state violence is a real problem. that paramilitary policing is a real problem. and so it seems to me -- and the other thing that i want to say is that state violence is not a problem that is easily amenable within the democratic system. the united states government tortured, we don't know quite how many people to death in the last 10 years. we all know it happened. we had a great democratic election so the people who are responsible are going to jail, right? but it's not going to happen. so the problem of state violence is still with us. so i guess that's where i would come down as to why this is perhaps still salient today.

>> i'm peter cook. i'm on the board of the state of connecticut. hi, josh. last time i saw you you were testifying on the microstamp bill. >> dual functions. >> god, i don't know where to start here, guys. a little critique of my own. this is connecticut, okay? we are responsible for the constitution because we were the vote that put it over the top and we did not vote for the constitution till there was a bill of rights. we looked at the constitution and the bill of rights as a contract between the governed and the government. unfortunately, i don't think it looks like that. it's a living document to be changed by the whim of the politician without following the process to do so. i found it remarkable that nobody mentioned the 14th amendment or the true terrorist movement formed by bedford forest after the civil war. and the growth of the klu klux

klan. now, the 14th amendment said even blacks had the right to keep firearms. like the rest of us. now, that never went away. like here in connecticut, there's something in our laws which say you have to be a suitable person to have a pistol permit. well, everybody knows republicans are not suitable to a democrat and a democrat is not suitable to a republican. and that that wording was put in there as the tail end of the jim crow laws. it's got to go. there are other sayings which i think you could brought up which is apropo. there used to be the soap box, the ballot box and the cartridge box to protect our freedoms. that's gone. the other things that people forget is i could have bought a gun via mail, email, or mail at the time by sending in a box or

two and having a gun sent to me through the u.s. mail without any check. that was a right we used to have. we've done away with it. the other thing is that during the first world war and second world war, veterans sent guns home from their -- from their duty posts in europe and pacific. and then everything changed in 1968 with the assassination of a president. and then the american people weren't trusted anymore. and whether we know it or not, there was a revolution in this country in the '60s. think back. think back to the weatherman blowing up buildings in new york city. think back to the riots of the streets. >> we really sort of should get to a question. >> well, here we go. this is just a critique rather than a question. and if you want it phrased as a question, is the constitution a contract or not? and are you aware that the

connecticut constitution of 1966 states that citizens have the right to keep and bear arms for self-defense and defense of the state with no link to any militia. thank you. [applause] >> do you want to respond? >> well, you know, i think -- i think the state right to keep and bear arms clause has been interpreted relatively narrow. i think that -- but, i believe, that the state has the ability to arm and discipline the militia as they see fit. that could be expansive regulation and it could be no regulation. so i'm not -- i'm not sure that fits into this. but thank you for letting me know about the connecticut constitution, but i don't -- [inaudible] >> and, you know, to the extent that that informs a debate i think it is clear that the states retain the ability to regulate their militias and their firearms laws as they see fit, which i think is actually one of the reasons that to me

heller is a disappointing decision because i think dc should be able to regulate firearms as they see fit as well. >> you know, my response would be to say this, there's no question that there's an interest in public safety, there's an interest in public health. the policy questions i don't think are simple ones. i think, however, that we do have to answer them with an eye on history because i don't think a constitution can ever be totally malleable or else it isn't a constitution. i think people -- there are a lot of folks who say that, you know, the second amendment is sort of, you know -- it's antiquated, it's a dead letter, it's obsolete i don't think it's any more obsolete than the fifth and sixth amendment and we saw them in the last 10 years. i don't think there's any reason -- any argument that you can make as to why the second amendment should be obsolete

because of the reasons of public safety can be made with equal vigor to the fourth and fifth and sixth amendments. i think we need to keep that in mind. >> i mean, i agree with that. >> good evening. mr. churchill -- >> yes. >> i've heard the word regulate, regulation used on several occasions. would you please speak to the meaning of the word as used in the second amendment in the 1800s versus its current use in general language today. thank you. >> you know, there's actually a student of cornell's who's working on the question what does the phrase well regulated mean and i'm really looking forward to his work. i think that my take on this comes in some ways out of the fairfax militia association in

