Supreme Court Rules on Second Amendment Tomorrow
by Big Dog on Jun 25, 2008 at 22:29 General
Tomorrow the Supreme Court will rule, for the first time in its history (on this particular issue), on whether the Second Amendment means an individual’s rights or the collective right of a militia. Anyone with brains knows that this is an individual right. The Bill of Rights discusses those things that the federal government may not take away from the people. The Bill of Rights does not grant rights, it says what rights (that have already existed) may not be infringed upon. The Second Amendment uses the words “…the right of the people…” The phrase “the people” is used throughout the Constitution to mean all citizens and not the militia so why would the Second Amendment use of “the people” refer to a militia. Sure, the word militia is mentioned but not as a precondition for gun ownership. I read a comment at a site and I copied it. I cannot remember where I saw it but it is a good description:
All reasonable people fully understand that the Second Amendment clearly guarantees the right of the people to keep and bear arms, and declares that there shall be no infringement. It also states that a well-regulated militia is necessary for the security of a free state. As the militia were understood at the time to be all able-bodied men, this amendment therefor[sic] presumes that if all men may be armed, the militia will be armed should it need to defend the commonwealth. Yet, though the armament of the militia proceeds from the armament of the populace, and it is a necessary precondition that if the militia is to be armed, the men must be armed, it is neither necessary nor a condition that the men be members of a militia in order to keep and bear arms.
I always believed that if we want to know what the Amendments mean we should read the words of those who wrote them. They clearly described what they meant when they wrote the words. Go to Walter Williams’ site for a list of quotes from the founders. This should clear up any misconceptions.
The Supreme Court is reported to have decided this in 1939 in the Miller case and that is what lower courts have used to justify upholding gun bans. However, Miller is not settled law because the SCOTUS remanded it back to the lower court and the issue was not about an individual right. Miller claimed he had a right to carry the weapon under the Second Amendment. The Court ruled that the sawed off shotgun did not fit the definition of a military type weapon that would be used by a militia. Since it did not (in the court’s opinion even though sawed off shotguns had been used in the military) Miller’s argument was not valid and the case was remanded. Notice what people ignore. If the gun had been ruled a weapon used by the militia, Miller would have had a right to carry it even though he was not in the militia.
The Court actually did have a ruling that demonstrated guns were an individual right and not a collective militia one. It was in the Dred Scott v. Sandford case. When the justices ruled against Scott they wrote:
The Court also presented an argument describing the feared results of granting Mr. Scott’s petition [for freedom]:
“It would give to persons of the negro race, …the right to enter every other State whenever they pleased, …the full liberty of speech in public and in private upon all subjects upon which its own citizens might speak; to hold public meetings upon political affairs, and to keep and carry arms wherever they went.” Wikipedia [emphasis mine]
The Justices stated that if he were a free man he would be allowed to keep and carry arms wherever he wanted which means that all Free Men were allowed to keep and carry arms.
“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 ruling tomorrow should put an end to this foolish debate about having to belong to the militia to own weapons (but our militia is defined as all men 17-45 and all women in the National Guard so a lot of people should be carrying weapons). I am fairly confident that the Justices will rule that keeping and bearing arms is an individual right but if they don’t there will be a lot of instant criminals in this country.
They can come for my guns, they will get the ammo…
“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) [from Williams’ site]
Tags: gun rights, militia, Second Amendment
[…] [Discuss this topic with the Big Dog…] […]
In Federalist Paper No. 29, Alexander Hamilton clarifies that “well regulated” does not mean restricted, but rather well trained, armed, and equipped. Hamilton also distinguishes the militia, consisting of “a large body of citizens,” from what we now call the National Guard.
That with rights come responsibilities is widely if not universally accepted. So what is the responsibility that comes with the right to keep and bear arms? It’s in the opening phrase of the Second Amendment. “Owning guns and complaining to your representatives being sufficient to the security of a free state,…” Right? Well that’s what most gun owners and the NRA seem to think.
For any who wish to take seriously the responsibility that comes with the right to keep and bear arms, I’d like to invite you to explore today’s militia at http://www.awrm.org. We might surprise you, especially if you still believe what the mainstream media and groups like the SPLC say about us.
Peace
The founders knew that they might need to call a militia from the entire body of people so all people were to keep their arms but not all would be called into service.
[…] of former WH press secretary Jim Brady. Because this makes me dizzy with rage, I’ll let Big Dog sum it up for me. And of course, the Obama Camp Disavows Last Year’s ‘Inartful’ […]
Finally! This landmark decision secures our right to keep and bear arms. The liberals will have to come up with new schemes to control the masses! They might want to think about arming themselves because I see no other way they are gonna deprive me of my GOD GIVIN RIGHT TO SELF PROTECTION. Can’t wait to hear Hussein Obama’s elitist response to this ruling! Knowing him he will do the flip flops of all flip flops and claim that he has allways been a proponent of individual rights to keep and bear arms.
Confederate Yankee has a post noting that a commenter on the liberal site “crooksandliars” has called for the “murder” of Justice Scallia.
http://confederateyankee.mu.nu/archives/267434.php
Will meaty go after them do you think? Or does the child save his vituperation for conservative sites?
I disagree with something you said:
but our militia is defined as all men 17-45 and all women in the National Guard so a lot of people should be carrying weapons
In that you are right (but you left off up to age 65 if in the regular military) and you failed to mention women in the national guard was added during the clinton years, so its a recent thing.
Now, you said “should” I disagree with that. Just because you have a right does not mean you should or must exercise it. People have the right to choose their religion, and some have chosen not to have one. That is their choice, and implicitly something they can choose.
The 2nd amendment states basically the government can not “infringe” upon “the right of the people to keep and bear arms”, but nowhere does it say they should or must keep and bear arms.
And really after reading the 157 page brief (I get the advantage of posting after the ruling 🙂 not much changed. Scalia stated that bans on weapons, where you can have them, who can have them, are all valid so long as its not a 100% ban. A couple others joined him in that.
The dissenters pointed out that Scalia said “people” means all people not a subset, but then he also made it so that it is a subset. Something they fear will cause cases to be heard in the future challenging those laws. They also brought up the fact that ex-felons get their first and fourth amendment rights back after they are no longer incarcerated (probation, parole, halfway houses, etc are all modified forms of incarceration). They feared that a challenge may be brought there as well.
For dissenters though think about this. Murder, robbery, rape, etc are all illegal whether or not you have a gun, almost all gun crimes have another crime associated with them. Those are the real crimes being committed. Really if these people are so dangerous, why arent you petitioning the government to watch them? Shouldnt dangerous people be watched? If they arent dangerous why ensure that their “debt to society” can never be paid.
The definition of the militia is from United States Code. Members of the regular military are not part of the militia.
The militia is a group of citizens called to military service in the event they are needed. The regular armed forces have the profession of arms as their job and cannot fit the definition of militia.
The Court was only asked to rule on whether the right was an individual one or one associated with involvement in the militia. They will need more lawsuits to define the rest.
It’s clear what the authors of the Bill of Rights meant and the Supreme Court just affirmed it. If you want to change the law then change the Bill of Rights. The court or at least 5 member of the court applied the law properly.
I am tired of totalitarian judges who base rulings on their personal opinion of what they think is good policy. Here is a novel idea, let the people we ELECT make policy and confine judges to interpereting the law. I wonder if our founding fathers thought of that idea…oh yea THEY DID!