Unstated so far, and not mentioned in the article..
The militia is 'all the people'!
This was well understood until the 1970s when the libs started rewriting history.
Posted on 06/05/2006 12:35:33 PM PDT by neverdem
Guns are the center of the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
While the topic is clear, the amendment is fraught with ambiguity and has been subject to conflicting interpretations and often acrimonious debate.
The sharp conflicts are everyday discussion topics, as gun-control advocates claim that firearms have a pivotal role in societal violence, and firearm enthusiasts clamor that restricting guns tramps on the intent and spirit of the Second Amendment.
One of the strengths of the Constitution is its inherent flexibility. The framers understood that the document would be modified over time if it was to remain relevant. A Constitution that embraced precise concepts of the 18th century could not necessarily be applicable to a society dependent on cell phones and Blackberrys. This does not make life easy for citizens or jurists, and brings to mind Winston Churchill's famous observation that democracy is a terrible system of government, but all the others are worse.
The murky language of the Second Amendment has created a battle line between both sides of the packing-heat or pack-them-away debate.
"No one has ever described the Constitution as a marvel of clarity, and the Second Amendment is perhaps one of the worst drafted of all its provisions," noted Sanford Levinson of the University of Texas at Austin School of Law in 1989 in "The Embarrassing Second Amendment" in the Yale Law Journal.
The amendment is one sentence comprising two clauses, which are the main cause of conflict.
The opening clause states: "A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free State." No other amendment has a similar clause, which seems to ascribe its purpose, according to Levinson.
Gun control groups consider the clause precise and view the amendment as a collective right of the states to form militias.
The rest of the amendment's sentence, "the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed," loads the interpretation of pro-gun groups' belief that the Second Amendment grants citizens an absolute right to own firearms.
The word "militia" is a stumbling point. Written in a time when the tyranny of King George III was still a raw memory, it could be viewed as a right to arm military forces. However, in the 18th century, most adult males were part of a militia, so perhaps the framers used the word to imply everyman.
The Supreme Court has not fully interpreted the Second Amendment, but courts have agreed that it allows reasonable firearm restrictions.
The furious debate around the Second Amendment has prompted groups like U.S. Constitution Online (www. usconstitution.net) to propose replacing the Second Amendment with "a truer representation of how our society views our freedom to bear arms," by removing "militia" and focusing the amendment to ensure the "right of the people to keep arms reasonable for hunting, sport, collecting and personal defense."
As our nation grapples with the issue, we posed questions surrounding the Second Amendment to two recognized Tucson attorneys for whom the Second Amendment is integral to their practice:
Elliot A. Glicksman, who frequently pursues civil remedies for victims of crimes and represents crime victims, told us that "in a perfect world, guns would be treated like cars; people who own guns would have to take a proficiency test."
David T. Hardy, a federal firearms law authority, has written law review articles and a book, "Origins and Development of the Second Amendment: A Sourcebook," and co-authored "Michael Moore Is A Big Fat Stupid White Man" and "This Is Not an Assault" about the siege on the Branch Davidian compound outside Waco, Texas.
Star: Does the Second Amendment protect the individual's unlimited right to own a gun or other weapons? Or is it a collective right of the states and government to maintain militias?
Hardy: Modern scholarship accepts that the Second Amendment was meant to protect an individual right. Perhaps the best historical evidence is a 1789 newspaper explanation of the Bill of Rights, a comprehensive contemporary explanation, that refers to protecting citizens' "private arms." James Madison, drafter of the Bill of Rights, wrote a thank you letter to the author. Further, when the first Senate considered the Bill of Rights, there was a motion to make it a right to bear arms "for the common defense." The Senate voted down the idea.
Madison was trying to allay the fears of two groups. One feared that Congress would neglect the militia; the other feared that Congress might try to disarm individuals. Madison had to resolve both fears. This is why the amendment has two clauses.
Glicksman: The only U.S. Supreme Court case I'm aware of is "U.S. v. Miller," which held that it was a collective, not an individual, right.
Star: According to the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, in U.S. v. Miller (1939), "the High Court wrote that the 'obvious purpose' of the Second Amendment was 'to assure the continuation and render possible the effectiveness' of the state militia. The Court added that the Amendment 'must be interpreted and applied with that end in view.' "
Since Miller, the Supreme Court has addressed the Second Amendment in two cases: In Burton v. Sills, (1969), the Court upheld New Jersey's strict gun-control law, finding the appeal failed to present a "substantial federal question." And in Lewis v. United States (1980), the Court upheld the federal law banning felons from possessing guns, finding no "constitutionally protected liberties" infringed by the federal law, according to the Brady Center."
Star: Bazookas and missiles are "arms." Does the Second Amendment protect an individual's right to own them? Glicksman: Good question. Let's go one further. How about nuclear weapons? Why should I, a legitimate nuclear weapons collector, be punished because terrorists misuse them. Punish the evildoer. Remember, nuclear weapons don't kill people. Terrorists misusing nuclear weapons kill people.
