Wednesday, July 6, 2011

2nd Amendment - Purpose of...

"The most foolish mistake we could possibly make would be to allow the subject races to possess arms.  History shows that all conquerors who have allowed their subject races to carry arms have prepared their own downfall by so doing."
-- Adolph Hitler, Hitler's Secret Conversations 403 (Norman Cameron and R.H. Stevens trans., 1961)

What the Framers said about our Second Amendment 
Rights to Keep and Bear Arms

  • "I ask, sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people, except for a few public officials."
    — George Mason, in Debates in Virginia Convention on Ratification of the Constitution, Elliot, Vol. 3, June 16, 1788
  • "Whereas civil-rulers, not having their duty to the people duly before them, may attempt to tyrannize, and as military forces, which must be occasionally raised to defend our country, might pervert their power to the injury of their fellow citizens, the people are confirmed by the article in their right to keep and bear their private arms."
    -- Tench Coxe, in Remarks on the First Part of the Amendments to the Federal Constitution
  • "The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that they be properly armed."
    -- Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist Papers at 184-188
  • If the representatives of the people betray their constituents, there is then no recourse left but in the exertion of that original right of self-defense which is paramount to all positive forms of government, and which against the usurpations of the national rulers may be exerted with infinitely better prospect of success than against those of the rulers of an individual State. In a single State, if the persons entrusted with supreme power become usurpers, the different parcels, subdivisions, or districts of which it consists, having no distinct government in each, can take no regular measures for defense. The citizens must rush tumultuously to arms, without concert, without system, without resource; except in their courage and despair.
    -- Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 28
  • "That the said Constitution shall never be construed to authorize Congress to infringe the just liberty of the press or the rights of conscience; or to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms ... " 
    -- Samuel Adams, Debates and Proceedings in the Convention of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, at 86-87 (Pierce & Hale, eds., Boston, 1850)
  • "[The Constitution preserves] the advantage of being armed which Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation...(where) the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms." 
    --James Madison, The Federalist Papers, No. 46
  • "To suppose arms in the hands of citizens, to be used at individual discretion, except in private self-defense, or by partial orders of towns, countries or districts of a state, is to demolish every constitution, and lay the laws prostrate, so that liberty can be enjoyed by no man; it is a dissolution of the government. The fundamental law of the militia is, that it be created, directed and commanded by the laws, and ever for the support of the laws."
    --John Adams, A Defense of the Constitutions of the United States 475 (1787-1788)
  • "Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom in Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops that can be, on any pretense, raised in the United States. A military force, at the command of Congress, can execute no laws, but such as the people perceive 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."
    --Noah Webster, An Examination of the Leading Principles of the Federal Constitution (Philadelphia 1787).
  • "Who are the militia? Are they not ourselves? Is it feared, then, that we shall turn our arms each man against his own bosom. Congress have no power to disarm the militia. Their swords, and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birthright of an American...[T]he unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or state governments, but, where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the people." 
    --Tenche Coxe, The Pennsylvania Gazette, Feb. 20, 1788.
  • "Whereas, to preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them; nor does it follow from this, that all promiscuously must go into actual service on every occasion. The mind that aims at a select militia, must be influenced by a truly anti-republican principle; and when we see many men disposed to practice upon it, whenever they can prevail, no wonder true republicans are for carefully guarding against it."
    --Richard Henry Lee, The Pennsylvania Gazette, Feb. 20, 1788.
  • "What country can preserve its liberties if its rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance?  Let them take arms." 
    -- Thomas Jefferson to William Stephens Smith, 1787. ME 6:373, Papers 12:356
  • "No Free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms."
    -- Thomas Jefferson, Proposal Virginia Constitution, 1 T. Jefferson Papers, 334,[C.J. Boyd, Ed., 1950]
  • "The right of the people to keep and bear ... arms shall not be infringed. A well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the best and most natural defense of a free country ..."