1774, which is one of the first sort of extra constitutional militias that form to fight the british at the beginning of the revolution. and george mason and george washington are founding members. and they talk about their militia as a well-regulated militia. the problem is that there isn't any law regulating at all. so clearly the phrase has additional meanings beyond regulated by law. that said, the militia as an institution in the 18th century was the creature of colonial and then state law. people didn't just put together militias. this is one of the misconceptions that folks in the militia movement during the 1990s had. people didn't just throw together militias. the state divided everybody up, told everybody what company they belonged to. the state appointed the officers. what they did in the revolution

was take that state-regulated -- that crown, that royally regulated institution and turn it against the state. and when antifederalists and federalists anticipated how an insurrection or a revolution might recur, that's pretty much what they were anticipating. what they were anticipating not individuals coming out of the woodwork. what they anticipated was the people gathering in their militia companies deciding whether or not the state or the folks with grievances had the better part of the case and then acting as the body of the people to throw their weight into either side of the question. again, potentially, using a state-regulated institution against the state if they found the state's case was the weakest. i don't know if i fully answered your question but that's my best stab at it.

>> from my reading -- >> do use the mic. it's only feeding into the cameras. >> okay. >> from my reading of the time period, the word "regulated" in the 1800s really had the meaning that it was disciplined or organized. that it was another way of terming the fact they were not rag tag groups up people but they were a unified military unit or a citizen militia of an organized nature. it wasn't that they were regulated by the federal government, certainly. but by at the state and local levels. >> they were regulated by the state, though. i mean, as i say, i think it has additional meanings except by regulated by the state. one of the foremost responsibility of a colonial or a state legislature in the 18th and 19th century was every few

years to revise the militia laws to try to figure out what it was that was interfering with the efficiency of the institution, try to figure out what they could do to make people go to muster, et cetera, so that relation is, in fact, pervasive. and the other thing is that the -- the other thing is pervasive is the regulation of the use of guns. they don't hesitate to regulate how people use their guns. they don't regulate people's possession. people have the right to keep arms and to use them in the militia. everything else is up for grabs. >> this is for professor churchill, i guess. in terms of, though, insurrectional idea and the militia idea and the idea of that being a protection perhaps

against despotism or the violation of states as you alluded to before, do you really think that the ability of these militia types, as we see them now, could ever fight against the state and the power of arms and ability to -- you know, to engage in warfare then a few militia people have? and has it instead the emphasis of what seems to me the militia groups been more toward not so much toward fear but toward hate, you know, against i don't know immigration laws, against civil rights, against that sort of thing.

i've never seen -- i mean, leaving the re bellions way behind i've never seen that translated into any possible ability to impede the state from violence or despotism if that's what they wanted to do. >> there's -- >> just one more thing. >> sure. >> what i do see is 30,000 people dying every year from guns. >> right. there's a bunch of different questions there. and i guess i'm probably not going to tackle the public health one because i'm not really qualified to speak to the 30,000 people except to say, you know, i'm an american. it's not a pretty thing. we have too many gun deaths in this country. i guess what i would say is this -- i'm going to take your second to last question first. if you want to know how the militia movement operated and what the ideology is the best thing you can do is read my book. what i would say is what you

know about it is what was -- is an imagine of the movement that was deliberately crafted during the brown scare and that is almost wholly wrong. there were two wings of the movement, one is the constitutionalist wing and the others is the millinery wing and it was kooky movement. to go back -- okay, so what possible efficacy could they have today? what possible efficacy could an armed populace have today? i guess i would answer it in two ways, one in the 1990s and one from iran today. i'm watching the news today. there's a revolution going on. and the biggest problem that the people in the streets have are the guys on the motorcycles who are beating people

