WaPo: Fighting Against Your Second Amendment Rights
Admit it, you aren’t surprised are you? Adrian M. Fenty and Linda Singer wrote Fighting for Our Handgun Ban. The debate is over, there is no provision in the COTUS for you to legally carry a gun, so says the mayor and attorney general of the District of Columbia!
The central meaning of the Second Amendment has long been settled in the courts. The last time the Supreme Court directly addressed the provision — which 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” — was in 1939, in a case called United States v. Miller. The court said that the Second Amendment’s “obvious purpose” is to ensure the effectiveness and continuation of state military forces (the militia mentioned in the amendment), not to provide a private right to own weapons for one’s own purposes.
For decades, the lower courts followed that pronouncement. They repeatedly rejected claims that the Second Amendment provides a defense against laws regulating gun possession and use that have no connection with service in a state militia. Although gun proponents vigorously insisted that the Second Amendment protects their right to possess and use guns for private purposes, the courts recognized that their view lacks support in its language and history.
On a related note, the courts also repeatedly recognized that the Second Amendment is meant to constrain the federal government alone. Another longstanding Supreme Court precedent, Presser v. Illinois, establishes that the Second Amendment simply does not apply to state regulation of gun possession and use. The District should have authority just like that of the states, if for no other reason than to avoid the absurd result that the nation’s capital alone would lack the ability to take the steps the local government believes are needed to keep its residents safe.
Memeorandum has some great analysis
September 4, 2007 - 08:43 PM on September 4th, 2007
It is time to start putting Democrat politicians in the unemployment lines if not on the next flight to some Communist hellhole.
September 4, 2007 - 10:10 PM on September 4th, 2007
Funny how the DC mayor fails to do a little research into history. At one point in time, there were laws being considered to provide arms to any law abiding adult male who couldn’t afford one. Likewise, they also refuse to admit that the basis for gun control laws in this country wasn’t to prevent crime, it was to disarm the freed slaves following the Civil War. There is plenty of evidence that shows that some of the toughest gun control laws in California were enacted because the Black Panthers showed up at the state legislature building armed to the teeth in the 60s. They should also read the writings of many of the founding fathers who flat out stated that the right to bear arms was a personal right. Most state constitutions include provisions even less obtuse than the second amendment. What these twits fail to take into account is that in the late 18th century, well regulated meant well armed.
September 4, 2007 - 10:48 PM on September 4th, 2007
Another classic example of why Liberal/Leftist activists should NEVER be appointed to ANY position of responsibility, let alone the Courts.
Liberalism is surely a form of mental illness…
September 4, 2007 - 11:49 PM on September 4th, 2007
Libs don’t hate guns…as long as they’re the ones who have them.
September 5, 2007 - 06:17 AM on September 5th, 2007
I hail from Va. Our new Democratic Senator “Jim Web” assistant was recently harassed by the police for carrying the senators Gun. In regard to the DC Mayor it is his interruption and not based on facts. I find it rather odd to believe that our “rights” face so much opposition. Allow me to provide an example. In VA I have found “zones” which we as citizens may not visit with a concealed weapon (if you have there permit), store in your car,etc. So lets say I’m having lunch in downtown Blacksburg, VA I can have a gun as long as I stay in the town but if I venture a block to VT I can’t. Now try traveling from state to state all the way to the West Coast. Why are their so many restrictions with our “rights.”
Further I have noticed that Ron Paul may be the only candidate who would challenge and repeal many restrictive gun laws.
In closing as a former resident of Blacksburg, VA it is my belief if the students or teacheres had been armed many lives would have been saved.
September 5, 2007 - 08:32 AM on September 5th, 2007
Liberals still continue to distort the 2nd amendment and afew year ago the infamous MAJOR OWENS preposed a bill to repeal the 2nd amendment which is treason and now the UN wants our guns ITS TIME TO BOOT THE UN OUT AND SCREW HE LIBERAL IDIOTS
September 5, 2007 - 02:05 PM on September 5th, 2007
To FrmrArty(Army?)Offcr:
You say, “What these twits fail to take into account is that in the late 18th century, well regulated meant well armed.”
