Posted on 12/07/2007 5:16:39 PM PST by neverdem
Soon the U.S. Supreme Court will consider whether the District of Columbia’s bans on possession of handguns, even in the home, and on having long guns functional for self defense violate the Constitution. As the Court sees it in D.C. v. Heller, the issue is whether those bans “violate 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 federal appeals court for D.C. held that it did.
After ignoring the Amendment since its ambiguous U.S. v. Miller decision in 1939, the Court will decide whether the phrase “the right of the people” in the Second Amendment refers to the same “people” as in the First and Fourth Amendments, or only to government-selected militiamen. It will also consider whether a “right” in the Bill of Rights refers to a real liberty or is only rhetoric. Is the right to keep and bear arms on a par with the rights peaceably to assemble or against unreasonable search and seizure? Or is it void where prohibited by law?
For America’s Founders, the answer was obvious. In 1768, when Redcoats landed to occupy the town, the Boston Gazette warned of British plans “more grievous” than anything before: “the Inhabitants of this Province are to be disarmed”; martial law would be declared; and patriots would be “seized and sent to Great-Britain.” Through the periods of the Boston Massacre and the Tea Party the screws were tightened, until finally British attempts to seize colonists’ arms at Lexington and Concord in 1775 led to the shot heard ‘round the world.
Just after the American victory, General Gage, commander of the King’s troops, ordered the inhabitants of Boston to surrender their firearms, supposedly for temporary safekeeping. It is recorded that Gage confiscated “1,778 fire-arms [long guns], 634 pistols, 973 bayonets, and 38 blunderbusses.” The Continental Congress cited this act of perfidy in its Declaration of Causes of Taking Up Arms.
After Independence was won, delegates from the states in 1787 framed our Constitution. Antifederalists protested that it included no declaration of rights and would allow deprivation of rights like free speech and keeping arms. James Madison responded in The Federalist that a declaration was unnecessary, in part because of “the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation,” in contrast with the European monarchies, where “the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms.”
A great compromise was reached: the Constitution would be ratified and then a bill of rights would be debated. When the first Congress met in 1789, Madison proposed what became the Bill of Rights. Federalist writer Tench Coxe explained the Second Amendment thus: “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...in their right to keep and bear their private arms.”
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.” For almost two centuries, the understanding was that law-abiding individuals had a right to possess rifles, pistols, and shotguns. This would promote a militia of all able-bodied citizens, which, unlike a standing army, was seen as securing a free country.
The agenda to pass firearms prohibitions led to the invention of the “collective rights” view by the 1960s. Under this view, the Amendment protects only the power of states to have militias. A variation asserts that it guarantees a right to bear arms in the militia, nothing more. These attempts to deconstruct ignore that “the people” means you and me, not the states, and that no “right” exists to do anything in a military force—a militiaman does what is commanded.
In 1976, the District of Columbia banned pistols. It also required registered rifles and shotguns to be rendered non-functional when kept at home (but not at a business). D.C. residents were thereby rendered into second-class citizens—they had no Second Amendment rights and were not trusted to defend themselves in their own homes. The crime rate only continued to rise in what became the Murder Capital of the U.S.
The validity of the D.C. ban is now before the Supreme Court. Besides arguing that no one has any rights under the Second Amendment, D.C. alternatively contends that it can ban handguns as long as it does not ban all rifles and shotguns. One can imagine what the Bostonians who surrendered all of their firearms to the Crown in 1775 would have thought of such an argument. Hopefully the Justices will be mindful of the Founders’ intent and will recognize that the Second Amendment is every bit a part of the Bill of Rights as is the First.
State Constitutions re: firearms
Connecticut
SEC. 15. Every citizen has a right to bear arms in defense of himself and the state.
Rhode Island
Section 22. Right to bear arms. — The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.
Massachusetts...this ones a hoot!
Art. XVII. The people have a right to keep and to bear arms for the common defense. And as, in time of peace, armies are dangerous to liberty, they ought not to be maintained without the consent of the legislature; and the military power shall always be held in an exact subordination to the civil authority and be governed by it.
Vermont: Another good one....
rt. 16th That the people have a right to bear arms for the defense of themselves and the State - and as standing armies in time of peace are dangerous to liberty, they ought not to be kept up; and that the military should be kept under strict sub- ordination to and governed by the civil power.
