Second Amendment to the United States Constitution

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The Second Amendment (Amendment II) to the United States Constitution is the part of the United States Bill of Rights that protects a right to keep and bear arms. The meaning and scope of this right has been described as among the most contested of the rights codified in the Bill of Rights.

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Contents

Text

There are several versions of the text of the Second Amendment, each with slight capitalization and punctuation differences, found in the official documents surrounding the adoption of the Bill of Rights.[1] One such version was passed by the Congress, which reads:[2]

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.

Another version is found in the copies distributed to the states, and then ratified by them, which had this capitalization and punctuation:[3]

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.

The original hand-written copy of the Bill of Rights, approved by the House and Senate, was prepared by scribe William Lambert and resides in the National Archives.

Background

The meaning and scope of the Second Amendment has been described as among the most contested amendments of the constitution.[4][5] Similarly, in his book, Out of Range, Mark Tushnet concluded that the historical and legal arguments over the Second Amendment were so evenly balanced that it was difficult to conclusively prove what the Amendment originally meant[6]. The current legal meaning of the Second Amendment was addressed in District of Columbia v. Heller.

In Heller, the Supreme Court determined that the Second Amendment protects an individual right, with the majority opinion stating that:

The Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia, and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home.[7]

The dissenting opinion stated that:

The question presented by this case is not whether the Second Amendment protects a “collective right” or an “individual right.” Surely it protects a right that can be enforced by individuals. But a conclusion that the Second Amendment protects an individual right does not tell us anything about the scope of that right.[8]

English Common Law

In response to complaints that local people were reluctant to take up arms to enforce justice for strangers, The Statute of Winchester of 1285 (13 Edw. I) declared that each district or hundred would be held responsible for unsolved crimes. Each man was to keep arms to take part in the hue and cry when necessary.

The Statute of Winchester of 1285 codified the system of social obligation. It provided that: (1) it was everyone’s duty to maintain the king’s peace, and any citizen could arrest an offender; (2) unpaid, part-time constables operating at various levels of governance had a special duty to do so, and in towns they would be assisted by their inferior officers, the watchmen; (3) if the offender was not caught “red-handed,” a hue and cry would have to be raised; (4) everyone was obliged to keep arms and to follow the cry when required; and (5) constables had among their varying responsibilities a duty to present the offender at court tests.[9]

The right of some English subjects to possess arms was recognized under English common law; however many English subjects were not permitted by law to possess arms.[10] Regarding these constraints, St. George Tucker wrote in 1803:

This may be considered as the true palladium of liberty. . . . The right of self defence is the first law of nature: in most governments it has been the study of rulers to confine this right within the narrowest limits possible. Wherever standing armies are kept up, and the right of the people to keep and bear arms is, under any colour or pretext whatsoever, prohibited, liberty, if not already annihilated, is on the brink of destruction. In England, the people have been disarmed, generally, under the specious pretext of preserving the game: a never failing lure to bring over the landed aristocracy to support any measure, under that mask, though calculated for very different purposes. True it is, their bill of rights seems at first view to counteract this policy: but the right of bearing arms is confined to protestants, and the words suitable to their condition and degree, have been interpreted to authorise the prohibition of keeping a gun or other engine for the destruction of game, to any farmer, or inferior tradesman, or other person not qualified to kill game. So that not one man in five hundred can keep a gun in his house without being subject to a penalty.[11]

The dispute over the scope of this right was discussed in District of Columbia v. Heller.[12] Sir William Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England describes the right to arms:

The fifth and last auxiliary right of the subject, that I shall at present mention, is that of having arms for their defence, suitable to their condition and degree, and such as are allowed by law. Which is also declared by the same statute I W. & M. st.2. c.2. and is indeed a public allowance, under due restrictions, of the natural right of resistance and self-preservation, when the sanctions of society and laws are found insufficient to restrain the violence of oppression.[13]

The English Bill of Rights of 1689 granted Protestants the right to arms for self defense:

That the subjects which are Protestants may have arms for their defence suitable to their conditions and as allowed by law.[14]

This right was recognized prior to, and during, the Revolutionary War. For instance, in 1780 after some riots, the recorder of London - the city attorney - was asked if the right to arms protected armed groups, he wrote:

The right of his majesty's Protestant subjects, to have arms for their own defense, and to use them for lawful purposes, is most clear and undeniable.[15]

Colonial Experience

The rights of the Colonists to possess arms was stated in Revolutionary era newspaper articles. Notably, a Boston Journal of the Times printed April 13, 1769:

Instances of the licentious and outrageous behavior of the military conservators of the peace still multiply upon us, some of which are of such nature, and have been carried to such lengths, as must serve fully to evince that a late vote of this town, calling upon its inhabitants to provide themselves with arms for their defense, was a measure as prudent as it was legal: such violences are always to be apprehended from military troops, when quartered in the body of a populous city; but more especially so, when they are led to believe that they are become necessary to awe a spirit of rebellion, injuriously said to be existing therein. It is a natural right which the people have reserved to themselves, confirmed by the Bill of Rights, to keep arms for their own defence; and as Mr. Blackstone observes, it is to be made use of when the sanctions of society and law are found insufficient to restrain the violence of oppression.[16]

John Adams, lead defense attorney for the British soldiers on trial for the Boston Massacre, stated at the trial:

Here every private person is authorized to arm himself, and on the strength of this authority, I do not deny the inhabitants had a right to arm themselves at that time, for their defense, not for offence…[17]

When Colonists protested British efforts to disarm their militias in the early phases of the American Revolution, colonists cited the Declaration of Rights, Blackstone's summary of the Declaration of Rights, their own militia laws and common law rights to self-defense. While British policy in the early phases of the Revolution clearly aimed to prevent coordinated action by the militia, there is no evidence that the British sought to restrict the traditional common law right of self-defense. Indeed, in his arguments on behalf of British troops in the Boston Massacre, John Adams invoked the common law of self-defense.[18] Thomas B. McAffee and Michael J. Quinlan stated "… Madison did not invent the right to keep and bear arms when he drafted the Second Amendment—the right was pre-existing at both common law and in the early state constitutions."[19] Historian Jack Rakove, by contrast, suggests that Madison's intention in framing the Second Amendment was to provide assurances to moderate Anti-Federalists that the militias would not be disarmed.[20]

Early commentary

The earliest published commentary on the Second Amendment by a major constitutional theorist was by St. George Tucker. He annotated a five-volume edition of Sir William Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England, a critical legal reference for early American attorneys published in 1803.[21]

In footnotes 40 and 41 of the Commentaries, Tucker stated that the right to bear arms under the Second Amendment was not subject to the restrictions that were part of English law: "The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. Amendments to C. U. S. Art. 4, and this without any qualification as to their condition or degree, as is the case in the British government." and "Whoever examines the forest, and game laws in the British code, will readily perceive that the right of keeping arms is effectually taken away from the people of England." Blackstone himself also commented on English game laws, Vol. II, p. 412, "that the prevention of popular insurrections and resistance to government by disarming the bulk of the people, is a reason oftener meant than avowed by the makers of the forest and game laws."[21] Blackstone discussed the right of self-defense in a separate section of his treatise on the common law of crimes. Tucker's annotations for that latter section made no mention of the Second Amendment but cited the standard works of English jurists such as Hawkins.[22]

Further, Tucker criticized the English Bill of Rights for limiting gun ownership to the very wealthy, leaving the populace effectively disarmed, and expressed the hope that Americans "never cease to regard the right of keeping and bearing arms as the surest pledge of their liberty."[21]

§1202 of the book describes a militia as the "natural defence of a free country," both against foreign foes, domestic revolts and usurpation by rulers. The book regards the militia as a "moral check" against both usurpation and the arbitrary use of power, while expressing distress at the growing indifference of the American people to maintaining such an organized militia, which could lead to the undermining of the protection of the Second Amendment.[23]

The orthodox view of the meaning of the Second Amendment was articulated by Joseph Story in his influential Commentaries on the Constitution 3:§§ 1890--91. In his view the meaning of the Amendment was clear:

§ 1890. The importance of this article will scarcely be doubted by any persons, who have duly reflected upon the subject. The militia is the natural defence of a free country against sudden foreign invasions, domestic insurrections, and domestic usurpations of power by rulers. It is against sound policy for a free people to keep up large military establishments and standing armies in time of peace, both from the enormous expenses, with which they are attended, and the facile means, which they afford to ambitious and unprincipled rulers, to subvert the government, or trample upon the rights of the people. The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered, as the palladium of the liberties of a republic; since it offers a strong moral check against the usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers; and will generally, even if these are successful in the first instance, enable the people to resist and triumph over them. And yet, though this truth would seem so clear, and the importance of a well regulated militia would seem so undeniable, it cannot be disguised, that among the American people there is a growing indifference to any system of militia discipline, and a strong disposition, from a sense of its burthens, to be rid of all regulations. How it is practicable to keep the people duly armed without some organization, it is difficult to see. There is certainly no small danger, that indifference may lead to disgust, and disgust to contempt; and thus gradually undermine all the protection intended by this clause of our national bill of rights.

Abolitionist Lysander Spooner, commenting on bills of rights, stated that the object of all bills of rights is to assert the rights of individuals against the government and that the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms was in support of the right to resist government oppression, as the only security against the tyranny of government lies in forcible resistance to injustice, for injustice will certainly be executed, unless forcibly resisted.[24] Spooner's theory provided the intellectual foundation for John Brown and other radical abolitionists who believed that arming slaves was not only morally justified, but entirely consistent with the Second Amendment.[25]

Later commentary

Two grammatical descriptions of the Second Amendment have been historically discussed.