indiscriminating. if more of those people in the crowds had gun those guys would be more cautious. now, maybe that would lead the whole thing to become anarchy. i don't know. but i think the state would have to think about it differently. than they do now. the second thing i want to say is that during the 1990s, during the freeman siege, militia groups were in contact with the fbi all over the country. and the fbi was asking them quite fervently, if this siege comes to a bloody end, if we do stage a military assault on the freeman compound and people get killed, how are you going to react? and militia men all around the country said to the fbi, said to their liaison officers who they had, you know, somewhat personal relationships by then, you know, with -- by then and said to them, if you guys do that, we're going to start shooting law enforcement. and you're never going to know in the country where it's going to happen. i'm convinced that that had some impact on the fbi's decision to

wait the siege out. >> you can't think that's a good thing, right? >> that the freeman did not die is a good thing. >> well, you know -- >> that people died by fire at waco is a bad thing. i'm perfectly comfortable making those statements. [applause] >> let me respond by that by saying i think, you know, threatening law enforcement by assassination is never probably a good thing. i think, you know, peaceful nonviolence, getting out on the streets and exercising your rights is a much better way to go -- to go forward. but i think to -- to answer your question, you know, i think that the reason, you know, that these -- the free men et cetera had the capacity to cause a lot of damage and it doesn't take

much to, you know, to create sort of an anarchy situation. it doesn't mean they will take over the state but, you know, you can see if you had -- it wouldn't -- you know, how many timothy mcveighs or how many other folks would it take to create, you know, a dangerous situation in place where you wouldn't want to go out? i remember during the sniper situation in washington, d.c. write lived, one guy with a rifle who was willing to shoot people created a situation where you didn't want to leave your home, commerce suffered, giant eight, nine-hour traffic jams so the question is would they succeed in overthrowing the government, probably not? probably not. could they injure a lot of law enforcement, and the answer is probably yes. >> i think what i would say is this. i'll use randy weaver as an example. who's a white supremacist. he's not a nice guy, no friend of mine. if you're not going to kill him, if you're not going to put them in a camp, if you're not going to put them through some kind of re-education program then having

him sit on top of ruby ridge waiting for the end of time is the best place for him. the tragedy was that the federal government went and chased him up his mountain and killed his son and killed his wife. the free men are not nice guys but the stuff they were up to in montana is disgusting. they were ripping people off. they were threatening people. they really created a climate of fear in very isolated rural towns where there was no law enforcement. and yet i still have no problem saying that they did not die in that siege is a good thing. okay. i don't much like david koresh. people can say what they want about him. i don't much like him. but what happened there was wrong. that's all i want to say. >> well, i think -- and i think that in many ways proves a point which is this. when we had other similar situations, the state law enforcement has the capacity to learn. this was, you know, a new situation and we can argue about the causes of things and why the

compound burned and things like that but i don't think we have to. i think what we've learned in law enforcement has learned is how to deal with these situations in a much more efficient way and i think had we started a war at that point or, you know, going back and forth, i think that we would have had a much more difficult situation. and i think that now that law enforcement, i think, is probably more savvy with that. i think they learned from that and i think that goes back to the capacity of law enforcement to improve, and i think that's an important thing. in this country we can get change through a variety of different manners and i think when you give up that ability and get into a siege mentality, oftentimes things go for the worse. >> i don't disagree with that but i guess the part of that democratic process has to be that when people commit crimes, they have to stand trial for them. nobody stood trial for what happened at ruby ridge. nobody has stood trial for torturing prisoners in american

custody both in guantanamo bay and in iraq. and nobody is going to, all right, because the normal everyday democratic process doesn't do a good job of handling this. if you had to wanted to diffuse the militia movement in the 1990s the best thing you could have done is put the sniper on ruby ridge on trial or better yet use him as states evidence against the deputy attorney general who gave him his orders. but that's not the way washington works. and that's why -- that's why political violence and state violence is such a -- is a problem that it's so difficult to handle through the democratic process. and until you acknowledge that openly, you can't really get to the root of these movements. >> i think, you know, i'll disagree in some way that state violence -- there's been a number of ways to be effective with that. and i think, yes, there are cases where people don't get punished and they should but i think the vast generator of