    -- James Madison, I Annals of Congress 434, June 8, 1789
  • "What, Sir, is the use of a militia? It is to prevent the establishment of a standing army, the bane of liberty .... Whenever Governments mean to invade the rights and liberties of the people, they always attempt to destroy the militia, in order to raise an army upon their ruins."
    -- Rep. Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts, spoken during floor debate over the Second Amendment, I Annals of Congress at 750, August 17, 1789
  • " ... to disarm the people - that was the best and most effectual way to enslave them."
    -- George Mason, 3 Elliot, Debates at 380
  • " ... but if circumstances should at any time oblige the government to form an army of any magnitude, that army can never be formidable to the liberties of the people, while there is a large body of citizens, little if at all inferior to them in discipline and use of arms, who stand ready to defend their rights ..."
    -- Alexander Hamilton speaking of standing armies in Federalist 29
  • "Are we at last brought to such humiliating and debasing degradation, that we cannot be trusted with arms for our defense?  Where is the difference between having our arms in possession and under our direction, and having them under the management of Congress?  If our defense be the real object of them under the management of Congress?  If our defense be the real object of having those arms, in whose hands can they be trusted with more propriety, or equal safety to us, as in our own hands?"
    -- Patrick Henry, 3 J. Elliot, Debates in the Several State Conventions 45, 2d ed. Philadelphia, 1836
  • "The great object is, that every man be armed ... Every one who is able may have a gun."
    -- Patrick Henry, Elliot, p.3:386
  • "O sir, we should have fine times, indeed, if, to punish tyrants, it were only sufficient to assemble the people! Your arms, wherewith you could defend yourselves, are gone ..."
    -- Patrick Henry, Elliot p. 3:50-53, in Virginia Ratifying Convention demanding a guarantee of the right to bear arms
  • "The people are not to be disarmed of their weapons. They are left in full possession of them."
    -- Zacharia Johnson, delegate to Virginia Ratifying Convention, Elliot, 3:645-6
  • "Certainly one of the chief guarantees of freedom under any government, no matter how popular and respected, is the right of citizens to keep and bear arms ... The right of citizens to bear arms is just one guarantee against arbitrary government, one more safeguard, against the tyranny which now appears remote in America but which historically has proven to be always possible."
    -- Hubert H. Humphrey, Senator, Vice President, 22 October 1959
  • "The militia is the natural defense of a free country against sudden foreign invasions, domestic insurrections, and domestic usurpation of power by rulers.  The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered, as the palladium of the liberties of the republic; since it offers a strong moral check against the usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers; and will generally ... enable the people to resist and triumph over them."
    -- Joseph Story, Supreme Court Justice, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States, p. 3:746-7, 1833
  • " ... most attractive to Americans, the possession of arms is the distinction between a freeman and a slave, it being the ultimate means by which freedom was to be preserved."
    -- James Burgh, 18th century English Libertarian writer, Shalhope, The Ideological Origins of the Second Amendment, p.604
  • "The right [to bear arms] is general.  It may be supposed from the phraseology of this provision that the right to keep and bear arms was only guaranteed to the militia; but this would be an interpretation not warranted by the intent.  The militia, as has been explained elsewhere, consists of those persons who, under the laws, are liable to the performance of military duty, and are officered and enrolled for service when called upon...  [I]f the right were limited to those enrolled, the purpose of the guarantee might be defeated altogether by the action or the neglect to act of the government it was meant to hold in check.  The meaning of the provision undoubtedly is, that the people, from whom the militia must be taken, shall have the right to keep and bear arms, and they need no permission or regulation of law for the purpose.  But this enables the government to have a well regulated militia; for to bear arms implies something more than mere keeping; it implies the learning to handle and use them in a way that makes those who keep them ready for their efficient use; in other words, it implies the right to meet for voluntary discipline in arms, observing in so doing the laws of public order."
    -- Thomas M. Cooley, General Principles of Constitutional Law, Third Edition [1898]
  • "And that the said Constitution be never construed to authorize Congress ... to prevent the people of the United States, who are peaceable citizens, from keeping their own arms.... "
    --Samuel Adams
 

source: http://www.guncite.com/gc2ndpur.html

Original Intent and Purpose of the Second Amendment

Introduction

The Second Amendment:

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.

