Posted on 12/21/2002 2:30:44 PM PST by pabianice
2nd 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."
Have you ever heard someone say gun control is a fine idea— except that the Second Amendment prohibits it?
It’s a popular sentiment. Fortunately, it’s not true.
The Second Amendment was never intended as a gun license for the entire American populace. As originally drafted—and as consistently interpreted by the courts for more than a century—the Amendment does not grant any blanket right to own a gun nor does it stand in the way of rational, effective gun control.
The idea of gun ownership as an American birthright is nothing more than a popular myth. Yet the controversy over gun control and the Second Amendment rages on.
As the nation’s oldest and most prominent defender of individual rights, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) holds the U.S. Constitution and its Bill of Rights in the highest regard. To clear up many misconceptions, what follows are some basic questions and answers about the Second Amendment and gun control.
Q The Second Amendment says "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." Doesn’t it mean just that?
A There is more to the Second Amendment than just the last 14 words. Most of the debate on the Amendment has focused on its final phrase and entirely ignores the first phrase: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State . . ." And to dissect the Amendment is to destroy its context. While some scholars have suggested that the Amendment gives individuals the constitutional right to bear arms, still others have argued for discarding the Amendment as irrelevant and out of date. However, the vast majority of constitutional experts agree that the right to keep and bear arms was intended to apply only to members of state-run, citizen militias.
Q If it doesn’t guarantee the right to own a gun, why was the Second Amendment included in the Bill of Rights?
A When James Madison proposed the Bill of Rights in the late 1780s, people were still suspicious of any centralized federal government. Just 10 years earlier, the British army been an occupying force in Colonial America—enforcing arbitrary laws decreed from afar. After the Revolutionary War, the states insisted on the constitutional right to defend themselves in case the fledgling U.S. government became tyrannical like the British Crown. The states demanded the right to keep an armed "militia" a form of insurance.
Q What exactly is "a well regulated militia?"
A Militias in 1792 consisted of part-time citizen-soldiers organized by individual states. Its members were civilians who kept arms, ammunition and other military equipment in their houses and barns—there was no other way to muster a militia with sufficient speed. Over time, however, the state militias failed to develop as originally anticipated. States found it difficult to organize and finance their militias and, by the mid-1800s, they had effectively ceased to exist. Beginning in 1903, Congress began to pass legislation that would eventually transform state militias into what is now the National Guard. Today, the National Guard—and Army Reserve—are scarcely recognizable as descendants of militias of the 1790s. The National Guard and Reserve forces, in fact, do not permit personnel to store military weapons at home. And many of today’s weapons—tanks, armored personnel carriers, airplanes and the like—hardly lend themselves to use by individuals.
Q Does the Second Amendment in any way guarantee gun rights to individuals?
A No. The weight of historical and legal scholarship clearly shows that the Second Amendment was intended to guarantee that states could maintain armed forces to resist the federal government. Most scholars overwhelmingly concur that the Second Amendment was never intended to guarantee gun ownership rights for individual personal use. Small arms ownership was common when the Bill of Rights was adopted, with many people owning single-shot firearms for hunting in what was then an overwhelmingly rural nation.
Q Does the Second Amendment authorize Americans to possess and own any firearms they feel they may need?
A Clearly, no. The original intent of the Second Amendment was to protect the right of states to maintain state militias. Private gun ownership that is not necessary to the maintenance of militia is not protected by the Second Amendment.
Q Does the Second Amendment allow government to limit—even prohibit—ownership of guns by individuals?
A Yes. Federal, state and local governments can all regulate guns without violating the Second Amendment. State authorities have considerable powers to regulate guns. The federal government can also regulate firearm ownership, although some scholars believe that the federal power may not be as extensive as that of an individual state. California, for example, has limited the ability of local governments to regulate firearms. While the state has kept its broad regulatory power, cities and counties can only prohibit guns from being carried in public places.
Q How have the courts—particularly the U.S. Supreme Court—interpreted the Second Amendment?
A The Supreme Court has flatly held that the individual’s right to keep and bear arms "is not a right granted by the Constitution." In the four cases in which the high court has addressed the issue, it has consistently held that the Second Amendment does not confer a blanket right of individual gun ownership. The most important Supreme Court Second Amendment case, U.S. v. Miller, was decided in 1939. It involved two men who illegally shipped a sawed-off shotgun from Oklahoma to Arkansas, then claimed the Second Amendment prohibited the federal government from prosecuting them. The court emphatically disagreed, ruling that the Second Amendment had the "obvious purpose" of creating state militias, not of authorizing individual gun ownership. In two earlier rulings in 1876 and 1886, the Supreme Court held that the Second Amendment affected only the federal government’s power to regulate gun ownership and had no effect on state gun control powers. Those cases, Presser v. U.S. and U.S. v. Cruikshank, formed the basis for the continuing legal decisions that the Second Amendment is not an impediment to rational gun control. In another case that the Supreme Court declined to review, a federal appeals court in Illinois ruled in 1983 that the Second Amendment could not prevent a municipal government from banning handgun possession. In the case, Quilici v. Village of Morton Grove, the appeals court held that contemporary handguns couldn’t be considered as weapons relevant to a collective militia.