There is an ongoing effort by many Guns Unlimited folks to fabricate bogus history about the meaning in 18th Century America of the expression “well regulated militia.” As the Founders themselves used the term, a well regulated militia was one that performed in accordance with well written militia law. Writings of the time supply a multitude of examples of that use of the term. Here I will post an excerpt from an unimpeachable source ” George Washington:
“For want of proper Laws in the Southern Governments, their Militia were never well regulated; and since the late Troubles, in which the Old Governments have been unhinged, and new ones not yet firmly established, the people have adopted a mode of thinking and Acting for themselves. It is owing to this, that when a Summons is issued for Militia, those only turn out that please, and they for what time they please, by which means they some times sett off for their homes in a few days after they join the Army. From this State of facts, you will perceive, that I put no great dependance on the Militia from the Southward, and must, therefore, once more intreat you to endeavour to prevail upon Two thousand of the Militia of your State to march immediately to Peekskill:”(George Washington to Johathan Trumbull, Governor of Connecticut, March 6, 1777, from The Writings of George Washington from the Original Manuscript Sources, 1745 – 1799, John C. Fitzpatrick, Editor)
September 6, 2007 - 06:42 AM on September 6th, 2007
In order to believe that the Second Amendment applies to “groups’ rights”, you have to believe that ALL of the Bill of Rights are NOT individual rights.
Think about it: the First Amendment says that individuals have a right to speak, assemble, etc. The Third Amendment says that an individual doesn’t have to allow a soldier to stay at his/her home. The Fourth Amendment says that individuals are free from unreasonable searches and seizures. Et cetera.
Finally, ask yourself this: since all of the Bill of Rights tells us what the government CAN’T do to us as individuals, does it make any sense to interpret the Second Amendment as saying that the government WILL allow the army (militia) to have guns?
September 6, 2007 - 11:38 AM on September 6th, 2007
Responding to “Crush Liberalism”:
The Bill of Rights tells us what the FEDERAL government can’t do. Abolishing the state militia system of defense is one of the things it can’t do. As the U.S. Supreme Court said in Miller (1939), the obvious purpose of the Second Amendment was the continuation and effectiveness of the state militia forces.
In 1965, the Supreme Court said that the National Guard is the modern militia of the Constitution:
“The National Guard is the modern Militia reserved to the States by Art.I.8,cl.15,16,of the Constitution.” (U.S. Supreme Court, Maryland v. United States, 1965)
In 2003, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals cited the Supreme Court as authority to make a similar pronouncement:
“We begin our consideration of this appeal with full recognition that the national guard is the militia, in modern-day form, that is reserved to the states by Art. I,8,cls. 15,16, of the Constitution. Maryland v. United States, 381 U.S.41,46 (1965).” (Fifth Circuit Court of Apppeals, James H. Lipscomb. v. Federal Labor Relations Authority (2003))
September 6, 2007 - 12:29 PM on September 6th, 2007
The Supreme Court also said that the Founding Fathers intended for the Fourteenth Amendment to apply to, and thus proscribe, a “constitutional right” to an abortion. Activist courts get things wrong all the time.
Any idiot knows that the Second Amendment clearly means an individual’s right to bear arms. Settled.
September 6, 2007 - 12:47 PM on September 6th, 2007
Presser v. Illinois ruled that the states had the right to strictly regulate private military groups and associations. It also reaffirmed the Cruikshank decision that the Second Amendment acts as a limitation upon the federal government and not the states. However Presser also stated that setting the Second Amendment aside, the states could not prohibit the “people from keeping and bearing arms, so as to deprive the United States of their rightful resource for maintaining the public security…”
As for Miller being purposely mis-cited, here you go:
http://www.guncite.com/journals/dencite.html
Note, Miller only required evidence that the weapon contribute to the efficiency of a well-regulated militia. The Court never said the defendants had to belong to a well-regulated militia. In other words the Miller case interpreted the Second Amendment to mean one has the right to own militia type weapons.
According to 1998 research and testimony by Eugene Volokh, a UCLA law professor and a well known individual gun rights proponent; the Supreme Court has ruled in passing in 22 out of 27 times while quoting or paraphrasing only “the right of the people to keep and bear arms” language of the Second Amendment without ever mentioning the militia clause, and this treatment has evidenced clear support of the Second Amendment as protecting an individual right and not as protecting a collective right.