The original intent and purpose of the Second Amendment was to preserve and guarantee, not grant, the pre-existing right of individuals to keep and bear arms. Although the amendment emphasizes the need for a militia, membership in any militia, let alone a well-regulated one, was not intended to serve as a prerequisite for exercising the right to keep arms. 

The Second Amendment preserves and guarantees an individual right for a collective purpose. That does not transform the right into a "collective right." The militia clause was a declaration of purpose, and preserving the people's right to keep and bear arms was the method the framers chose to, in-part, ensure the continuation of a well-regulated militia.

There is no contrary evidence from the writings of the Founding Fathers, early American legal commentators, or pre-twentieth century Supreme Court decisions, indicating that the Second Amendment was intended to apply solely to active militia members.

Evidence of an Individual Right

In his popular edition of Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England (1803), St. George Tucker (see also), a lawyer, Revolutionary War militia officer, legal scholar, and later a U.S. District Court judge (appointed by James Madison in 1813), wrote of the Second Amendment:

The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed, and this without any qualification as to their condition or degree, as is the case in the British government.
In the appendix to the Commentaries, Tucker elaborates further:
This may be considered as the true palladium of liberty... The right of self-defense is the first law of nature; in most governments it has been the study of rulers to confine this right within the narrowest limits possible. Whenever standing armies are kept up, and the right of the people to keep and bear arms is, under any color or pretext whatsoever, prohibited, liberty, if not already annihilated, is on the brink of destruction. In England, the people have been disarmed, generally, under the specious pretext of preserving the game: a never failing lure to bring over the landed aristocracy to support any measure, under that mask, though calculated for very different purposes. True it is, their bill of rights seems at first view to counteract this policy: but the right of bearing arms is confined to protestants, and the words suitable to their condition and degree, have been interpreted to authorise the prohibition of keeping a gun or other engine for the destruction of game, to any farmer, or inferior tradesman, or other person not qualified to kill game. So that not one man in five hundred can keep a gun in his house without being subject to a penalty.
Not only are Tucker's remarks solid evidence that the militia clause was not intended to restrict the right to keep arms to active militia members, but he speaks of a broad right – Tucker specifically mentions self-defense.

"Because '[g]reat weight has always been attached, and very rightly attached, to contemporaneous exposition,' the Supreme Court has cited Tucker in over forty cases. One can find Tucker in the major cases of virtually every Supreme Court era." (Source: The Second Amendment in the Nineteenth Century)

(William Blackstone was an English jurist who published Commentaries on the Laws of England, in four volumes between 1765 and 1769. Blackstone is credited with laying the foundation of modern English law and certainly influenced the thinking of the American Founders.)

Another jurist contemporaneous to the Founders, William Rawle, authored "A View of the Constitution of the United States of America" (1829). His work was adopted as a constitutional law textbook at West Point and other institutions. In Chapter 10 he describes the scope of the Second Amendment's right to keep and bear arms:

The prohibition is general. No clause in the constitution could by any rule of construction be conceived to give congress a power to disarm the people. Such a flagitious attempt could only be made under some general pretence by a state legislature. But if in any blind pursuit of inordinate power, either should attempt it, this amendment may be appealed to as a restraint on both.
This is another quote where it is obvious that "the people" refers to individuals since Rawle writes neither the states nor the national government has legitimate authority to disarm its citizens. This passage also makes it clear ("the prohibition is general") that the militia clause was not intended to restrict the scope of the right.

(In 1791 William Rawle was appointed United States Attorney for Pennsylvania by President George Washington, a post he held for more than eight years.)