In one description, known to grammarians as an ablative absolute, the Second Amendment has been considered formed with an opening justification clause, followed by a declarative clause.[26][27] Under this interpretation, the opening phrase is considered essential as a pre-condition for the main clause.[28] This was a grammar structure that was common during that era.[29] This grammatical description is considered by some to be consistent with the concept of the Second Amendment as protecting a collective right to firearms for members serving in a select militia.[30]

Another description of the Second Amendment has it being grammatically formed with an opening "prefatory clause" followed by an "operative clause", meaning that the opening phrase is meant as a non-exclusive reason for the amendment. This description is consistent with the concept of the Second Amendment as protecting a "modified individual rights view" of the right.[31] In Heller, the United States Supreme Court chose and endorsed this description of the Second Amendment.[32] Although the Second Amendment is the only Constitutional amendment that has a prefatory clause, such constructions were widely used elsewhere.[33]

In the wake of Sanford Levinson's 1989 Yale Law Journal article on the Second Amendment, there was renewed scholarly interest in the Second Amendment. Scholars in law, history and political science weighed in, including Akhil Reed Amar, Saul Cornell, Leonard Levy, Jack Ravoke, Laurence Tribe, William Van Alstyne and Garry Wills. By 1999, the weight of scholarship had appeared to shift towards an interpretation of the Second Amendment with an individual rights component.[34]

According to Saul Cornell, in recent decades Second Amendment scholarship has taken the form of “law office history”, a form of advocacy scholarship intended to influence the way courts decide constitutional questions. This legal scholarship has influenced the way briefs are written and also may have been used by judges when deciding a case.[35]

Similarly, also according to Saul Cornell, the simplified choices of only two models, of the original individual right interpretation and of the later collective right interpretation of the Second Amendment, were both in error: "The original understanding of the Second Amendment was neither an individual right of self-defense nor a collective right of the states, but rather a civic right that guaranteed that citizens would be able to keep and bear those arms needed to meet their legal obligation to participate in a well-regulated militia."[36][37] David Thomas Konig has also stated this viewpoint, of the civic duty/right associated with service in a militia, in association with interpreting the Second Amendment.[38]

To keep and bear arms vs. to bear arms

Civilian usage meaning

Don Kates, a civil liberties lawyer, cites historic English usage describing the "right to keep and bear their private arms."[39]

Likewise, attorney Sayoko Blodgett-Ford notes non-military usage of the phrase in the Pennsylvania ratifying convention:

[T]he people have a right to bear arms for the defense of themselves and their own state, or the United States, or the purpose of killing game; and no law shall be passed for disarming the people or any of them, unless for crimes committed..."[40]

Historian Jack Rakove, in an amicus brief signed by a dozen leading historians filed in DC. v. Heller, identifies several problems with the Kates and Ford Argument. Coxe's reference describes the ownership of weapons, not the purpose for which the weapons were owned. Thus, privately owned weapons were state mandated as a means of meeting ones legal obligation to contribute to public defense. Other historians have noted that the Second Amendment was as much a civic obligation as it was a right in the modern sense, Cornell, Well Regulated Militia. The meaning of the Dissent of the Minority is even more hotly disputed. A number of scholars, including Gary Wills, Jack Rakove, and Saul Cornell have all noted that this text, written by the Anti-Federalist minority of a single state, was hastily written and never emulated by any other ratification convention. (See Wills, Necessary Evil, Rakove, Highest State of Originalism, Cornell, Well Regulated Militia.)

The individual rights reading gained important judicial notice in the opinion authored by Justice Cummings in United States v. Emerson, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit concluded in 2001 that:[41]

there are numerous instances of the phrase 'bear arms' being used to describe a civilian's carrying of arms. Early constitutional provisions or declarations of rights in at least some ten different states speak of the right of the 'people' [or 'citizen' or 'citizens'] "to bear arms in defense of themselves [or 'himself'] and the state,' or equivalent words, thus indisputably reflecting that under common usage 'bear arms' was in no sense restricted to bearing arms in military service. See Bliss v. Commonwealth, 13 Am. Dec. 251, 12 Ky. 90 (Ky. 1822).[42]

The DC v Heller Supreme Court majority opinion stated that:

A purposive qualifying phrase that contradicts the word or phrase it modifies is unknown this side of the looking glass (except, apparently, in some courses on Linguistics). If “bear arms” means, as we think, simply the carrying of arms, a modifier can limit the purpose of the carriage (“for the purpose of self-defense” or “to make war against the King”). But if “bear arms” means, as the petitioners and the dissent think, the carrying of arms only for military purposes, one simply cannot add “for the purpose of killing game.” The right “to carry arms in the militia for the purpose of killing game” is worthy of the mad hatter.[43]

The dissenting justices were unpersuaded by this argument.[44]

Military service meaning

Some historians have claimed that prior to and through the 18th century, the expression "bear arms" appeared primarily in military contexts, as opposed to the use of firearms by civilians.[45][46][47][48]

In late-eighteenth-century parlance, bearing arms was a term of art with an obvious military and legal connotation. ... As a review of the Library of Congress's data base of congressional proceedings in the revolutionary and early national periods reveals, the thirty uses of 'bear arms' and 'bearing arms' in bills, statutes, and debates of the Continental, Confederation, and United States' Congresses between 1774 and 1821 invariably occur in a context exclusively focused on the army or the militia.[45]

However, this conclusion is disputed by published research of Clayton Cramer and Joseph Olson who argue that the military usage of the term 'bear arms' may be due to selection bias, which arises from the use of a limited selection of government documents that overwhelmingly refer to matters of military service.[49] Cramer and Olson note:

Searching more comprehensive collections of English language works published before 1820 shows that there are a number of uses that...have nothing to do with military service...[and] The common law was in agreement. Edward Christian’s edition of Blackstone’s Commentaries that appeared in the 1790’s described the rights of Englishmen (which every American colonist had been promised) in these terms 'everyone is at liberty to keep or carry a gun, if he does not use it for the [unlawful] destruction of game.' This right was separate from militia duties."[49]

The Oxford English Dictionary defines the term to bear arms as: "to serve as a soldier, do military service, fight," dating to about the year 1330.

Garry Wills, an author and history professor at Northwestern University, has written of the origin of the term bear arms:

By legal and other channels, the Latin "arma ferre" entered deeply into the European language of war. Bearing arms is such a synonym for waging war that Shakespeare can call a just war " 'justborne arms" and a civil war "self-borne arms." Even outside the special phrase "bear arms," much of the noun's use echoes Latin phrases: to be under arms (sub armis), the call to arms (ad arma), to follow arms (arma sequi), to take arms (arma capere), to lay down arms (arma pœnere). "Arms" is a profession that one brother chooses the way another choose law or the church. An issue undergoes the arbitrament of arms." ... "One does not bear arms against a rabbit...[50]

Garry Wills also cites Greek and Latin etymology:

... "Bear Arms" refers to military service, which is why the plural is used (based on Greek 'hopla pherein' and Latin 'arma ferre') – one does not bear arm, or bear an arm. The word means, etymologically, 'equipment' (from the root ar-* in verbs like 'ararisko', to fit out). It refers to the 'equipage' of war. Thus 'bear arms' can be used of naval as well as artillery warfare, since the "profession of arms" refers to all military callings.[51]

Well regulated militia

The term "well regulated" in the Second Amendment has been interpreted as either an archaic usage of the term "regulated" to mean "disciplined" or "trained," or the more conventional meaning provided by the Oxford Unabridged Dictionary, brought within in a system of rules. On what constitutes a well regulated militia, Alexander Hamilton wrote in Federalist Paper 29:

A tolerable expertness in military movements is a business that requires time and practice. It is not a day, or even a week, that will suffice for the attainment of it. To oblige the great body of the yeomanry, and of the other classes of the citizens, to be under arms for the purpose of going through military exercises and evolutions, as often as might be necessary to acquire the degree of perfection which would entitle them to the character of a well-regulated militia, would be a real grievance to the people, and a serious public inconvenience and loss.[52]

However, Hamilton continued:

If a well regulated militia be the most natural defence of a free country, it ought certainly to be under the regulation and at the disposal of that body which is constituted the guardian of the national security.[52]

Some scholars, such as Saul Cornell, have contended that modern second amendment militias are not what could be considered "well regulated", since they often lack fixed leadership and may have unstructured training regimes. [53]

Regarding the term "well regulated", the U.S. Supreme Court said in District of Columbia v. Heller:

[T]he adjective "well-regulated" implies nothing more than the imposition of proper discipline and training.[54]

Right of resistance

A topic central[55] to the gun control debate, is the conflict between gun control laws and the right to lawfully rebel against unjust governments. This right was codified into law as far back as Article 61 of the 1215 version of the Magna Carta, which made it legal to arise in rebellion, and even went so far as to require that the King of England himself order the people unwilling to rise in rebellion against himself and his officials, to do so, when the council of barrons serving as a check on his power found cause for this extreme action.[56] This right was exercised within the Declaration of Independence.[57] During the Constitutional debates, Patrick Henry questioned how the people could resist tyrants if their arms had been taken from them.[58][59] Article 10 of New Hampshire Bill of Rights recognizes this right and refers to is as The Right of Revolution.[60]

The Founding Fathers, such as Alexander Hamilton, recognized a Lockean right of revolution. He offered the following commentary:

[...]if circumstances should at any time oblige the government to form an army of any magnitude[,] that army can never be formidable to the liberties of the people while there is a large body of citizens, little, if at all, inferior to them in discipline and the use of arms, who stand ready to defend their own rights and those of their fellow-citizens.[52]

An express connection between this right and the Second Amendment was drawn by Lysander Spooner who commented that a "right of resistance" is protected by both the right to trial by jury and the Second Amendment.[61] Spooner's The Unconstitutionality of Slavery was cited in the 2008 District of Columbia v. Heller case, which ruled the District of Columbia's ban on handguns to be a violation of the Second Amendment. Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for the court, quoted Spooner as saying the right to bear arms was necessary for those who wanted to take a stand against slavery.[62]

Adoption

The prefatory clause of the Second Amendment is a shortened version of language found in the 1776 Virginia Declaration of Rights, largely the work of George Mason. Similar language appears in many Revolutionary Era state constitutions. This Declaration states:

That a well-regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the proper, natural, and safe defense of a free state; that standing armies, in time of peace, should be avoided as dangerous to liberty; and that in all cases the military should be under strict subordination to, and governed by, the civil power.[63]

In 1786, a decade after the Declaration of Independence was signed, the United States existed as a close alliance of sovereign states under the Articles of Confederation. This confederation was perceived to have several weaknesses, among which was the inability to mount a federal military response to an armed uprising in western Massachusetts known as Shays' Rebellion.[64]

In 1787, to address these weaknesses, the Constitutional Convention was convened with the charter of amending the Articles. When the convention concluded with a proposed Constitution, those who debated the ratification of the Constitution divided into two camps; the Federalists (who supported ratification of the Constitution) and the Anti-Federalists (who opposed it).

