Supreme Court Rules on Second Amendment Tomorrow
Jun 25, 2008 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