Yet another jurist, Justice Story (appointed to the Supreme Court as an Associate Justice by James Madison in 1811), wrote a constitutional commentary in 1833 ("Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States"). Regarding the Second Amendment, he wrote (source):

The next amendment is: "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."

The importance of this article will scarcely be doubted by any persons, who have duly reflected upon the subject. The militia is the natural defence of a free country against sudden foreign invasions, domestic insurrections, and domestic usurpations of power by rulers. It is against sound policy for a free people to keep up large military establishments and standing armies in time of peace, both from the enormous expenses, with which they are attended, and the facile means, which they afford to ambitious and unprincipled rulers, to subvert the government, or trample upon the rights of the people. The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered, as the palladium of the liberties of a republic; since it offers a strong moral check against the usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers; and will generally, even if these are successful in the first instance, enable the people to resist and triumph over them.

As the Tennessee Supreme Court in Andrews v. State (1871) explains, this "passage from Story, shows clearly that this right was intended, as we have maintained in this opinion, and was guaranteed to, and to be exercised and enjoyed by the citizen as such, and not by him as a soldier, or in defense solely of his political rights."

Story adds:

And yet, though this truth would seem so clear, and the importance of a well regulated militia would seem so undeniable, it cannot be disguised, that among the American people there is a growing indifference to any system of militia discipline, and a strong disposition, from a sense of its burthens, to be rid of all regulations. How it is practicable to keep the people duly armed without some organization, it is difficult to see. There is certainly no small danger, that indifference may lead to disgust, and disgust to contempt; and thus gradually undermine all the protection intended by this clause of our national bill of rights.
Story laments the people's lack of enthusiasm for maintaining a well-regulated militia. However, some anti-gun rights advocates misinterpret this entire passage as being "consistent with the theory that the Second Amendment guarantees a right of the people to be armed only when in service of an organized militia." (See Arms, Anarchy and the Second Amendment for an example of reaching that conclusion by committing a non-sequitur.)

The need for a well-regulated militia and an armed citizenry are not mutually exclusive, nor was the right to have arms considered dependent on membership in an active militia (more on that later). Rather, as illustrated by Tucker, Rawle, and Story, the militia clause and the right to arms were intended to becomplementary.

More Evidence Supporting an Individual Right

After James Madison's Bill of Rights was submitted to Congress, Tench Coxe (see also: Tench Coxe and the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, 1787-1823) published his "Remarks on the First Part of the Amendments to the Federal Constitution," in the Federal Gazette, June 18, 1789 He asserts that it's the people (as individuals) with arms, who serve as the ultimate check on government:

As civil rulers, not having their duty to the people duly before them, may attempt to tyrannize, and as the military forces which must be occasionally raised to defend our country, might pervert their power to the injury of their fellow-citizens, the people are confirmed by the next article in their right to keep and bear their private arms.
"A search of the literature of the time reveals that no writer disputed or contradicted Coxe's analysis that what became the Second Amendment protected the right of the people to keep and bear 'their private arms.' The only dispute was over whether a bill of rights was even necessary to protect such fundamental rights." (Halbrook, Stephen P. "The Right of the People or the Power of the State Bearing Arms, Arming Militias, and the Second Amendment". Originally published as 26 Val. U. L.Rev. 131-207, 1991).

Earlier, in The Pennsylvania Gazette, Feb. 20, 1788, while the states were considering ratification of the Constitution, Tench Coxe wrote:

Who are the militia? are they not ourselves. Is it feared, then, that we shall turn our arms each man against his own bosom. Congress have no power to disarm the militia. Their swords, and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birth-right of an American...The unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or state governments but, where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the people.

The Federalist Papers

Alexander Hamilton in Federalist, No. 29, did not view the right to keep arms as being confined to active militia members:

What plan for the regulation of the militia may be pursued by the national government is impossible to be foreseen...The project of disciplining all the militia of the United States is as futile as it would be injurious if it were capable of being carried into execution... Little more can reasonably be aimed at with the respect to the people at large than to have them properly armed and equipped ; and in order to see that this be not neglected, it will be necessary to assemble them once or twice in the course of a year.

