What Was Virginia's Second Amendment Debate About?

Malcolm Gladwell says the Second Amendment debate in Virginia was about slave patrols. At the Richmond ratifying convention, Virginians argued about militias the whole time. They feared the federal government would take state militias away, and when they talked about militias they meant slave patrols: armed white men.

The Constitution was proposed in the 1780s, and all the states had to ratify it. Virginia was the most important state. Gladwell says the American Union was not happening unless Virginia joined, which is why George Washington had to be president and why leaders constantly appeased Virginia. Perfect transcripts show the Richmond debate stayed on militias. In many parts of Virginia and South Carolina, a slave owner was greatly outnumbered by his slaves. Sometimes the ratio was 20 to 1. He went to bed every night terrified he would be killed, so white men stayed armed.

Gladwell draws the account from Carl Bogus, who wrote a book on the Second Amendment about 25 years earlier. Gladwell read it, called Bogus, and asked why the book had not changed the entire understanding of the Second Amendment. Bogus said he did not know.