Among their objections to the Constitution, Anti-Federalists feared creation of a standing army not under civilian control that could eventually endanger democracy and civil liberties as had happened recently in the American Colonies and Europe.[65] Although the Anti-Federalists were ultimately unsuccessful at blocking ratification of the Constitution, through the Massachusetts Compromise they laid the groundwork to ensure that a Bill of Rights would be drafted, which would provide constitutional guarantees against encroachment by the government of certain rights.

Federalists such as James Madison on the other hand held that a Bill of Rights was unnecessary, arguing that the federal government could never raise a standing army powerful enough to overcome a militia.[66] Similarly, Federalist Noah Webster argued that an armed populace would have no trouble resisting the potential threat to liberty of a standing army.[67][68]

The controversy of a standing army for the United States existed in context of the Continental Forces that had won the American Revolutionary War which consisted of both the standing Continental Army, which was created by the Continental Congress, and of State and Militia Units. In opposition, the British Forces consisted of a mixture of the standing British Army, Loyalist Militia and Hessian mercenaries.

The origin of the Second Amendment occurred in context of an ongoing debate about "the people" fighting governmental tyranny, (as described by Anti-Federalists); or the risk of mob rule of "the people", (as described by the Federalists) related to the ongoing revolution in France.[69]

A widespread fear during the debates on the ratification of the Constitution, was the possibility of a military takeover of the states by the federal government, which could happen if the Congress passed laws prohibiting states from arming citizens.[70] Anti-Federalist Patrick Henry during the opening debates of the Virginia Ratification Convention stated his strong belief that arms are required to secure rights and freedoms from those that would take them away.[71] George Mason during that debate also showed his distrust of Congress and the possibility that it would not fund the arming for the militia as an excuse for the creation of a standing army, which could later to be used as an instrument of tyranny by Congress.[72]

State ratification conventions

One of the main opposition points of contention was the Constitution's omission of a bill of rights. The majority of the Convention would not allow proposed amendments or a bill of rights to be appended to Pennsylvania's December 12, 1787 Ratification of the Constitution. On December 18, 1787, the Pennsylvania Minority published The Address and Reasons of Dissent of the Minority of the Convention of Pennsylvania to their Constituents. The right to bear arms was the seventh in its proposed bill of rights.

"7. That the people have a right to bear arms for the defense of themselves and their own State, or the United States, or for the purpose of killing game; and no law shall be passed for disarming the people or any of them, unless for crimes committed, or real danger of public injury from individuals;"[73]

While people who advocate for an individual rights interpretation of the Second Amendment lay great stress on this Pennsylvania text, critics have pointed out that its language was never copied despite its wide distribution.

Five of the state ratification conventions for the U.S. Constitution made explicit requests or demands for the protection of rights to keep and bear arms. Four of these states also clearly defined that a well-regulated militia consists of "the body of the people trained to arms" or "the body of the people capable of bearing arms". These four states - New Hampshire, New York, Virginia and Rhode Island - attached proposed bills of rights to their approvals of the Constitution. New Hampshire further demanded that "Congress shall never disarm any citizen except such as are or have been in actual rebellion."[74] The fifth, North Carolina, refused to ratify the Constitution and submitted a bill of unalienable rights of the people that must be protected before they would sign.[75] North Carolina ratified the Constitution on November 21, 1789, after the Congress approved the Bill of Rights and submitted it to the states for ratification.

Conflict and compromise

Anti-Federalists supported a proposal to amend the Constitution with clearly defined and enumerated rights to provide further constraints on the new government, while opponents felt that by listing only certain rights, other unlisted rights would fail to be protected. Amidst this debate, a compromise was reached, and James Madison drafted what ultimately became the United States Bill of Rights, which was proposed to the Congress on June 8, 1789.

The original text of what became the Second Amendment, as brought to the floor of the House of Representatives of the first session of the First Congress was:

The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed; a well armed and well regulated militia being the best security of a free country; but no person religiously scrupulous of bearing arms shall be compelled to render military service in person.[76]

The Bill of Rights introduced by Madison on June 8 was not composed of numbered amendments intended to be added at the end of the Constitution. Instead, the Bill of Rights was to be inserted into the existing Constitution. The sentence that became the Second Amendment was to be inserted in Article I, Section 9, between Clauses 3 and 4, which list individual rights, instead of Article I, Section 8, Clauses 15 and 16, which specify the Congress's power over the state militias.[76] Debate in the House on the remainder of June 8 focused again on whether a Bill of Rights was appropriate, and the matter was held for a later time. On July 21, Madison raised the issue of his Bill and proposed a select committee be created to report on it. The House voted in favor of Madison's motion,[77] and the Bill of Rights entered committee for review. No official records were kept of the committee's proceedings, but the committee returned to the House a reworded version of the Second Amendment on July 28.[78] On August 17, that version was read into the Journal:

A well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, being the best security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed; but no person religiously scrupulous shall be compelled to bear arms.[79]

The Second Amendment was debated and modified during sessions of the House on August 17 and August 20.[80] These debates revolved primarily around risk of "mal-administration of the government" using the "religiously scrupulous" clause to destroy the militia as Great Britain had attempted to destroy the militia at the commencement of the American Revolution. These concerns were addressed by modifying the final clause, and on August 24, the House sent the following version to the U.S. Senate:

A well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, being the best security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed; but no one religiously scrupulous of bearing arms shall be compelled to render military service in person.

The next day, August 25, the Senate received the Amendment from the House and entered it into the Senate Journal. When the Amendment was transcribed, the semicolon in the religious exemption portion was changed to a comma by the Senate scribe:

A well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, being the best security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed, but no one religiously scrupulous of bearing arms shall be compelled to render military service in person.[81]

On September 4, the Senate voted to change the language of the Second Amendment by removing the definition of militia, and striking the conscientious objector clause:

A well regulated militia, being the best security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.[82]

The Senate returned to this Amendment for a final time on September 9. A proposal to insert the words "For the common defence" next to the words "Bear Arms" was defeated.[83] The Senate then slightly modified the language and voted to return the Bill of Rights to the House. The final version passed by the Senate was:

A well regulated militia being the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

The House voted on September 21, 1789 to accept the changes made by the Senate, but the Amendment as finally entered into the House journal contained the additional words "necessary to":

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.[84]

This version was transmitted to the states for ratification.

On December 15, 1791, the Virginia General Assembly ratified the Bill of Rights, thereby achieving the ratification of three-fourths of the states needed to add the Bill of Rights to the Constitution.

Judicial interpretations

For almost a century following the ratification of the Bill of Rights, the intended meaning of the Second Amendment, and how the Amendment applied, drew less interest than it does in modern times.[85] The vast majority of regulation was done by states, and the first case law on weapons regulation dealt with state interpretations of the Second Amendment. The notable exception to this general rule was Houston v. Moore, 18 U.S. 1 (1820), where the Supreme Court mentioned the Second Amendment in an aside, but Justice Story "misidentified" it as the "5th Amendment."[86]

Regarding the state interpretations of these state and the federal constitutional rights to bear arms, state courts have addressed the meaning of these specific rights in considerable detail. Two different models emerged from early state jurisprudence: one based on an individual rights view and the other on a militia-based view. Saul Cornell has described how the individual rights viewpoint did not emerge until several decades after the Second Amendment was drafted and was later followed by the collective rights viewpoint.[37]

Early commentary in state courts

Antebellum

Bliss v. Commonwealth (1822, KY)[87] addressed the right to bear arms pursuant to Art. 10, Sec. 23 of the Second Constitution of Kentucky (1799):[88] "That the right of the citizens to bear arms in defence of themselves and the state, shall not be questioned." This was interpreted to include the right to carry a concealed sword in a cane. This case has been described as about "a statute prohibiting the carrying of concealed weapons [that] was violative of the Second Amendment."[89]

The Kentucky High Court stated in Bliss, "But it should not be forgotten, that it is not only a part of the right that is secured by the constitution; it is the right entire and complete, as it existed at the adoption of the constitution; and if any portion of that right be impaired, immaterial how small the part may be, and immaterial the order of time at which it be done, it is equally forbidden by the constitution."[87] The "constitution" mentioned in this quote refers to Kentucky's Constitution.[90]

The case prompted outrage in the Kentucky House, all the while recognizing that Section 23 of the Second Constitution of Kentucky (1799) did guarantee self defensive component in the Kentucky right to bear arms. Subsequently, the Bliss ruling, to the extent that it dealt with concealed weapons, was overturned by constitutional amendment with Section 26 in Kentucky's Third Constitution (1850) banning the future carrying of concealed weapons, while still asserting that the bearing of arms in defense of themselves and the state was a right of self defense and collective militia right in the Commonwealth of Kentucky. This recognition, has remained to the present day in Article 7, Section 1 of the Commonwealth of Kentucky's Fourth Constitution, enacted in 1891, which guarantees "The right to bear arms in defense of themselves and of the State, subject to the power of the General Assembly to enact laws to prevent persons from carrying concealed weapons." As noted in the Northern Kentucky Law Review Second Amendment Symposium: Rights in Conflict in the 1980’s, vol. 10, no. 1, 1982, p. 155, "The first state court decision resulting from the "right to bear arms" issue was Bliss v. Commonwealth. The court held that "the right of citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves and the State must be preserved entire, …" "This holding was unique because it stated that the right to bear arms is absolute and unqualified."[91][92]

Reference to Bliss is seen in the defense argument subsequently given against a murder charge in Kentucky against Mattews Ward, who in 1852 pulled out a concealed pistol and fatally wounded his brother's teacher over an accusation regarding eating chestnuts in class. Ward's defense team consisted of eighteen lawyers, including U.S. Senator John Crittenden, former Governor of Kentucky and former attorney general of the United States. The defense successfully defended Ward in 1854 through an assertion that “a man has a right to carry arms; I am aware of nothing in the laws of God or man, prohibiting it. The Constitution of Kentucky and our Bill of Rights guarantee it. The Legislature once passed an act forbidding it, but it was decided unconstitutional, and overruled by our highest tribunal, the Court of Appeals.” As noted by Cornell, “Ward's lawyers took advantage of the doctrine advanced in Bliss and wrapped their client's action under the banner of a constitutional right to bear arms. Ward was acquitted.”[93]