James Madison in Federalist No. 46 wrote:

Besides the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation, the existence of subordinate governments,to which the people are attached, forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition, more insurmountable than any which a simple government of any form can admit of. Notwithstanding the military establishments in the several kingdoms of Europe, which are carried as far as the public resources will bear, the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms. And it is not certain, that with this aid alone they would not be able to shake off their yokes. But were the people to possess the additional advantages of local governments chosen by themselves, who could collect the national will and direct the national force, and of officers appointed out of the militia, by these governments, and attached both to them and to the militia, it may be affirmed with the greatest assurance, that the throne of every tyranny in Europe would be speedily overturned in spite of the legions which surround it.

Here, like Story, Madison is expressing the idea that additional advantages accrue to the people when the citizens' right to arms is enhanced by having an organized and properly directed militia.

The Federalist Papers Continued – "The Original Right of Self-Defense"

The Founders realized insurrections may occur from time to time and it is the militia's duty to suppress them. They also realized that however remote the possibility of usurpation was, the people with their arms, had the right to restore their republican form of government by force, if necessary, as an extreme last resort.

"The original right of self-defense" is not a modern-day concoction. We now examine Hamilton'sFederalist No. 28. Hamilton begins:

That there may happen cases in which the national government may be necessitated to resort to force cannot be denied. Our own experience has corroborated the lessons taught by the examples of other nations; that emergencies of this sort will sometimes exist in all societies, however constituted; that seditions and insurrections are, unhappily, maladies as inseparable from the body politic as tumors and eruptions from the natural body; that the idea of governing at all times by the simple force of law (which we have been told is the only admissible principle of republican government) has no place but in the reveries of these political doctors whose sagacity disdains the admonitions of experimental instruction.
Hamilton explains that the national government may occasionally need to quell insurrections and it is certainly justified in doing so.

Hamilton continues:

If the representatives of the people betray their constituents, there is then no recourse left but in the exertion of that original right of self-defense which is paramount to all positive forms of government, and which against the usurpations of the national rulers may be exerted with infinitely better prospect of success than against those of the rulers of an individual State. In a single State, if the persons intrusted with supreme power become usurpers, the different parcels, subdivisions, or districts of which it consists, having no distinct government in each, can take no regular measures for defense. The citizens must rush tumultuously to arms, without concert, without system, without resource; except in their courage and despair.
Hamilton clearly states there exists a right of self-defense against a tyrannical government, and it includes the people with their own arms and adds:
[T]he people, without exaggeration, may be said to be entirely the masters of their own fate. Power being almost always the rival of power, the general government will at all times stand ready to check the usurpations of the state governments, and these will have the same disposition towards the general government. The people by throwing themselves into either scale, will infallibly make it preponderate. If their rights are invaded by either, they can make use of the other as the instrument of redress. How wise will it be in them by cherishing the union to preserve to themselves an advantage which can never be too highly prized!

Thus the militia is the ultimate check against a state or the national government. That is why the founders guaranteed the right to the people as opposed to only active militia members or a state's militia. But of course, via the militia clause, the Second Amendment acknowledges, as well, the right of a state to maintain a militia. (For more on militia see: http://guncite.com/gc2ndmea.html.)

Hamilton concludes, telling us the above scenario is extremely unlikely to occur:

When will the time arrive that the federal government can raise and maintain an army capable of erecting a despotism over the great body of the people of an immense empire, who are in a situation, through the medium of their State governments, to take measures for their own defense, with all the celerity, regularity, and system of independent nations? The apprehension may be considered as a disease, for which there can be found no cure in the resources of argument and reasoning.

Again, it is the recurring theme of the people's right to keep and bear arms as individuals, enhanced by a militia system, that (in part) provides for the "security of a free state."

Connecting the Dots...

