Posted by
HvySlpr on Thursday, December 27, 2007 4:53:43 PM
The Supreme Court has decided to hear a case, the first of its kind in about seventy years, questioning the meaning of the Second Amendment. For those of you who haven’t read the Constitution (hopefully you’re foreign born, that’s your only excuse), the Amendment in question gives the people (or the State, we’re still confused) the right to bear arms. More specifically, the Second Amendment reads:
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.
That’s it, the whole thing, the nuts and bolts, the frank and beans, the whole enchilada, everything. For over 200 years, scholars, judges, lawyers, lawmakers, students, and every-day citizens have argued the meaning of those twenty-seven words.
On November 20th, 2007 the Supreme Court agreed to hear Washington D.C. v. Heller, in a lawsuit, upheld by a lower court, in which Heller argues that the law banning handguns, rifles, and shotguns, including those in your own home, infringed on her right to protect herself. Under the question, “Whether the Second Amendment rights of individuals who are not affiliated with any state-regulated militia, but who wish to keep handguns and other firearms for private use in their homes,” the Court will decide just what the founders meant when they penned the Second Amendment. We are witnessing history in the making.
Here is how it breaks down; the city of Washington D.C. passed a law in 1976 banning handguns registered after 1976, the registration of new handguns, concealed firearms, and loaded or “readily usable” rifles or shotguns in the home. What the law did, in effect, was ban firearms outside the home, and makes them completely useless inside the home. Heller argued that she lived in a dangerous neighborhood (all of D.C. is dangerous, so that doesn’t narrow it down) and thus the law made her unsafe in her home, infringing on her inherent right of self-defense. Inherent rights are those granted by God, inalienable, and thus free from government intervention and regulation, as written by our founders in the Declaration of Independence.
Legal scholars argue over the language of the Second Amendment, and the language, and its intent, is what will be under scrutiny. One side says that the word “militia” in the first clause points to a “collective” right, held by the States (as described by the word “state” later in the Amendment), to protect themselves from foreign and domestic enemies by arming their citizens. Those who argue for that side say that the Second Amendment was written to establish a state’s right to arm its own people for protection from the Federal Government’s over-regulating of “arms,” thus becoming a threat to sovereignty.
The other side argues that the “right of the people” clause points to a “personal” right. I’m going to go out on a limb and say that our founders proof read the constitution before putting it to a vote. They probably re-read it a couple of times, as a matter of fact. As this is probably the case, I think they would have capitalized the word “state” if they meant the government as a whole, a proper noun in need of capitalization, and not the figurative meaning of existence, or “state” of being “free.” Granted, the word “state,” when referring to one of the fifty currently in the U.S., isn’t always capitalized, nor was it then, but still I would argue that the state, as well as the individual, is guaranteed the right to bear arms under that interpretation.
As this Amendment was written by revolutionaries (literally), it seems that “militia” most likely meant, in the context of the time, any group of people, in any given community, armed and ready to fight. As the founders well knew, if it wasn’t for those people, we might not have had a United States at the writing of the Bill of Rights.
"I ask, sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people, except for a few public officials."
-George Mason, 3 Elliot, Debates at 425-426.
"A militia, when properly formed, are in fact the people themselves...and include all men capable of bearing arms."
-Richard Henry Lee, Additional Letters from the Federal Farmer (1788) at 169.
It is apparent, to lowly old me, that both sides could be at least partially correct. There is a right to bear arms “privately” and therefore “collectively,” and this right cannot be “infringed” upon. The infringement clause if my favorite, as this could mean any number of things, and allows the court to err on the side of caution and, without abolition of the Second Amendment, or parts thereof, outlaw all gun-bans in the U.S. by any city or state.
As it turns out, the founding fathers didn’t just write the Constitution and then die, failing to leave behind any explanations of their deeds and/or wishes. No, as a matter of fact, most of them lived on, making speeches, running for President, and/or writing books. As such, let us look at what they had to say on the subject:
"The Constitution of most of our states (and of the United States) assert that all power is inherent in the people; that they may exercise it by themselves; that it is their right and duty to be at all times armed."
-Thomas Jefferson.
"Laws that forbid the carrying of arms...disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes...Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man."
-Thomas Jefferson, quoting Cesare Beccaria.
"...arms...discourage and keep the invader and plunderer in awe, and preserve order in the world as well as property. ...Horrid mischief would ensue were (the law-abiding) deprived the use of them."
-Thomas Paine.
"The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that they be properly armed."
-Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist Papers at 184-8.
"The great object is that every man be armed. Everyone who is able might have a gun."
-Patrick Henry.
"The Constitution shall never be construed to authorize Congress to prevent the people of the United States, who are peaceable citizens, from keeping their own arms."
-Samuel Adams, debates & Proceedings in the Convention of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, 86-87.
"Arms in the hands of citizens (may) be used at individual discretion...in private self defense..."
-John Adams, A defense of the Constitutions of the Government of the USA, 471 (1788).
In any case, this ruling, estimated to be out in June, will not put to rest the argument for or against personal firearms, or the power of cities or states to regulate such arms. The Supreme Court changed the question, as to narrow interpretation, so it won’t be a sweeping ruling either way. At best it will allow residents of D.C., the murder capital of the United States for years, to protect themselves with firearms in their own homes (how nice of them), although the ruling may extend to other cities with the same unsound laws. Don’t look for the ruling to do anything more than that…like it or not.
For more information on the literary analysis of the words in the second amendment, read the article “The Unabridged Second Amendment,” by J. Neil Shulman. http://www.largo.org/literary.html