Hardy: All rights have rational limits. We can recognize "freedom of speech" without having to protect blackmail and threatening phone calls.
There are various theories as to how to establish limits. Akhil Amar, a professor at Yale Law School, suggested that, since the original purpose was to allow the people to deter tyranny, a weapon that allows one person to become a tyrant through terror would not be protected.
I like to compare it to regulation of the press, which was known to the Bill of Rights framers, versus regulation of electronic broadcasting, which they could not foresee, would require licensing of frequencies to work. The framers could foresee rifles and pistols but not special problems posed by antiaircraft missiles or nuclear bombs.
Star: Is the regulation of gun ownership, such as licensing and registration, a violation of the Second Amendment? Why or why not?
Hardy: It depends upon the regulation. What the framers clearly meant to take off the table is confiscation or prohibition. I see registration and licensing as facilitating that. It's hard to see how registration itself prevents crime. Even if a criminal did register his gun, he is unlikely to leave it with the victim. Glicksman: The First Amendment is not absolute. Some speech — yelling fire in a crowded theater — is not protected.
Should the Second Amendment be absolute? It can't be. Or else we couldn't prohibit felons from possessing weapons and I could take a gun with me on a plane.
Star: With the right to own a firearm, is a there an implicit responsibility to safely handle the firearm? Hardy: Everyone who has a gun and was not trained how to safely use it should obtain such training now. Every firearm accident that I have ever seen involved violation of not one, but several, simple safety rules. Gun safety is far simpler than automobile safety, but both require knowledge.
Star: A woman who carries a gun in her purse is required to have a concealed weapon permit. A person wearing a sidearm may be asked not to enter a place of business because of the sidearm. Are those restrictions on Second Amendment rights?
Hardy: The permit requirement is a restriction — courts have upheld those because it's a very moderate restriction; it doesn't restrict keeping, and only one form of bearing. A private business on the other hand isn't bound by the Bill of Rights.
Glicksman: Limiting people from having weapons in certain places like a bar or on a plane have always been upheld.
The Tucson City Council banned guns from city parks a number of years ago. The ordinance was challenged ("City of Tucson v. Rineer," 1998), but it was not challenged on Second Amendment grounds. Instead, it was challenged on the claim that the city couldn't regulate guns and on the amendment in the Arizona Constitution, not the U.S. Constitution. The City of Tucson won. The court held that it could ban guns from parks. Subsequently, the state Legislature enacted a statute that said only the state, and not individual cities, could regulate guns. If the Second Amendment grants an individual unfettered right to bear arms, why wasn't this ordinance challenged on Second Amendment grounds?
Star: Is there anything else you feel that our readers should know about the Second Amendment?
Hardy: One fascinating aspect of the American right to arms is not the Second but the 14th Amendment (1868). The original Bill of Rights only restricted the federal government (some states, for example, had established churches into the 1830s).
After the Civil War, Congress proposed, and the people ratified, the 14th Amendment, which forbade States to infringe the "privileges and immunities" of U.S. citizenship.
The congressional debates make it clear that a motivating factor was that the former Confederate states had passed the "Black Codes," which forbade blacks to own guns, and were disarming black Union veterans to make them vulnerable to Ku Klux Klan terror.
Yale professor Amar said that the Second Amendment vision was that "when guns are outlawed, only the government will have guns," and the 14th Amendment vision was "when guns are outlawed, only the Klan will have guns."
He sees the Second Amendment as protecting an individual but political right to resist governmental tyranny and the 14th Amendment as making this the "quintessential individual right," the right to defend one's home against criminal attack.
It's sometimes argued that we have a changing constitution. I find this difficult to accept: Why else would amending it require a super majority (two-thirds of Congress and three-fourth of the states)?
U.S. Constitution: 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.
Editor's note: The United States Constitution lays down the structure of the government and separates the powers among three distinct branches— the Legislative, Executive and Judicial. The landmark document was signed Sept. 17, 1787. Subsequently, the Bill of Rights, the first 10 amendments to the Constitution, went into effect Dec. 15, 1791.
The Constitution imposes a series of checks and balances among the branches of government. The Bill of Rights guarantees that government cannot take away rights from its citizens and protects citizens from excessive government power.
On May 21, we presented a discussion on the First Amendment. Based on positive reader reaction to that story and suggestions that we continue civics discussions, we'll be exploring the entire Bill of Rights in the next few weeks. Read the May 21 article at www.azstarnet.com/opinion.
Today: the Second Amendment.
Editorial Writer Sam Negri contributed to this commentary. Contact Editorial Page Editor Ann Brown at 574-4235 or annbrown@azstarnet.com.
US v. Miller determined that a sawed off shotgun was not a suitable weapon for a militia. No more, no less.
Interesting today that Law Enforcement agencies prefer shotguns with 14" barrels, which would be illegal for you and me.
ping for later
We have plenty to be proud of, and a lot to be ashamed of. No doubts about that....
A lot of grief would be spared if they'd only read the black parts of Constitution.