"The opinion of the Federalist has always been considered as of great authority. It is a complete commentary on our Constitution, and is appealed to by all parties in the questions to which that instrument has given birth. . . . " 
--- The U.S. Supreme Court in Cohens v. Virginia (1821)

Although the Federalist Papers were written prior to the drafting of the Bill of Rights (but after the Constitution was sent to the states for ratification), the passages quoted, above, help explain the relationships that were understood between a well-regulated militia, the people, their governments, and the right to keep and bear arms. The Second Amendment did not declare or establish any new rights or novel principles.

The Purpose of the Militia Clause

"Collective rights theorists argue that addition of the subordinate clause qualifies the rest of the amendment by placing a limitation on the people's right to bear arms. However, if the amendment truly meant what collective rights advocates propose, then the text would read "[a] well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the States to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." However, that is not what the framers of the amendment drafted. The plain language of the amendment, without attenuate inferences therefrom, shows that the function of the subordinate clause was not to qualify the right, but instead to show why it must be protected. The right exists independent of the existence of the militia. If this right were not protected, the existence of the militia, and consequently the security of the state, would be jeopardized." (U.S. v. Emerson, 46 F.Supp.2d 598 (N.D.Tex. 1999))

For more information about justification clauses see: Volokh, Eugene, The Commonplace Second Amendment, (73 NYU L. Rev. 793 (1998)). (See also, Kopel, David, Words of Freedom, National Review Online, May 16, 2001.)

Parting Shots

There are 3 ways the Second Amendment is usually interpreted to deny it was intended to protect an individual right to keep and bear arms:

  • It protects a state's right to keep and bear arms.
  • The right is individual, but limited to active militia members because the militia clause narrows the right's scope.
  • The term "people" refers to the people collectively, rather than the people as individuals.

Yet, three jurists, who were contemporaries of the Founders, and wrote constitutional commentaries, read the Second Amendment as protecting a private, individual right to keep arms. There is no contrary evidence from that period (see Guncite's Is there contrary evidence? and Second Amendment challenge).

Instead of the "right of the people," the Amendment's drafters could have referred to the militia or active militia members, as they did in the Fifth Amendment, had they meant to restrict the right. (Additionally, see GunCite's page here showing evidence that the term, "people," as used in the Bill of Rights, referred to people as individuals.)

It strains credulity to believe the aforementioned three jurists misconstrued the meaning of the Second Amendment.

The only model that comports with all of the evidence from the Founding period is the one interpreting the Second Amendment as protecting an individual right for a collective purpose. The militia clause and the right to keep and bear arms were intended to be complementary.

Perversely, gun rights defenders are accused of creating a Second Amendment myth, when it is some present-day jurists and historians who have failed to give a full account of the historical record.

(The assertion that the Second Amendment was intended to protect an individual right should not be confused with the claim that all gun control is un-constitutional. However, to read why many gun rights advocates oppose most gun controls, today, please see GunCite's, Misrepresenting the Gun Control Debate.)

source: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/686595/posts#comment

THE REAL PURPOSE OF THE 2ND AMENDMENT HOW THOSE ON THE LEFT DISTORT THE CONSTITUTION27 May 2002 | Bob Baecht 

The Left-Wing Socialists would have you believe that the Second Amendment, which guarantees the right of the PEOPLE to keep and bear arms, pertains only to militias and not to individuals, and erroneously and deliberately, misinterpret what the Founders had in mind when establishing the Bill of Rights.

The left-wing liberals would have you believe that the only reason for people to keep and bear arms is for hunting and target shooting. Nothing could be farther from the truth. While they claim that they do not want to make it illegal to own guns, that is exactly what they are striving for. Anti-gun lawyer Dennis Henigan is quoted as saying: "The gun violence problem is more than a problem of guns in the hands of bad people. It is also a problem of guns in the hands of good people."