New Hampshire:
[Art.] 2-a. [The Bearing of Arms.]. All persons have the right to keep and bear arms in defense of themselves, their families, their property and the state.
New York: sucks azz, they changed their constitution from this:
NEW YORK STATE ORIGINAL CONSTITUTION, 1777
XL. AND WHEREAS it is of the utmost importance to the safety of every State, that it should always be in a condition of defense; and it is the duty of every man, who enjoys the protection of society, to be prepared and willing to defend it; this Convention therefore, in the name and by the authority of the good people of this State, doth ORDAIN, DETERMINE and DECLARE, that the militia of this State, at all times hereafter, as well in peace as in war, shall be armed and disciplined, and in readiness for service. That all such of the inhabitants of this State, being of the people called Quakers, as from scruples of conscience, may be adverse to the bearing of arms, be therefrom excused by the legislature; and do pay to the State such sums of money in lieu of their personal service, as the same may, in the judgment of the legislature, be worth: And that a proper magazine of warlike stores, proportionate to the number of inhabitants, be, for ever hereafter, at the expence [sic] of this State, and by acts of the legislature, established, maintatained, and continued in every county in this State.
(This article was replaced in 1938 and the 1938 Article was replaced in 1962.)
NEW YORK STATE CONSTITUTION, 1962, ARTICLE XII: DEFENSE
Section 1. The defense and protection of the State and of the United States is an obligation of all persons within the state. The legislature shall provide for the discharge of this obligation and for the maintenance and regulation of an organized militia.
NEW YORK STATE CIVIL RIGHTS LAW ARTICLE 2 SECTION 4
A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms cannot be infringed.
to this:
ARTICLE XII (9)
Defense
[Defense; militia]
Section 1. The defense and protection of the state and of the United States is an obligation of all persons within the state. The legislature shall provide for the discharge of this obligation and for the maintenance and regulation of an organized militia.
Maine:
Section 16. To keep and bear arms. Every citizen has a right to keep and bear arms and this right shall never be questioned.
and an interesting note here too regarding Maine, similar to Vermont and of all places Masechusettes
Maine:
Section 17. Standing armies. No standing army shall be kept up in time of peace without the consent of the Legislature, and the military shall, in all cases, and at all times, be in strict subordination to the civil power.
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please bookmark for future reference
Unfortunately, that is one of the many bogus quotes we all wish Jefferson did say. But he didn’t.
“The beauty of the Second Amendment is that it will not be needed until they try to take it.”
Be Ever Vigilant!
It appears many of the elected state officials have forgotten the intent of the local constitution.
My my how the Democrats have changed.
I was a democrat back then. >:-}
It’s a good article but I don’t really care what the founders meant, I care about what “the people” ratified and they they ratified an amendment that acknowledges what common sense told them, they and we have a right to keep and bear arms, militia or no militia.
Not true at all. The Constitution grants the Congress to raise and support Armies (plural). The restriction is that they can't be funded for more the two years. Congress also was given power to provide for a Navy, with no restrictions on time increment of funding.
In practice, we have two Armies. We call the air army the Air Force. The Marines are part of the Navy. We fund all of them, and the rest of the government, wastefully IMHO, for only a single year.
That’s a big FRED THOMPSON (true Conservative Federalist) - NATIONAL SECURITY EXPERIENCE (I’ll do whatever it takes to stop the bastards) - 2ND AMENDMENT ADVOCATE (arm everyone and the criminals will back off) - SECURE THE BORDERS (starve the bastards and they will go home) - LAW AND ORDER (enforcement first and foremost) - SOCIAL SECURITY REFORM (the program can’t sustain itself) - DEFEAT THE DEMOCRAT (any fool they put up) - PING!
Shouldn't have to either...
That flag flies from our deck.
Senator John F. Kennedy
Know Your Lawmakers
Guns, April 1960, p. 4 (1960)
Thanks for the quote!
I don’t know that Ginsburg and Souter should be considered a lock, but your point is quite valid. I don’t think we can project with any confidence how several of the justices will vote on this. Scalia, for instance, sometimes votes for the government over their masters on certain issues. So I think the final lineup on this may surprise all of us.
The snippet that should be considered, and by a man who had no concept of what a "tin foil hat" even was...
“The beauty of the Second Amendment is that it will not be needed until they try to take it.”
But I believe this one to be correct and accurate:
"The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government."
-- Thomas Jefferson
Quotes from the Founding Fathers and Their Contemporaries
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