situations and we have citizen reviewed committees in the court of law and i think, you know, we've been able to learn from these mistakes. i think law enforcement has a very difficult job in urban america today and a lot of america today. they're faced with an unbelievable amount of firepower on the streets. and they have very tough decisions to make everyday and i think that they do it admirably. i think most law enforcement are -- have no desire to kill indiscriminately and do anything other than enforce the laws. it's a tough job out there. i think when they made mistakes they learned from it. i think we have to, you know, be a careful watchdog but not pile too much on the militarization of law enforcement. they got a tough job out there. i think by and large they are doing a great job. >> well, we can keep doing this but let's take another question. >> my name is kris to-reno. i live in town here. a couple of questions like peter basically had and again, i don't

know where to start. mr. horowitz with the revolution that crazy little thing happened a while ago -- you seem to be speaking of it in a flippant manner and everybody who signed the declaration of independence lost everything. jumping up to the nazis and the jewish problem of world war ii. what i've read and i'm not a history professor is that they chipped away and chipped away and chipped away and chipped away till the jews couldn't do this and the jews couldn't do this and own a gun and everybody can't own a gun. you made the comment about bush and we're seeing things in washington things are being chipped away against us. so i think we all need to be aware of our constitution because it's a people's constitution as you've said. and the bill of rights is to protect us against the government, not our tyranny against them. to protect them from our tyranny in our view. a couple more about the nra i'm

going to puke. there's 4 million people in the nra. these people are in the americans. nra supports people like this gentleman right here. they have shooting programs and training programs and we support police. and we're americans. and we believe in the civilian program that won wars, first and second world war. people who could shoot and you talk about that new york congressman, hillbillies like davy crockett or andrew jackson, a pretty smart hillbilly, i thought. you thought this stuff was crazy. what could happen. connecticut hasn't had a hurricane. i'm not old enough to remember the flood of '55 and we live right inner hartford. could you imagine with three weeks of no electricity or air conditioning, hot consumed and everybody looting your house and you think this gentleman is -- i won't be able to dial him. he's going to be take care of

his own family. he's not going to worry about me. do you remember hurricane what happened down there in louisiana? they went around and took the guns away from people like people sitting right here so that you couldn't defend yourself against thugs and the cops were overwhelmed. they couldn't handle a whole city flooded. i couldn't do it. so you just can't lightly give up this stuff. i mean, this is something -- >> what's the question. >> i didn't have a question. i had a comment. so i'm just letting you know -- you're chipping away and you're chipping away. that's all i'm saying. >> one of these things we didn't bring up tonight. i think if you read my book you'll find that i have the utmost respect forñi the peoplef the revolution. the men who fought that. the people who fought that. george washington, you know -- if you go to his home in mount vernon as i have many, many times you have an utmost for him and the people who did that. the question kq÷is, you know, d we sign -- did they say that we're going to have a perpetual revolution or did they at some

point put together a constitution which ended that phase of our history? that's a good faith question. we had a debate about that here tonight but i don't want anybody to think that i've denigrated the people of the revolution. they did a great job for us and our country and thank god for them but as far as the éwnra, nra is vocally pushing this idea idea. i think that it has -- you know, it infuses all their work with it and i disagree with it. and i understand that you're a member but i think that there's a lot of members who go there for a number of the important services they provide. but you got to remember the nra is not -- you know, there's a lot of5i different things that they do that are not so great, spying on me for eight years on corporate espionage so i think those things are -- there's a legacy that this organization and their shooting training is

all very good. but there are parts of that especially in the political arena which is exactly, i think, part of what i'm talking about, which is that they don't play by the rules that i think we should do as engaged citizens. and so i think the nra, you know, is not -- is not a book about the nra. there's many other people, i think, fit in with that but i think the nra is using a lot of that political rhetoric right now and should be held in my view be pushed back and not necessarily held, you know, accountable in any kind of court of law but we should push back just as i am doing against that idea. i'll leave that at that and we're 8:30 so i think we should probably take one more question. >> i think we have the room until 9:00 or do we need to wrap it up? [inaudible] >> let's take one more question. >> okay. >> my name is dave. i just wanted to put a question out to everybody here.

if a man exercises a right to own his gun would his evening tonight? would he be able to walk his down the aisle or go to graduation? his lifeñr totally changed becae he did not own a gun.xdw3çó he had the right to own it. but he didn't exercise it. that's a right we should all have. to make that choice. [inaudible] >> hold that thought for a second for a microphone. >> she's got it. >> but, you know, when you have a home invasion unless the gun is here -- i mean, i don't know the details of the situation. i know the shaw situation much better. but the fact of owning a gun doesn't really answer that particular situation, i don't think.