If you think that these people on the left do not understand the implications of their push for gun control and eventual confiscation listen to what Columnist Charles Krauthammer said in a column titled "Disarm The Citizenry" in the Washington Post on April 16, 1996:

"Ultimately, a civilized society must disarm its citizenry if it is to have a modicum of domestic tranquillity of the kind enjoyed by sister democracies such as Canada and Britain. Given the frontier history and individualist ideology of the United States, however, this will not come easily. It certainly cannot be done radically. It will probably take one, maybe two generations. It may be 50 years before the United States gets to where Britain is today. Passing a law like the assault weapons ban is a symbolic - purely symbolic - move in that direction. Its only real justification is not to reduce crime but to desensitize the public to the regulation of weapons in preparation for their ultimate confiscation."

When Al Gore was on the Larry King show on Sept. 16, 1999 (not so long ago), he expressed himself as follows: "I think that we should ban so-called junk guns. I think we should ban assault weapons used here, yes. I think that the kinds of weapons that have no legitimate use for hunting or the kind of weapon that a homeowner would use, I think they should be banned, yes, those kind of weapons . . . These semi-automatic handguns . . . they really have no place in our society."

Of course Al is rather incoherent as usual but his meaning is clear. It seems obvious that his real aim is to ban all guns. In that little response he was referring to the 9mm and .380 caliber handguns which are the most popular in the country.

If any of you have the mistaken notion that these anti-gun folks are not working toward complete disarmament of the people, pay a bit of attention to their own words. And don't be fooled by their contention that the Second Amendment refers only to militias. It states that the right of the PEOPLE to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. The word infringe means to violate a law. In regard to the PEOPLE having the right to keep and bear arms, there can be little doubt what the phrase means and limiting the right to keep and bear arms to militias is certainly an infringement of the law.

What the Founders had in mind is quite clear and there is no doubt about what they were thinking. The following quotations make this abundantly clear. George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and Alexander Hamilton all clearly expressed their reasons for the establishing the Second Amendment. Here are some of the things they had to say on the subject: Washington stated that "Firearms stand next in importance to the Constitution itself. They are the American people's teeth and keystone under independence." Jefferson had similar thoughts stating: "And what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms . . ." Hamilton said: "If the representatives of the people betray their constituents, there is no recourse left but in the exertion of the original right of self-defense which is paramount to all forms of positive government."James Madison in Federalist No. 46 predicted that encroachments by the federal government would provoke "plans of resistance" and an "appeal to the trial of force.

As Benjamin Franklin said long ago, "They that give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty or safety." Don't be fooled by those who pretend to want to decrease crime by firearms regulation. Their real aim is to disarm us, with the intent of promoting their agenda of a socialist dictatorship and making sure there is no effective opposition.

Later, Joseph Story, Supreme Court Justice from 1811 to 1845, again explained why the right to keep and bear arms was so important and explains how obvious it once was that possession of guns by individuals was put into the Bill of Rights for the protection of the citizens.

He is quoted as follows:"One of the ordinary modes by which tyrants accomplish their purpose without resistance, is, by disarming the people, and making it an offense to keep arms . . ." And: "The friends of a free government cannot be too watchful to overcome the dangerous tendency of the public mind to sacrifice, for the sake of mere private convenience, this powerful check upon the designs of ambitious men." He continues: "The importance of this article will be scarcely doubted by any persons, who have duly reflected on the subject." And: "There is certainly no small danger, that indifference may lead to disgust, and disgust to contempt; and thus gradually undermine all the protection intended by this clause of our National Bill of Rights."

These wise men knew from personal experience that governments can, and usually do, become tyrannical and the Second Amendment was an attempt to keep the government in check. They were not advocating another revolution but providing the people the means of discouraging government from becoming too dictatorial, by the possible threat of insurrection, thinking that the right to keep and bear arms would be a deterrent and cause the leaders to behave.

If the left-wing promoters of gun control have any brains they certainly realize the implications of taking away our guns and the only motive one can attribute to them is the desire to make our democratic socialist state even more dictatorial and to prevent any serious challenge on the part of the citizens of the nation. Taking away the guns is always the first step in the creation of a dictatorship as with Adolph Hitler and other dictators.

source: http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data/constitution/amendment02/

U.S. Constitution: Second Amendment

Second Amendment - Bearing Arms

Amendment Text | Annotations 

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.

