Page 918 - Week 03 - Thursday, 14 March 1991
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parliament became superior to the king. The king was still there, the Crown was there; but that great battle, as we look back on it now, was on that constitutional issue.
Part of that issue was, of course, about a standing army. If the Crown could have a standing army and raise money for a standing army, then the rights of the citizens could be violated. Also, the rights of citizens could be violated if there was a quartering of soldiers contrary to law. So, at the end of the seventeenth century and the beginning of the eighteenth century, the worries were not about Englishmen running around England with guns.
The heritage of that Bill is indeed of very great significance and value, and I do not wish to discount it. But anyone reading the Bill will recognise that it is very much of its time and place. It is one of the most bigoted Bills in English history. When I think of it as, in a sense, having been carried over to this part of the world, I would like us to rephrase and reissue the Bill of Rights without its animus against Catholicism and other religions. So, of course, I find that historical process at the end of the seventeenth century enormously important, but please let us not use or misuse it to think that it is somehow or other a help to carry guns.
The Bill of Rights of 1689 was extremely significant for the North American colonies during all of the eighteenth century. To some degree you could argue that it was even more important for them than for their cousins in England. There were unique conditions in many parts of North America which seemed to call for the ownership of guns by citizens. They were on the frontier; they needed guns for their own individual protection. Thinking back to one thing Mr Jensen said, most Australians now are urban; we are in an urban society. One can see that in a bush society where there are dangerous animals or something of the kind it would be natural to carry a gun. And so it was in the eighteenth century. Then you have to think of the particularly horrible kind of warfare going on between the natives of North America and the white settlers.
Also, they needed guns for their livelihood. The use of a gun was not some kind of recreational activity; it was connected with bears and food and so forth. They needed guns for those reasons. But I want to come to the particular constitutional issue that gets picked up in the twentieth century, in 1991, as though it is still relevant.
One reason for the North American colonists insisting on their right to arms was that they wished to serve in the colonial militia, and eventually, in the period from 1775 to 1781, to serve in that militia, which some people would regard as disloyal, others revolutionary, that brought about their independence - the independence of 13 separate colonies in 1781 and eventually one nation in 1787. Forgive this little historical disquisition. Mr Stefaniak
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