Although Bliss held that regulating concealed guns was an infringement of the right to keep and bear arms under state law, and also was interpreted as being prohibited by the Second Amendment by former attorney general of the United States John Crittenden, this early view largely ended in the late 19th Century. This change in view was consistent with the US Supreme Court case of Robertson v. Baldwin, 165 U.S. 275 (1897), that stated that laws regulating concealed arms did not infringe upon the right to keep and bear arms, and thus were not a violation of the Second Amendment. Specifically, the US Supreme Court stated in Robertson v. Baldwin:

“The law is perfectly well settled that the first ten amendments to the Constitution, commonly known as the "Bill of Rights," were not intended to lay down any novel principles of government, but simply to embody certain guaranties and immunities which we had inherited from our English ancestors, and which had, from time immemorial, been subject to certain well recognized exceptions arising from the necessities of the case. In incorporating these principles into the fundamental law, there was no intention of disregarding the exceptions, which continued to be recognized as if they had been formally expressed. Thus, the freedom of speech and of the press (Art. I) does not permit the publication of libels, blasphemous or indecent articles, or other publications injurious to public morals or private reputation; the right of the people to keep and bear arms (Art. II) is not infringed by laws prohibiting the carrying of concealed weapons;..."[94]

In contrast, in State v. Buzzard (1842, Ark), the Arkansas high court adopted a militia-based, political right, reading of the right to bear arms under state law, and upheld the 21st section of the second article of the Arkansas Constitution that declared, "that the free white men of this State shall have a right to keep and bear arms for their common defense",[95] while rejecting a challenge to a statute prohibiting the carrying of concealed weapons. Buzzard had carried a concealed weapon and stood "indicted by virtue of the authority of the 13th section of an act of the Legislature prohibiting any person wearing a pistol, dirk, large knife or sword-cane concealed as a weapon, unless upon a journey, under the penalties of fine and imprisonment." Justice Lacy, in a dissenting opinion in Buzzard, summarizing the majority viewpoint to which he disagreed, declared:

"That the words "a well regulated militia being necessary for the security of a free State", and the words "common defense" clearly show the true intent and meaning of these Constitutions [i.e., Ark. and U.S.] and prove that it is a political and not an individual right, and, of course, that the State, in her legislative capacity, has the right to regulate and control it: This being the case, then the people, neither individually nor collectively, have the right to keep and bear arms."[95]

Joel Prentiss Bishop’s influential Commentaries on the Law of Statutory Crimes (1873) took Buzzard's militia-based interpretation, a view that Bishop characterized as the “Arkansas doctrine", as the orthodox view of the right to bear arms in American law.[95][96]

Political scientist Earl Kruschke has categorized both Bliss and Buzzard as being “cases illustrating the individual view.”[97] Professor Eugene Volokh revealed, in the California Political Review, that a statement in a concurring opinion in Buzzard was the only support for a collective right view of the right to keep and bear arms in the 19th century.[98]

In Nunn v State of Georgia, 1 Kelly 243 (1846), the Georgia Supreme Court stated that any federal or state law prohibiting the right to bear arms openly of any person, in the smallest degree, was in conflict with the Constitution and therefore void. The Georgia Supreme Court also stated:

Nor is the right involved in this discussion less comprehensive or valuable: "The right of the people to bear arms shall not be infringed." The right of the whole people, old and young, men, women and boys, and not militia only, to keep and bear arms of every description, not such merely as are used by the militia, shall not be infringed, curtailed, or broken in upon, in the smallest degree; and all this for the important end to be attained: the rearing up and qualifying a well-regulated militia, so vitally necessary to the security of a free State. Our opinion is, that any law, State or Federal, is repugnant to the Constitution, and void, which contravenes this right, originally belonging to our forefathers, trampled under foot by Charles I. and his two wicked sons and successors, reestablished by the revolution of 1688, conveyed to this land of liberty by the colonists, and finally incorporated conspicuously in our own Magna Charta!

We are of the opinion, then, that so far as the act of 1837 seeks to suppress the practice of carrying certain weapons secretly, that it is valid, inasmuch as it does not deprive the citizen of his natural right of self-defence, or of his constitutional right to keep and bear arms. But that so much of it, as contains a prohibition against bearing arms openly, is in conflict with the Constitution, and void.[99]

Nunn had also alleged that the state law barring concealed carry, had violated the Second Amendment. Concerning that, the Georgia Supreme Court had said:

The preamble which was prefixed to these amendments shows, that they originated in the fear that the powers of the general government were not sufficiently limited. Several of the States in their act of ratification recommended that further restrictive clauses should be added...But...does it follow that because the people refused to delegate to the general government the power to take from them the right to keep and bear arms, that they designed to rest it in State governments? Is it not an inalienable right, which lies at the bottom of every free government? We do not believe that, because the people withheld this arbitrary power of disfranchisement from Congress, they ever intended to confer it on the local legislatures. This right is too dear to be confided to a republican legislature.[100]

Reconstruction

With the Civil War and the abolition of slavery, the question of the rights of former slaves to carry arms and to bear arms in militia came to the attention of the country.[101]

In Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. 393 (1856) (the "Dred Scott Decision"), the Supreme Court indicated that: "It would give to persons of the Negro race, who were recognized as citizens in any one State of the Union …the full liberty …to keep and carry arms wherever they went."

The Dred Scott Decision contains additional significant wording.

More especially, it cannot be believed that the large slaveholding states regarded them as included in the word citizens, or would have consented to a Constitution which might compel them to receive them in that character from another state. For if they were so received, and entitled to the privileges and immunities of citizens, it would exempt them from the operation of the special laws and from the police regulations which they considered to be necessary for their own safety. It would give to persons of the Negro race, who were recognized as citizens in any one State of the Union, the right to enter every other state whenever they pleased, singly or in companies, without pass or passport, and without obstruction, to sojourn there as long as they pleased, to go where they pleased at every hour of the day or night without molestation, unless they committed some violation of law for which a white man would be punished; and it would give them 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.(emphasis added)[102]

When the Fourteenth Amendment was drafted, Representative John Bingham of Ohio used the Court's own phrase "privileges and immunities of citizens" to include the individual rights mentioned in the Bill of Rights under its protection and guard these rights against state legislation.[103]

In the Congress, the debate on the Fourteenth Amendment also concentrated on what the Southern States were doing to harm the newly freed slaves. One particular concern was the disarming of former slaves.[104]

The Second Amendment attracted serious judicial attention with the Reconstruction era case of United States v. Cruikshank. In Cruikshank, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Fourteenth Amendment did not cause the Bill of Rights, including the Second Amendment, to limit the powers of the State governments; stating that the Second Amendment "has no other effect than to restrict the powers of the national government."

The Supreme Court ruled three times in the 19th Century that the Second Amendment only limits the federal government. In the Supreme Court case of Cruikshank, neither the First Amendment nor the Second Amendment were considered incorporated against the states.[105] Subsequent to this Supreme Court case, the First Amendment has been incorporated against the states, but the Second Amendment has not been incorporated. Presently, there are on-going lawsuits attempting to force the incorporation of the Second Amendment against state and local governments.[106]

Akhil Reed Amar noted, in the Yale Law Journal,[107] the common law basis for the Bill of Rights, which includes the Second Amendment, "following John Randolph Tucker's famous oral argument in the 1887 Chicago anarchist Haymarket riot case, Spies v. Illinois":

Though originally the first ten Amendments were adopted as limitations on Federal power, yet in so far as they secure and recognize fundamental rights—common law rights—of the man, they make them privileges and immunities of the man as citizen of the United States…[108]

NYU law professor, William Nelson, by contrast has argued that there were two different views of the meaning of the 14th Amendment. One conception pointed to a notion of equality of rights, while another pointed to something like a core of basic rights protected by the first eight Amendments.[citation needed] The argument of Nelson's book,The Fourteenth Amendment: From Political Principle to Judicial Doctrine, represents one side of the incorporation debate.[citation needed] The opposing viewpoint is best represented by the work of Michael Kent Curtis, No State Shall Abridge: The Fourteenth Amendment and the Bill of Rights.[citation needed]

Another point of disagreement concerns the point at which regulation or prohibition of firearms constitutes infringement.[109][110] All federal courts, including the Supreme Court, have found that reasonable firearm regulation is allowable.[111]

In 1905, the Kansas Supreme Court in Salina v. Blaksley[112] made a collective right judicial interpretation. [113] The Kansas high court declared: "That the provision in question applies only to the right to bear arms as a member of the state militia, or some other military organization provided for by law, is also apparent from the second amendment to the federal Constitution, which says: '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.'"

U.S. Supreme Court

The primary U.S. Supreme Court Second Amendment cases are United States v. Cruikshank (1875), Presser v. Illinois (1886), Miller v. Texas (1894), United States v. Miller (1939) and District of Columbia v. Heller (2008). A key legal question is whether the Second Amendment is held to be applicable to the states by way of the Fourteenth Amendment. Cruikshank and Presser predate the modern criteria by which it is determined whether a particular part of the Bill of Rights is applicable to the states. Because Heller did not make such a determination, it remains an open question.