Annotations

Prior to the Supreme Court's 2008 decision in District of Columbia v. Heller,1 the courts had yet to definitively state what right the Second Amendment protected. The opposing theories, perhaps oversimplified, were (1) an "individual rights" approach, whereby the Amendment protected individuals' rights to firearm ownership, possession, and transportation; and (2) a "states' rights" approach, under which the Amendment only protected the right to keep and bear arms in connection with organized state militia units.2 Moreover, it was generally believed that the Amendment was only a bar to federal action, not to state or municipal restraints.3

However, the Supreme Court has now definitively held that the Second Amendment protects an individual's right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia, and to use that weapon for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home. Moreover, this right applies not just to the federal government, but to states and municipalities as well.

In Heller, the Court held that (1) the District of Columbia's total ban on handgun possession in the home amounted to a prohibition on an entire class of "arms" that Americans overwhelmingly chose for the lawful purpose of self-defense, and thus violated the Second Amendment; and (2) the District's requirement that any lawful firearm in the home be disassembled or bound by a trigger lock also violated the Second Amendment, because the law made it impossible for citizens to use arms for the core lawful purpose of self-defense.

The Court reasoned that the Amendment's prefatory clause, i.e., "[a] well regulated

Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State," announced the Amendment's purpose, but did not limit or expand the scope of the operative clause, i.e., "the

right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." Moreover, the prefatory clause's history comported with the Court's interpretation, because the prefatory clause stemmed from the Anti-Federalists' concern that the federal government would disarm the people in order to disable the citizens' militia, enabling a politicized standing army or a select militia to rule.

Further, the Court distinguished United States v.Miller,4 in which the Court upheld a statute requiring registration under the National Firearms Act of sawed-off shotguns, on the ground that Miller limited the type of weapon to which the Second Amendment right applied to those in common use for lawful purposes.

In McDonald v. Chicago,5 the Court struck down laws enacted by Chicago and the village of Oak Park effectively banning handgun possession by almost all private citizens, holding that the Fourteenth Amendment incorporated the Second Amendment right, recognized in Heller, to keep and bear arms for the purpose of self-defense.

The Court reasoned that this right is fundamental to the nation's scheme of ordered liberty, given that self-defense was a basic right recognized by many legal systems from ancient times to the present, andHeller held that individual self-defense was "the central component" of the Second Amendment right. Moreover, a survey of the contemporaneous history also demonstrated clearly that the Fourteenth Amendment's Framers and ratifiers counted the right to keep and bear arms among those fundamental rights necessary to the Nation's system of ordered liberty.

Footnotes

554 U.S. ____ (2008).

A sampling of the diverse literature in which the same historical, linguistic, and case law background is the basis for strikingly different conclusions includes: Staff of Subcomm. on the Constitution, Senate Comm. on the Judiciary, 97th Congress, 2d Sess., The Right to Keep and Bear Arms (Comm. Print 1982); Don B. Kates, Handgun Prohibition and the Original Meaning of the Second Amendment (1984);Gun Control and the Constitution: Sources and Explorations on the Second Amendment (Robert J. Cottrol, ed. 1993); Stephen P. Halbrook, That Every Man Be Armed: The Evolution of a Constitutional Right (1984); Symposium, Gun Control, 49 Law & Contemp. Probs. 1 (1986); Sanford Levinson, The Embarrassing Second Amendment, 99 Yale L.J. 637 (1989).

SeePresser v. Illinois, 116 U.S. 252, 265 (1886); see also Miller v. Texas, 153 U.S. 535 (1894);Robertson v. Baldwin, 165 U.S. 275, 281-282 (1897).

307 U.S. 174 (1939).

No. 08-1521 (June 28, 2010).

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