>> i guess what i would try to -- i just want to sort of say we're in some ways moving back into the shadows in the discussion. we've got -- we've got fear of the folks coming through the door. we've got fear of the folks who are going to loot our houses during a blackout. we got fear of the nra. i think that local civil engagement is, in fact, the best anecdote to that kind of fear. one of the things that i found interesting and one of the things about the militia movement that i think people really didn't appreciate was, they weren't so much trying to dispose of government. what they were trying to do was get people engaged back in their own communities at the local level. and it was a fundamental part of their ideology.

and in some ways i think it was the most positive part of what it was that they were trying to do because it was a way of getting people past their fear. so that's all i want to say. >> my concern is why it's considered depotic, oppressive to ban or control the private use of assault weapons to control the use of guns in national parks and certain -- putting limits on the use of firearms? >> i don't think to control the use of guns -- you know, this is something where the nra and i disagree. i don't think that the second amendment is about the use of guns. it's about possession. now the second amendment is about the people having the capacity to face down their

government as was discussed before. so somewhat ironically from a policy perspective, what that means is that the guns that have the most protection are the scariest guns. the guns have the most protection are the assault weapons. you can make even under that interpretation of the second amendment, you can make a plausible argument that perhaps handguns are not as protected. but it's the assault weapons in fact that are because they are -- and this was standard constitutional interpretation of the second amendment right through the 19th century the test was military utility. the most militarily useful guns were the ones entitled to most protection. >> which is why i think this discussion is very important. depending on how you interpret the constitution. we have a lot of gloss around it but i think it's a very important point. >> we need to take one last question and then we need to wrap up 'cause we would like to sell y'all some books and sign them for you.

>> my name is matt and i'm a student at central connecticut university. i think -- i believe that, bringing it back to academia that your interpretation of insurrectionism is a little broad and the reason i believe that is because -- you say that to guard against insurrectionism that the government should have more power but if the government then has more power then they -- it's circular if you see my meaning. >> go ahead. >> yeah. i don't think that they need more power. i think that they should -- keeping the government in a state of weakness is not healthy for our rights. i'm not saying today we need more power. i think there's a good faith discussion that parts of the government have way too much power and that we should be out there trying to reduce some of that. but i think keeping it in a state of perpetual weakness, for instance, like the republic after world war i is not a good idea. >> where do you draw the line as

far as who is an insurrectionist and who is not? i'm personally actually on the homeland security watch list for being a right wing extremist because i'm considered a libertarian and i'm a student activist up at central and i'm the founder of the campus conservatives up there and i'm connected with an organization that has people that called me and told me. so the question is, would you -- because i believe that as an absolute last ditch effort, i mean, they're coming to my house to take my freedom away. that's what i believe insurrectionism is. so if i believe to protect myself against the government in that last ditch effort to save my life or my family's life or my neighbor's life -- i mean, where do you draw the line? >> i take professor churchill's comments too serious about not trying to draw that too broadly and that would definitely take me -- make me think this through. but i think in the book we define it as being that

unfettered access to firearms is the most important freedom. i can't answer that you if -- you fall into that category in our book and the definition of insurrectionism, insurrectionists we use it, that would be under that. now, there's other legal definitions as well that i'm -- that i can't answer for you. but that's the way i describe it in the book. >> and i would just briefly say that i don't think that the founders wanted a weak government. what the founders wanted was balance. they wanted a government that could enforce the constitutional laws, enforce laws that were just and wholesome and they wanted a people who were armed and retained the capacity to rise up if things in the last analysis -- if the government fell back into that pattern of repeated injustices. they didn't want people popping off and they didn't think people would pop off every 2 seconds. what they believed is, yes, there would be some cost to