Q The National Rifle Association (NRA) says the Second Amendment guarantees our right to keep and bear arms. Has the NRA got it wrong?
A Like any powerful special interest, the NRA works to secure its financial well being. It insists on a view of the Second Amendment that defies virtually all court decisions and contradicts findings of most legal scholars. In so doing, the NRA actively perpetuates a seemingly endless cycle of gun-related fatalities. The NRA intimidates politicians because it is very well financed and, like any wealthy single-issue special interest, can muster considerable pressure and scare tactics against legislators who oppose it. For decades, the NRA has effectively promulgated its message. Other voices have recently begun to be heard, however, including the public health community, civil rights and civil liberties organizations and groups committed to women’s, children’s and family rights. The NRA implies that the Bill of Rights forces us to accept unlimited gun ownership and tolerate the human tragedies that guns cause in our society. That simply isn’t true.
Q What are the Second Amendment positions of the American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of Massachusetts?
A For decades, both the national ACLU and its Massachsetts affiliates have agreed the Second Amendment guarantees only the rights of states to maintain militias. The national ACLU has urged caution over gun control laws that, though well intended, might infringe on other civil liberties. The ACLU of Massachusetts believes effective gun control—especially of handguns and assault weapons—is essential to curbing the escalating violence in our society.
I hope he lives in my neighborhood, too.
The ability to identify unstable whack-jobs, for one.
L
Precisely why the 2nd Amendment MUST apply to individuals. If States only can keep and bear arms, within the context of militias, then we have one part of government supposedly protecting the people from another part of government. That's a little like having the fox guard the henhouse...and the people still get screwed. What if the State government is just as corrupt and power hungry as the Federal? The Amendment MUST refer to individuals, because the whole idea, as Madison saw and dealt with it, was a distrust of centralized government IN ANY FORM. What difference is there if the abusive central government is the Federal government, or the State government? A difference which makes no difference, IS no difference
Is this true? I have never researched the ACLU's origins, and find this makes alot of sense. What proof exists to verify this?
Merry Christmas
Hat-Trick
Gun control means you don't myth!
Have you ever heard someone say gun control is a fine idea- except that the Second Amendment prohibits it? ... It's a popular sentiment. Fortunately, it's not true.
``A well-read public, being necessary for the literacy of a free state, the right of the people to keep and read books shall not be infringed.''
Further, the right to make laws regarding firearms is a state issue, not the domaine of the federal government.
This only underlines the need for more strict constructionist judicial appointments.
Soon after the outbreak of the First World War Baldwin, Crystal Eastman, Jane Addams, Lillian Wald, Paul U. Kellogg and Oswald Garrison Villard established the American Union Against Militarism (AUAM). Wald became the AUAM's president and Eastman its executive director. Over the next couple of years the AUAM lobbied against America's possible involvement in the war. It also campaigned against conscription, the arms trade and American imperialism in Latin America and the Caribbean.
Baldwin replaced Crystal Eastman as the AUAM's executive director in 1916. The following year Baldwin, Eastman and Norman Thomas established the National Civil Liberties Bureau (NCLB).
In 1918 Baldwin was imprisoned for his public support of conscientious objectors. While in prison he met fellow radicals, Agnes Smedley and Mollie Steimer. Smedley had charged with diseminating birth control information. Steimer had been imprisoned for circulating leaflets in opposition to United States intervention in the Russian Civil War.
After his release in 1919 Baldwin joined the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). The following year he joined with Norman Thomas, Jane Addams, Chrystal Eastman, Clarence Darrow, John Dewey, Abraham Muste, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn and Upton Sinclair to form the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).
Baldwin was appointed as the first director of the ACLU and over the next thirty five years was involved in the campaign against the Palmer Raids, the Espionage Act, the Tennessee Anti-Evolution Law, Jim Crow, McCarthyism and Racial Segregation. Roger Baldwin died on 26th August, 1981.
Masses of evidence verifies that the ACLU was founded by Communists, including the 3 posts above that constitutes merely the tip of the red iceberg.
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