United States v. Cruikshank

In United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U.S. 542 (1875), the Supreme Court ruled that because "[t]he Second Amendment…has no other effect than to restrict the powers of the national government…", that the Second Amendment was not intended to limit the powers of the state governments. With Cruikshank the Supreme Court held a federal anti-Ku-Klux-Klan statute to be unconstitutional. The defendants were white men who had killed more than sixty blacks who had been charged with conspiring to prevent blacks from exercising their right to bear arms. The Court dismissed the charges, holding that the Bill of Rights restricted Congress but not private individuals. The Court concluded, "[f]or their protection in its enjoyment, the people must look to the States." The sad consequences of this turn of events is evident in the lynchings of at least 3,446 blacks between 1882 and 1968.[74]

The courts did not recognize the incorporation doctrine at that time.[114] Significantly, with respect to the meaning of the amendment, the Court found that the Second Amendment restricted only the federal government with regard to bearing arms for lawful purposes. Though many of the rights enumerated in the United States Bill of Rights have subsequently been incorporated by the Court as also restricting state law, the Court has not done so for the Second Amendment; regarding the Second Amendment and incorporation doctrine, the Supreme Court in District of Columbia v. Heller said:

With respect to Cruikshank's continuing validity on incorporation, a question not presented by this case, we note that Cruikshank also said that the first amendment did not apply against the states and did not engage in the sort of Fourteenth Amendment inquiry required by our later cases. Our later decisions in Presser v. Illinois, 116 U.S. 252, 265 (1886) and Miller v. Texas, 153 U.S. 535, 538 (1894), reaffirmed that the Second Amendment applies only to the Federal Government.[115]

The Court stated in Cruikshank:

The second and tenth counts are equally defective. The right there specified is that of "bearing arms for a lawful purpose." This is not a right granted by the Constitution. Neither is it in any manner dependent upon that instrument for its existence. The second amendment declares that it shall not be infringed, but this, as has been seen, means no more than that it shall not be infringed by Congress. This is one of the amendments that has no other effect than to restrict the powers of the national government, leaving the people to look for their protection against any violation by their fellow citizens of the rights it recognizes, to what is called, in The City of New York v. Miln, 11 Pet. 139, the "powers which relate to merely municipal legislation, or what was, perhaps, more properly called internal police," "not surrendered or restrained" by the Constitution of the United States.[116]

Presser v. Illinois

In Presser v. Illinois, 116 U.S. 252 (1886), Herman Presser, mounted on horseback, led a Battalion-size group of men, in parade dress down the streets of Chicago. Mr. Presser, in command, carried a cavalry sword and the men marched with rifles at shoulder-arms. He was indicted for violating certain sections of the Illinois Military Code, which forbade such parades without first obtaining a permit from the Governor of that State. At his trial, Presser had argued that "the entire statute under which he was convicted was invalid and void because [such power was] forbidden to the states by the constitution of the United States," wherein he included the Second Amendment. As to this latter contention, the Court said:

But a conclusive answer to the contention that this amendment prohibits the legislation in question lies in the fact that the amendment is a limitation only upon the power of congress and the national government, and not upon that of the state. It was so held by this court in the case of U.S. v. Cruikshank, 92 U.S. 542, 553, in which the chief justice, in delivering the judgment of the court, said that the right of the people to keep and bear arms "is not a right granted by the constitution. Neither is it in any manner dependent upon that instrument for its existence. The second amendment declares that it shall not be infringed, but this, as has been seen, means no more than that it shall not be infringed by congress. This is one of the amendments that has no other effect than to restrict the powers of the national government, leaving the people to look for their protection against violation of the fellow-citizens of the rights it recognizes..."[117]

The Court then cited, in addition to Cruikshank, nine other cases in support of that. Presser had also insisted that the state's Military Code was "an invasion of that clause of the first section of the fourteenth amendment to the constitution of the United States." Said the Court: "It is only the privileges and immunities of the citizens of the United States that the clause relied on was intended to protect."[118] The Court then said in addition:

In the case of New York v. Miln, 11 Pet. 102, 139, this court said: "We choose rather to plant ourselves on what we consider impregnable positions. They are these: that a state has the same undeniable and unlimited jurisdiction over all persons and things within its territorial limits as any foreign nation, where that jurisdiction is not surrendered or restrained by the constitution of the United States..." The argument of the plaintiff in error that the legislation mentioned deprives him of either life, liberty, or property without due process of law, or that it is a bill of attainder or ex post facto law, is so clearly untenable as to require no discussion.[119]

Thus, the Presser Court, by stating "the amendment is a limitation only upon the power of Congress and the national government, and not upon that of the state," followed their precedent in Cruikshank, wherein it had stated: "The second amendment declares that it [the right] shall not be infringed, but this, as has been seen, means no more than it shall not be infringed by congress."

Miller v. Texas

In Miller v. Texas, 153 U.S. 535 (1894), the issue before the U.S. Supreme Court was whether an appeal should be dismissed on technical grounds. After refuting the grounds of the motion, the Court nonetheless dismissed the appeal, saying:

We think there is no federal question properly presented by the record in this case, and that the [appeal] must be dismissed upon that ground".[120]

Regarding Miller's state-court argument that the Texas law forbidding the carrying of weapons was "in conflict with the second and fourth amendments to the constitution of the United States...", the Court stated:

We have examined the record in vain, however, to find where the defendant was denied the benefit of these provisions, and even if it were, it is well settled that the restrictions of these amendments operate only upon the federal power, and have no reference whatever to proceedings in state courts.[121]

The Court then went on to say:

And if the fourteenth amendment limited the power of the states as to such rights, as pertaining to citizens of the United States, we think it was fatal to this claim that it was not set up in the trial court.

United States v. Miller

In United States v. Miller, 307 U.S. 174 (1939), the Supreme Court heard arguments from only the Solicitor General[122][123] and rejected a Second Amendment challenge to the National Firearms Act prohibiting the interstate transportation of unregistered Title II weapons.

Misters Jack Miller and Frank Layton 'did unlawfully...transport in interstate commerce from...Claremore...Oklahoma to...Siloam Springs...Arkansas a certain firearm...a double barrel...shotgun having a barrel less than 18 inches in length...at the time of so transporting said firearm in interstate commerce...not having registered said firearm as required by Section 1132d of Title 26, United States Code, ...and not having in their possession a stamp-affixed written order...as provided by Section 1132C...'[124]

A demurrer (today's Motion to Dismiss) had been filed, which alleged:

The National Firearms Act is not a revenue measure but an attempt to usurp police power reserved to the States, and is therefore unconstitutional. Also, it offends the inhibition of the Second Amendment to the Constitution, U.S.C.A. - '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.[125]

The District Court for the Western District of Arkansas, held Section 11 of the National Firearms Act of 1934, in violation of the Second Amendment's restriction forbidding such infringement; was therefore unconstitutional; and quashed the indictment. Mr. Justice McReynolds refuted that with: "Considering Sonzinsky v. United States, 300 U.S. 506, 513 (1937)[5 other citations] - the objection that the Act usurps the power reserved to the States is plainly untenable."[126]

The Court explained:

In the absence of any evidence tending to show that possession or use of a 'shotgun having a barrel of less than eighteen inches in length' at this time has some reasonable relationship to any preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia, we cannot say that the Second Amendment guarantees the right to keep and bear such an instrument. Certainly it is not within judicial notice that this weapon is any part of the ordinary military equipment or that its use could contribute to the common defense.[127]

The Court documented militia history (for the next 5 pages) then Reversed and remanded.

Miller is often cited by gun-rights advocates, because the Supreme Court ruled that the Second Amendment protected the right to keep arms that are part of "ordinary military equipment."[128] Andrew McClurg states:

The only certainty about Miller is that it failed to give either side a clear-cut victory. Most modern scholars recognize this fact.[129]

District of Columbia v. Heller

The Supreme Court, in a landmark decision, in District of Columbia v. Heller, 128 S.Ct. 2783 (2008) ruled that "[t]he Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia, and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home" and "that the District’s ban on handgun possession in the home violates the Second Amendment, as does its prohibition against rendering any lawful firearm in the home operable for the purpose of immediate self-defense."[130][131][132][133]

The Court held that the amendment's prefatory clause serves to clarify the operative clause, but does not limit or expand the scope of the operative clause. Justice Stevens, in his dissent, called the Opinion of the Court "strained and unpersuasive" and said that the right to possess a firearm exists only in relation to the militia and that the D.C. laws constitute permissible regulation. Justice Scalia, in the Opinion of the Court, called Justice Stevens' interpretation of the phrase "to keep and bear arms" incoherent and grotesque.[134]

Regarding the Second Amendment and the incorporation doctrine, the Supreme Court said:

With respect to Cruikshank's continuing validity on incorporation, a question not presented by this case, we note that Cruikshank also said that the first amendment did not apply against the states and did not engage in the sort of Fourteenth Amendment inquiry required by our later cases. Our later decisions in Presser v. Illinois, 116 U.S. 252, 265 (1886) and Miller v. Texas, 153 U.S. 535, 538 (1894), reaffirmed that the Second Amendment applies only to the Federal Government.[135]

Justice Breyer, in his own dissent and speaking only for himself, stated

I take as a starting point the following four propositions, based on our precedent and today’s opinions, to which I believe the entire Court subscribes: (1) The Amendment protects an “individual” right—i.e., one that is separately possessed, and may be separately enforced, by each person on whom it is conferred.[136]

Post Heller federal cases

Since Heller, over eighty lawsuits challenging gun control laws under the Second Amendment have been decided in federal court.[137][138][139] Five federal lawsuits have been filed by the National Rifle Association (NRA) requesting the Second Amendment be incorporated via the Fourteenth Amendment.[140] Four of these lawsuits have been settled out of court with the removal of longstanding gun bans, but without a ruling on incorporation.[106][141][142][143] The fifth, McDonald v. Chicago, has been rejected at the district court level and that decision has been appealed. Cass Sunstein, in a Harvard Law Review article which he authored, cited Dorosan and Mullenix for his belief that:

[t]he [Supreme] Court will proceed cautiously, upholding most of the [firearms] laws now on the books and invalidating only the most draconian limitations. It is very early, to be sure, but thus far, the lower courts are taking exactly this path.[144]

Examples of recent post-Heller cases, along with summary notes, are listed as follows:

  • United States v. Dorosan - On June 30, 2008, the Fifth Circuit upheld 39 C.F.R. 232.1(l), which bans weapons on postal property, sustaining restrictions on guns outside the home, specifically in private vehicles parked in employee parking lots of government facilities, despite Second Amendment claims that were dismissed. The employee's Second Amendment rights were not infringed since the employee could have instead parked across the street in a public parking lot, instead of on government property.[145][146]
  • Mullenix v. BATF - On July 2, 2008, a United States district court judge upheld a federal law that restricts importation of machine guns.[147]
  • United States v. Lewis - On July 3, 2008, the Third Circuit upheld, against a Second Amendment challenge, a federal law prohibiting possession of firearms with obliterated serial numbers.[148]
  • United States v. Walters - On July 15, 2008, the Third Circuit upheld, against a Second Amendment challenge, a federal law that prohibits possession of firearms within 1,000 feet of a school zone and so denied a request to dismiss an indictment of Rupert Walters.[149]
  • United States v. Hall - On August 4, 2008, the Fourth Circuit upheld as constitutional the prohibition of possession of a concealed weapon without a permit.[150]
  • United States v. Bledsoe - On August 8, 2008, the Fifth Circuit upheld 18 U.S.C. § 922(a)(6), which prohibits "straw purchases." A "straw purchase" occurs when someone eligible to purchase a firearm buys one for an ineligible person. Additionally, the court rejected the request for a strict scrutiny standard of review.[151]
  • United States v. Booker - On August 11, 2008, the First Circuit ruled prohibitions of firearm possession by persons previously convicted of misdemeanor crimes of domestic violence, under 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(9), to be constitutional. The court concluded: "...persons that have been convicted of a misdemeanor domestic violence must be added to the list of "felons and the mentally ill" against whom the "longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms" survive Second Amendment scrutiny."[152]
  • United States v Boffil-Rivera - On August 12, 2008, the Eleventh Circuit ruled the prohibition of possession of firearms by persons illegally or unlawfully in the United States, under 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(5), to be constitutional. The court stated: "Heller casts no shadow on the statute on a facial challenge..."[153]
  • United States v. Artez -August 29, 2008, the Tenth Circuit upheld the federal ban on possession of un-registered sawed-off shotguns.[154]
  • United States v. Perkins - On September 23, 2008, the Eighth Circuit upheld 26 U.S.C. § 5841 which prohibits the receiving or possession of an unregistered firearm.[155]
  • United States v. Yancey - On October 3, 2008, a United States district court judge ruled a prohibition on possession of firearms by unlawful users of or addicted to any controlled substance to be constitutional.[156]
  • United States v. Heredia-Mendoza - On November 18, 2008, the Ninth Circuit upheld 18 U.S.C. § 924(c)(1)(A) which mandates stricter sentencing for use of a firearm during crimes of violence or drug trafficking. The court rejected the defendant's claim of unconstitutionality because the law criminalized possession of gun for self defense in the home.[157]
  • Holter v. United States - On December 1, 2008, a United States district court judge upheld a prohibition on possession of firearms by a felon as being constitutional.[158]
  • McDonald v. Chicago - In this case, on December 18, 2008, a United States district court judge upheld a Chicago, Illinois gun ban. A request for appeal was filed with the Seventh Circuit and is presently pending, though, according to Chris Cox of the NRA's Institute for Legislative Action, the Seventh Circuit "ruled adversely in 1982."[159] Law Department spokeswoman Jennifer Hoyle speculated that this case will ultimately be settled in the Supreme Court of the United States.[160]
  • United States v. Kennedy - On November 25, 2008, a magistrate judge ruled that the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act violated the due process rights of the defendant. The magistrate judge ruled:

    Pretrial Services recommends that Defendant be prohibited from possessing a firearm, which is a mandatory condition under the Walsh Act. In District of Columbia v. Heller, the Supreme Court held that the Second Amendment created an individual right to possess firearms. In footnote 27, Justice Scalia noted that a law regulating a specific, enumerated right such as the right to keep and bear arms was subject to more than a rational basis level of scrutiny. If the government's position in this case is sustained, this constitutional right would be taken away not because of a conviction, but merely because a person was charged. This right would be lost notwithstanding a lack of showing that Defendant is a potentially violent individual, or that he even owns firearms. Certainly no particularized need has been established in this case that the Defendant should prohibited from possessing a firearm. As such, they will restrict his freedom to such a substantial degree that they do nonetheless implicate a protected liberty interest, which may not be revoked without according Defendant procedural due process; specifically, an individualized determination as to whether the onerous mandatory conditions are needed to assure the Defendant's future appearance or to avoid a danger to the community. No such determination has occurred here.[161]

On January 16, 2009, that ruling was affirmed in federal district court.[162]
  • United States v. Arzberger - On December 31, 2008, a federal court held that because the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act did not permit an individualized determination, that it was, on its face, a due process violation. This case dealt with whether it was reasonably necessary, as a condition of bail, that an accused person be required to surrender his Second Amendment right to possess firearms, but without giving that person an opportunity to contest the reasonableness of such a condition. It was noted by Southern District of New York Magistrate Judge James Francis:

    To the extent, then, that the Second Amendment creates an individual right to possess a firearm unrelated to any military purpose, it also establishes a protectible liberty interest. And, although the Supreme Court has indicated that this privilege may be withdrawn from some groups of persons such as convicted felons, there is no basis for categorically depriving persons who are merely accused of certain crimes of the right to legal possession of a firearm.[163]

Judge Francis has said that, prior to Heller, it would not have been considered unreasonable to require a defendant be required to surrender a firearm as a condition of pretrial release. Specifically, according to Judge Francis this all changed with the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision in District of Columbia v. Heller, 128 S.Ct. 2783 (2008), where the court changed the course of Second Amendment jurisprudence by creating what he said was a "protectible liberty interest" in the possession of firearms. Thus, in the absence of an individualized determination at a bail hearing, requiring the defendant to give up any firearms violates due process, he said.[164]

Presidential administrations

The right to bear arms was addressed by President Ulysses S. Grant who stated, in an address to the Congress on April 19, 1872, that "to deprive colored citizens of the right to bear arms" was among the goals of the Ku Klux Klan.[165] In 1883, President Grant served as president of the National Rifle Association.

In 2001, President Bush directed the Justice Department under Attorney General John Ashcroft to issue a memorandum stating that the Second Amendment protects the right of individuals, including those not then actually a member of any militia or engaged in active military service or training, to privately possess and bear their own firearms.[166]

In 2004, President Bush, through the Justice Department under Ashcroft, also issued Whether the Second Amendment Secures an Individual Right, a lengthy memorandum which traced the historical development of the Second Amendment supporting its earlier conclusion. The memo stated:

The Second Amendment secures a personal right of individuals, not a collective right that may be invoked only by a State or a quasi-collective right restricted to those persons who serve in organized militia units.[167]

