AT LAW: Second Amdnement Showdown

The Wall Street Journal ^ | November 23, 2007 | MIKE COX

[Aristotelian]

The Supreme Court has a historic opportunity to affirm the individual right to keep and bear arms.

The Supreme Court has agreed to take up a case that will affect millions of Americans and could also have an impact on the 2008 elections. That case, Parker v. D.C., should settle the decades-old argument whether the right "to keep and bear arms" of the Constitution's Second Amendment is an individual right--that all Americans enjoy--or only a collective right that states may regulate freely. Legal, historical and even empirical reasons all command a decision that recognizes the Second Amendment guarantee as an individual right.

The 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." If "the right of the people" to keep and bear arms was merely an incident of, or subordinate to, a governmental (i.e., a collective) purpose--that of ensuring an efficient or "well regulated" militia--it would be logical to conclude, as does the District of Columbia--that government can outlaw the individual ownership of guns. But this collective interpretation is incorrect. . . .

Our Founding Fathers lived in an era where there were arms in virtually every household. Most of America was rural or, even more accurately, frontier. The idea that in the 1780s the common man, living in the remote woods of the Allegheny Mountains of western Pennsylvania and Virginia, would depend on the indulgence of his individual state or colony--not to mention the new federal government--to possess and use arms in order to defend himself is ludicrous. From the Minutemen of Concord and Lexington to the irregulars at Yorktown, members of the militias marched into battle with privately-owned weapons.

[Old Student]

“I’m anxious as to what the court will decide. I feel we should be allowed to own and carry whatever our soldiers and Marines carry.”

Yep. Not to mention airmen and sailors. Personally, I want my own A-10.

[Abundy]

One of the earliest scholars of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, Justice Joseph Story, confirmed this focus on individuals in his famous "Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States" in 1833. "The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms," Story wrote, "has justly been considered, as the palladium of the liberties of republics, since it offers a strong moral check against the usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers . . ."

Indeed.

[Barnacle]

This is an excellent and timely article.

[Barnacle]

Good one.

[budwiesest]

In other words the RIGHT ALREADY EXISTS and it shall not be infringed

Good point (very, actually) and one you don't often hear.

[budwiesest]

The Supreme Court has agreed to take up a case that will affect millions of Americans and could also have an impact on the 2008 elections.

What effect could taking a pro-D.C. gunban position have on Hillary's campaign? I think this could dwarf her illegal's licsensing position/non-position. I think her ship would be sunk.

[uncbob]

I hope someone asks her and she is forced to give a reply