Not quite. Letter's of M&R were authorization for privateers, already armed, to act on behalf of the government in a legal capacity. No more. No less. They were also loot sharing agreements as well. Government got its armed ships, Captains gave govt a cut of anything they captured.
Well said.
Don't have time to skim all the posts, so hope I'm not redundant:
'They also didn't feel that gun ownership should be completely unregulated, as made evident in their opening words "A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state . . ."'
"Regulated" means EQUIPPED, or regimented. NOT as in fraught with rules. Notice it is the MILITIA which is "regulated" - not arms!
You are so right and one group that has been adamant about preserving our right to keep and bear arms has been JEWS FOR THE PRESERVATION OF FIREARMS OWNERSHIP (www.jpfo.org).........it's been a while but I know they did a report on the major genocides of this century which killed those millions you spoke of and in every single case the genocides were preceded by major gun confiscation efforts.
That is supported by their deliberations and debates.
There needed to be a standing or standby army, a 'well-regulated militia'. Such a force could be used against people but would be tempered and steered toward negotiation and litigation before force was committed because of the 2nd Amendment. The 2nd provided a check on outright tyranny then and now.
Two anecdotes:
1. The Warsaw Ghetto uprising held the Germans at bay for weeks because of the existence of a very few guns.
2. In my experience, a bum came to my door late one night and knocked loudly on my door. I answered while in my robe. The bum held his arms up high and screamed don't shoot! don't shoot! I had no gun and I asked him what he wanted. He said he wanted to sell me magazines. I said I wasn't interested and closed the door. Inside I reflected that it was good that people think other people are armed. It keeps criminals and would-be criminals in check. And my example here is a great example of why I and others should be able to own firearms without having to register them. Because otherwise criminals can find out who has and who doesn't have guns.
Unstated so far, and not mentioned in the article..
The militia is 'all the people'!
This was well understood until the 1970s when the libs started rewriting history.
All other sections of the Bill of Rights prohibit government from doing certain things.
Yet we're supposed to believe the the 2nd (alone) is intended to guarantee a right of governments to do something nobody was trying to keep them from doing and anyway quite adequately covered in the text of the Constitution itself!?
"The Congress shall have Power To ... provide for the common defense of ... the United States"
"To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;
"To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years"
"To provide and maintain a Navy"
"To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces"
"To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions"
"To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress"
"The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States"
And
Even if the Second Amendment were not included in the first place, the right to keep and bear arms would not be a concern of the federal government because there is no where else written in the Constitution that the federal government was delegated the power to control guns at the local level. Therefore, the right is the people's right.
The truth of the matter is that we don't need an amendment for the perfectly logical and rational necessity to protect our lives when and where it is threatened.
Humans can't run as fast as a wild beast, nor do they have the claws and fangs of one. But we do have a brain to fashion something that makes us equal.
If the right to keep and bear arms is a non-enumerated right, it is plainly inferred in the D of I, which lists the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
We have the right to life, therefore, the right to self-defense. And it's my personal choice in how I want to exercise it. When I'm the victim, the battlefield is going to be tilted in my favor, not the aggressor's, for my life is worth more to me than the life of someone who is trying to murder me.
They use a bow and arrow, I'll use a rifle. They use a sling shot, I'll use a piano-throwing trebuchet. They use a pistol, I'll use a shotgun. They use a tire iron, I'll use a battering ram. They use a pellet gun, I'll use a .22. They use a .22, I'll use a .50 caliber. They throw bricks, I'll throw hand grenades. They use a machine gun, I'll strafe them from an airplane. They use a stick, I'll use a nail-studded club. They use a tazer, I'll screw their d... into a bulb socket and turn on the juice. They aim their car at me, I'll bulldoze their house and flatten 'em in their sleep. They use a knife, I'll use a samarai sword and watch the look in their eyes when they try to turn their head.
My advice to anyone who wants to kill me: Pray that you're successful on your first attempt.
So if everyone had that attitude, we'd have the most peaceful and polite society on earth and the word, 'murder' would be defined under archaic expressions in the dictionary.
Thanks for your clear thoughts....the second part of the 2nd amendment...the militia....is us the citizens. Not the National Guard as you state. You are right...the libs will scream over that one.
Bump.
Even some noted liberal professors admit the obvious. Harvard's Laurence Tribe says, "The 14th Amendment, which makes parts of the Bill of Rights applicable to the states, reflected a broad agreement that bearing arms was a 'privilege' of each citizen." Fellow Harvard liberal law professor Alan Dershowitz agrees, and scolds fellow liberals for twisting the words of the Second Amendment in a way that could come back to haunt them. "Foolish liberals who are trying to read the Second Amendment out of the Constitution by claiming that it's not an individual right or that it's too much of a safety hazard," said Dershowitz, "don't see the danger of the big picture." He added, "They're courting disaster by encouraging others to use the same means to eliminate portions of the Constitution they don't like."
In most states a drivers license is not required to own a motorized vehicle, just to operate it on public highways.
EXACTLY!!!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.