References

  1. ^ "Which Is the Constitution?". http://www.law.gmu.edu/assets/files/publications/working_papers/08-13%20Which%20Is%20the%20Constitution.pdf. Retrieved on 2009-02-23. 
  2. ^ In Part II-A of the Opinion of the Court in District of Columbia v. Heller, the Supreme Court cited this version of the amendment.
  3. ^ http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/constitution.billofrights.html
  4. ^ "There is probably less agreement, more misinformation, and less understanding of the right to keep and bear arms than any other current controversial constitutional issue." Statement from the American Bar Association in "National Coalition to Ban Handguns Statement on the Second Amendment", June 26, 1981 convenience link:http://www.guncite.com/journals/senrpt/senrpt27.html
  5. ^ "Few subjects in American jurisprudence have produced as much work by legal scholars, so little of which is of use to practicing attorneys, as the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution." from "A Lawyer's Guide to the Second Amendment" by Steven H. Gunn, Brigham Young University Law Review, 1998
  6. ^ Tushnet, Mark V. (2007). Out of range: why the Constitution can't end the battle over guns. Oxford [Oxfordshire]: Oxford University Press. pp. xv. ISBN 0-19-530424-1. http://books.google.com/books?id=81aeiboJfbkC&pg=PR15&dq=Tushnet+%2B+%22blowing+smoke%22#PPR16,M1. "As with many constitutional provisions, there's no definitive answer to what the Second Amendment means." 
  7. ^ http://supreme.justia.com/us/554/07-290/
  8. ^ http://supreme.justia.com/us/554/07-290/dissent.html
  9. ^ Encyclopedia Britannica online http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/467289/police/36612/Collective-responsibility-in-early-Anglo-Saxon-times#ref=ref416705
  10. ^ Malcolm, Joyce Lee (1996). To Keep and Bear Arms: The Origins of an Anglo-American Right. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. pp. 11. ISBN 0-674-89307-7. 
  11. ^ http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/amendIIs7.html
  12. ^ These experiences caused Englishmen to be extremely wary of concentrated military forces run by the state and to be jealous of their arms. They accordingly obtained an assurance from William and Mary, in the Declaration of Right (which was codified as the English Bill of Rights), that Protestants would never be disarmed: “That the subjects which are Protestants may have arms for their defense suitable to their conditions and as allowed by law.” 1 W. & M., c. 2, §7, in 3 Eng. Stat. at Large 441 (1689). This right has long been understood to be the predecessor to our Second Amendment.[1]
  13. ^ Blackstone, William. Commentaries on the Laws of England. pp. 136. 
  14. ^ http://avalon.law.yale.edu/17th_century/england.asp
  15. ^ Guns in American Society, Vol 2 Gregg Lee Carter, Editor, page 602, ISBN-10: 1576072681, ISBN-13: 978-1576072684
  16. ^ "Boston, March 17". New York Journal, Supplement: 1, Col.3. 1796-04-13.  quoted in Halbrook, Stephen. A Right to Bear Arms: State and Federal Bills of Rights and Constitutional Guarantees. 
  17. ^ Wroth, L. Kinvin; Zobel, Hiller B.; eds.. Legal Papers of John Adams. pp. 3:248. 
  18. ^ John Adams and common law of self-defense
  19. ^ McAffee, Thomas B.; Quinlan, Michael J. (March 1997). "Bringing Forward the Right to Keep and Bear Arms: Do Text, History, or Precedent Stand in the Way?". North Carolina Law Review: 781. http://www.saf.org/LawReviews/McAffeeAndQuinlan1.html. 
  20. ^ Jack Rakove, "The Second Amendment the Highest Stage of Originalism," Chicago-Kent Law Review 76 (2000)
  21. ^ a b c St. George Tucker Commentary
  22. ^ For two radically different views of Blackstone on the Second Amendment, see Heyman, Chicago-Kent, and Volokh, Senate Testimony.
  23. ^ Story, Joseph (1833). Commentaries on the U.S. Constitution. pp. §1890. http://www.lonang.com/exlibris/story/sto-344.htm. 
  24. ^ An Essay on the Trial by Jury (1852) by Lysander Spooner
  25. ^ Renehan, Edward J. (1997). The Secret Six: The True Tale of the Men Who Conspired With John Brown. Columbia, S.C.: University of South Carolina Press. pp. 172-174. ISBN 1-57003-181-9. 
  26. ^ The Commonplace Second Amendment by Prof. Eugene Volokh, UCLA Law School, 1998. "The Second Amendment is widely seen as quite unusual, because it has a justification clause as well as an operative clause. Professor Volokh points out that this structure was actually quite commonplace in American constitutions of the Framing era: State Bills of Rights contained justification clauses for many of the rights they secured."
  27. ^ "www.abanet.org". http://www.abanet.org/publiced/preview/briefs/pdfs/07-08/07-290_PetitionerAmCu3LinguisticsEnglishProfsnew.pdf. 
  28. ^ Merkel, William G.; Uviller, H. Richard (2002). The militia and the right to arms, or, How the second amendment fell silent. Durham, N.C: Duke University Press. pp. 150. ISBN 0-8223-3031-8. "The linguistically correct reading of this unique construction is as though it said: Congress shall not limit the right of the people (that is, the potential members of the state militia) to acquire and keep the sort of arms appropriate to their military duty, so long as the following statement remains true: "an armed, trained, and controlled militia is the best - if not the only - way to protect the state government and the liberties of its people against uprisings from within and incursions or oppression from without." " 
  29. ^ Winterer, Caroline (2002). The Culture of Classicism: Ancient Greece and Rome in American Intellectual Life, 1780-1910. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. p. 1–21. 
  30. ^ Amicus Brief, ACRU, Case No. 03-CV-0213-EGS, Shelly Parker, et al vs. District of Columbia, p. 14
  31. ^ Christopher Heath Wellman (2003). A companion to applied ethics. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell Pub. pp. 194. ISBN 1-55786-594-9. 
  32. ^ Ilya Shapiro (2008). Cato Supreme Court Review 2007-2008. Washington, D.C: Cato Institute. pp. 148. ISBN 1-933995-17-3. 
  33. ^ Volokh, Eugene (1998). "The Commonplace Second Amendment". New York University Law Review 73 (3): 793. ISSN 00287881. http://www.law.ucla.edu/volokh/common.htm. "The Second Amendment is widely seen as quite unusual, because it has a justification clause as well as an operative clause. Professor Volokh points out that this structure was actually quite commonplace in American constitutions of the Framing era: State Bills of Rights contained justification clauses for many of the rights they secured.". 
  34. ^ Ely, James W.; Bodenhamer, David J. (2008). The Bill of Rights in modern America. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. pp. Chapter 5, especially page 86. ISBN 0-253-35159-6. 
  35. ^ "The Second Amendment Under Fire: The Uses of History and the Politics of Gun Control - Saul Cornell". http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5200. 
  36. ^ Cornell, Saul (2006). A WELL-REGULATED MILITIA — The Founding Fathers and the Origins of Gun Control in America. New York, New York: Oxford University Press. p. 2. ISBN 978-0-19-514786-5. 
  37. ^ a b Cornell, Saul (2006). A WELL-REGULATED MILITIA — The Founding Fathers and the Origins of Gun Control in America. New York, New York: Oxford University Press. p. 7. ISBN 978-0-19-514786-5. "The individual rights and collective rights theories were products of later struggles in American history. Individual rights theory was born in the Jacksonian era as a response to America's first efforts at gun control. Collective rights theory emerged slowly at the end of Reconstruction and only crystallized in its modern form in the early twentieth century. The one theory absent from current debate over the Second Amendment is the original civic interpretation. The virtual extinction of the conception was not inevitable but was a product of a long and complex history." 
  38. ^ Konig, David Thomas (22.1 (2004)). "The Second Amendment: A Missing Transatlantic Context for the Historical Meaning of "the Right of the People to Keep and Bear Arms"". Law and History Review. http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/lhr/22.1/forum_konig.html. "The protection being sought, this shared transatlantic discourse reveals to us, lay in the maintenance of well-regulated militias consisting of able-bodied men bearing their own arms for that purpose. Indeed, to serve in the militia and participate in this civic duty was more than a duty: it was a civic right of a peculiarly eighteenth-century nature unlike either the "individual" or "collective" models argued for today." 
  39. ^ Kates, Jr., Don B. (November 1983). "Handgun Prohibition and the Original Meaning of the Second Amendment". Michigan Law Review (The Michigan Law Review Association) 82 (2): 204-273. "In unmistakable individual right terms: 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 by the next article in their right to keep and bear their private arms. (Emphasis in original)". 
  40. ^ Blodgett-Ford, Sayoko (Fall 1995). "The Changing Meaning of the Right to Bear Arms". Seton Hall Constitutional Law Journal: 101. 
  41. ^ Merkel, William G.; Uviller, H. Richard (2002). The militia and the right to arms, or, How the second amendment fell silent. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press. pp. 19, Chapter 9 (pages 212–225). ISBN 0-8223-3017-2. 
  42. ^ http://laws.findlaw.com/5th/9910331cr0.html
  43. ^ http://supreme.justia.com/us/554/07-290/opinion.html
  44. ^ "Justices Rule for Individual Gun Rights - NYTimes.com". http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/27/washington/27scotuscnd.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all. ""...a dramatic upheaval in the law, Justice Stevens said in a dissent"" 
  45. ^ a b Uviller, H. Richard. & Merkel, William G.: The Militia and the Right to Arms, Or, How the second Amendment Fell Silent , pp 23, 194. Duke University Press. ISBN 0-8223-3017-2
  46. ^ Pepper, John; Petrie, Carol; Wellford, Charles F.: Firearms and violence, Page 290. National Academies Press, 2004. ISBN 0309091241
  47. ^ Wills, Garry. To Keep and Bear Arms. New York Review Of Books, September 21, 1995.
  48. ^ Williams, David H. (2003). The mythic meanings of the Second Amendment: taming political violence in a constitutional republic. New Haven, Conn: Yale University Press. pp. 5. ISBN 0-300-09562-7. "The amendment thus guarantees a right to arms only within the context of a militia, not an individual right to arms for self-defense or hunting." 
  49. ^ a b Cramer, Clayton E.; Olson, Joseph (2008). "What Did "Bear Arms" Mean in the Second Amendment?". Georgetown Journal of Law & Public Policy 6 (2). 
  50. ^ Wills, Garry (2002). A Necessary Evil: A History of American Distrust of Government. New York: Simon & Schuster. pp. 257. ISBN 0-684-87026-6. 
  51. ^ Wills, Garry (1999). A Necessary Evil pages 256–257. New York, NY. Simon & Schuster.
  52. ^ a b c Federalist Papers #29, Concerning the Militia, by Alexander Hamilton
  53. ^ Cornell, Saul (2000). Whose Right to Bear Arms Did the Second Amendment Protect? (Historians at Work). Bedford/St. Martin's. ISBN 978-0312240608. 
  54. ^ Heller, Opinion of the Court, Part II-A-2
  55. ^ http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=lled&fileName=003/lled003.db&recNum=58&itemLink=D?hlaw:1:./temp/~ammem_3Enb::%230030059&linkText=1 Elliot's Debates Vol. 3 page 47: MY GREAT OBJECTION to this government is, that it does not leave us the means of defending our rights, or of waging war against tyrants.
  56. ^ http://www.freemasonry.bcy.ca/texts/magnacarta.html the whole land shall distrain and distress us in every way they can, namely, by seizing castles, lands, possessions, and in such other ways as they can, saving our person and the persons of our queen and our children, until, in their opinion, amends have been made, and when amends have been made, they shall obey us as they did before.
  57. ^ http://www.ushistory.org/Declaration/document/index.htm But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government
  58. ^ http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=lled&fileName=003/lled003.db&recNum=58&itemLink=D?hlaw:1:./temp/~ammem_3Enb::%230030059&linkText=1 Elliot's Debates Vol. 3 page 47: My great objection to this government is, that it does not leave us the means of defending our rights, or of waging war against tyrants.
  59. ^ http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=lled&fileName=003/lled003.db&recNum=62&itemLink=D?hlaw:1:./temp/~ammem_3Enb::%230030063&linkText=1 Elliot's Debates Vol. 3 page 51: The honorable gentleman who presides told us that, to prevent abuses in our government, we will assemble in Convention, recall our delegated powers, and punish our servants for abusing the trust reposed in them. O sir, we should have fine times, indeed, if, to punish tyrants, it were only sufficient to assemble the people! Your arms, wherewith you could defend yourselves, are gone; and you have no longer an aristocratical, no longer a democratical spirit. Did you ever read of any revolution in a nation, brought about by the punishment of those in power, inflicted by those who had no power at all? You read of a riot act in a country which is called one of the freest in the world, where a few neighbors cannot assemble without the risk of being shot by a hired soldiery, the engines of despotism. We may see such an act in America.
  60. ^ http://www.nh.gov/constitution/billofrights.html [Art.] 10. Right of Revolution. Government being instituted for the common benefit, protection, and security, of the whole community, and not for the private interest or emolument of any one man, family, or class of men; therefore, whenever the ends of government are perverted, and public liberty manifestly endangered, and all other means of redress are ineffectual, the people may, and of right ought to reform the old, or establish a new government. The doctrine of nonresistance against arbitrary power, and oppression, is absurd, slavish, and destructive of the good and happiness of mankind. June 2, 1784
  61. ^ http://www.lysanderspooner.org/bib_new.htm An Essay on the Trial by Jury (1852): This right of resistance is recognized by the constitution of the United States, as a strictly legal and constitutional right. It is so recognized, first by the provision that “the trial of all crimes, except in cases of impeachment, shall be by jury” --- that is, by the country --- and not by the government; secondly, by the provision that “the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” This constitutional security for “the right to keep and bear arms, implies the right to use themes much as a constitutional security for the right to buy and keep food would have implied the right to eat it. The constitution, therefore, takes it for granted that the people will judge of the conduct of the government, and that, as they have the right, they will also have the sense, to use arms, whenever the necessity of the xxxcab justifies it. And it is a sufficient and legal defence for a person accused of using arms against the government, if he can show, to the satisfaction of a jury, or even any one of a jury, that the law he resisted was an unjust one.
  62. ^ District of Columbia v. Heller 554 U. S. ____ - US Supreme Court Cases from Justia & Oyez
  63. ^ "Virginia Declaration of Rights, 1776". Constitution.org. http://www.constitution.org/bcp/virg_dor.htm. Retrieved on September 25, 2008. 
  64. ^ Shay's Rebellion, A Guest Contribution by Rose Vest, BA/MA
  65. ^ Wills, Garry (1999). A Necessary Evil, A History of American Distrust of Government. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0-6848-4489-3. 
  66. ^ The Federalist No. 46 (at Wikisource)
  67. ^ An Examination of the Leading Principles of the Federal Constitution
  68. ^ Young, David E. (2001). The Origin of the Second Amendment: A Documentary History of the Bill of Rights 1787-1792 (2nd Ed. ed.). Golden Oak Books. pp. 38–41. ISBN 0-9623664-3-9. "A Citizen of America (Noah Webster) October 10, 1787 Pamphlet: An Examination into the leading principles of the Federal Constitution" 
  69. ^ John Adams second quote
  70. ^ Cooke, Edward Francis (2002). A detailed analysis of the Constitution. Lanham, Md: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. pp. 100. ISBN 0-7425-2238-5. "This is another protection against a possible abuse by Congress. The right protected is really the right of a state to maintain an armed militia, or national guard, as we call it now. In the eighteenth century people feared that Congress might, by passing a law, prohibit the states from arming their citizens. Then having all the armed strength at its command, the national government could overwhelm the states. Such a circumstance has never happened, but this amendment would prevent it. The Second Amendment does not give anybody or everybody the right to possess and use firearms. The states may very properly prescribe regulations and permits governing the use of guns within their borders." 
  71. ^ Elliot, Debates of the Several State Conventions 3:45, 3:47, 3:169
  72. ^ Elliot, Debates of the Several State Conventions 3:380, 3:425
  73. ^ reprinted in "The Origin of the Second Amendment, A Documentary History of the Bill of rights" 154-175 (David E. Young)
  74. ^ a b Blodgett-Ford, Sayoko (Fall 1995). "The Changing Meaning of the Right to Bear Arms". Seton Hall Constitutional Law Journal: 101.http://www.saf.org/LawReviews/Blodgett-Ford.html
  75. ^ Elliot, "Debates of the Several State Conventions" 1:326, 3:652-61, 1:327-29, 4:244, 1:335
  76. ^ a b Annals of Congress, House of Representatives, 1st Congress, 1st Session: pp. 451
  77. ^ Journal of the House of Representatives of the United States, Volume 1: p. 64
  78. ^ Annals of Congress, House of Representatives, 1st Congress, 1st Session: pp. 669
  79. ^ Annals of Congress, House of Representatives, 1st Congress, 1st Session: p. 778
  80. ^ Militia debate of 1789
  81. ^ Journal of the Senate of the United States of America, Volume 1: p. 63
  82. ^ Journal of the Senate of the United States of America, Volume 1: p. 71
  83. ^ Journal of the Senate of the United States of America, Volume 1: p. 77
  84. ^ Journal of the House of Representatives of the United States, Volume 1: p. 305
  85. ^ Cornell, Saul (2006). A WELL-REGULATED MILITIA — The Founding Fathers and the Origins of Gun Control in America. New York, New York: Oxford University Press. p. 6. ISBN 978-0-19-514786-5. "Neither of the two modern theories that have defined public debate over the right to bear arms is faithful to the original understanding of this provision of the Bill of Rights." 
  86. ^ Several public officials, including James Madison and Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story, retained the confusing practice of referring to each of the ten amendments in the Bill of Rights by the enumeration found in the first draft; had Justice Story followed this practice, he would have described the Second Amendment as the Fourth, but in this case he simply stated the number incorrectly
  87. ^ a b Bliss v. Commonwealth, 2 Littell 90 (KY 1882).
  88. ^ Kentucky's Second Constitution (1799)
  89. ^ United States. Anti-Crime Program. Hearings Before Ninetieth Congress, First Session. Washington: U.S. Govt. Print. Off, 1967, p. 246. quote: "...all citizens had the unabridgable right to bear arms for self-protection as well as for militia purposes and that a statute prohibiting the carrying of concealed weapons was violative of the Second Amendment (see Bliss v. Commonwealth, 2 Litt. (Ky) 90, 13 Am. December 251 (1822))...
  90. ^ Right to Keep and Bear Arms, U.S. Senate. 2001 Paladin Press. ISBN 1581602545.
  91. ^ Pierce, Darell R. (1982). "Second Amendment Survey". Northern Kentucky Law Review Second Amendment Symposium: Rights in Conflict in the 1980's 10 (1). 
  92. ^ Two states, Alaska and Vermont, do not require a permit or license for carrying a concealed weapon to this day, following Kentucky's original position.
  93. ^ Cornell, Saul (2006). A WELL-REGULATED MILITIA — The Founding Fathers and the Origins of Gun Control in America. New York, New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 147–149. ISBN 978-0-19-514786-5. 
  94. ^ Robertson v. Baldwin, 165 U.S. 275 (1897)
  95. ^ a b c State v. Buzzard, 4 Ark. (2 Pike) 18 .
  96. ^ Cornell, Saul (2006). A WELL-REGULATED MILITIA – The Founding Fathers and the Origins of Gun Control in America. New York, New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 188. ISBN 978-0-19-514786-5. "”Dillon endorsed Bishop's view that Buzzard's “Arkansas doctrine,” not the libertarian views exhibited in Bliss, captured the dominant strain of American legal thinking on this question.”" 
  97. ^ Kruschke, Earl R. (1995). Gun control: a reference handbook. Santa Barbara, Calif: ABC-CLIO. pp. 140–143. ISBN 0-87436-695-X. 
  98. ^ Volokh, Eugene (November/December 1988). "Testimony of Eugene Volokh on the Second Amendment, Senate Subcommittee on the Constitution, September 23, 1998". California Political Review: 23. http://www.law.ucla.edu/volokh/beararms/testimon.htm#14. ""A recent exhaustive study reveals that there was exactly one statement in the 1800s cases or commentaries supporting the collective rights view, a concurring opinion in an 1842 Arkansas state court case."". 
  99. ^ Nunn at 251
  100. ^ Nunn at 250
  101. ^ Singletary, Otis A. (1984). Negro militia and Reconstruction. Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press. pp. 114. ISBN 0-313-24573-8. "From its very inception, the Negro militia experiment was bitterly opposed by Southern white Conservatives. Throughout the entire period and at every state of development they continued their attack on the movement." 
  102. ^ Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. 393 (1856)
  103. ^ Kerrigan, Robert (June 2006) (PDF). The Second Amendment and related Fourteenth Amendment. http://secondamendment.and.fourteenth.googlepages.com. 
  104. ^ Clayton E. Cramer, "The racist roots of gun control," June 15th, 2007
  105. ^ Heller, Opinion of the Court, fn. 23
  106. ^ a b Judy Keen (2008-09-10). "High court ruling triggers gun ban repeals, NRA suits". USA Today. http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-09-10-gunsbans_N.htm. Retrieved on 2009-01-31. 
  107. ^ April 1992, page 1193
  108. ^ Amar, Akhil Reed (1992). "The Bill of Rights and the Fourteenth Amendment". Yale Law Journal 101: 1193 [1224–1225]. ISSN 00440094. http://www.saf.org/LawReviews/Amar1.html. "And yet, despite the importance of the topic and all the attention devoted to it, we still lack a fully satisfying account of the relationship between the first ten amendments and the Fourteenth.". 
  109. ^ "At what point regulation or prohibition of what classes of firearms would conflict with the Amendment, if at all, the Miller case does little more than cast a faint degree of illumination toward an answer." at Findlaw http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data/constitution/amendment02/
  110. ^ "One overlooked issue in the voluminous literature on the Second Amendment is what standard of review should apply to gun control if the Amendment is read to protect an individual right to bear arms." in "SCRUTINIZING THE SECOND AMENDMENT" by Adam Winkler http://michiganlawreview.org/archive/105/4/winkler.pdf
  111. ^ Barnett, Gary E., The Reasonable Regulation of the Right to Keep and Bear Arms (June 24, 2008). Georgetown Journal of Law & Public Policy, Vol. 6, No. 2, 2008
  112. ^ City of Salina v. Blaksley, 72 Kan. 230 .
  113. ^ Cornell, Saul (2006). A WELL-REGULATED MILITIA – The Founding Fathers and the Origins of Gun Control in America. New York, New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 258. ISBN 978-0-19-514786-5. "”… the Kansas Supreme Court had used a similar formulation of the right to bear arms a decade earlier, describing this right as one that “refers to the people as a collective body.””" 
  114. ^ The first case to apply any part of the Bill of Rights to the states was Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railway Co. v. Chicago, 219 U.S. 549 (1897)
  115. ^ Heller, Opinion of the Court, fn. 23
  116. ^ Cruikshank, at 553[2]
  117. ^ Presser at p. 265
  118. ^ Presser at p. 266
  119. ^ Presser at p. 268
  120. ^ Miller at pp. 537-8
  121. ^ Miller at p. 538
  122. ^ Lund, Nelson. "Heller and Second Amendment Precedent". Lewis & Clark Law Review, Forthcoming. "...neither the court below nor the defendants offered the Supreme Court any reasons in support of the challenged judgment, and the Justices heard arguments only from the government.". 
  123. ^ "U.S. Supreme Court United States v. Miller, 307 U.S. 174, 175 (1939)". http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?navby=CASE&court=US&vol=307&page=175. Retrieved on 2008-01-05. ""No appearance for appellees."" 
  124. ^ Miller, at p. 175
  125. ^ Miller, at p. 176
  126. ^ Miller, at pp. 177-8
  127. ^ Miller, at p. 178
  128. ^ Howard J. Fezell. "The misconstruction of United States v. Miller". http://www.secondamendment.net/2amd4.html. Retrieved on 2009-01-05. 
  129. ^ [|McClurg, Andrew J.] (1999). ""Lotts" More Guns and Other Fallacies Infecting the Gun Control Debate". Journal of Firearms & Public Policy 11: 139. "But when all is said and done, the only certainty about Miller is that it failed to give either side a clear-cut victory. Most modern scholars recognize this fact. For example, Professor Eugene Volokh describes Miller as “deliciously and usefully ambiguous” in an article about using the Second Amendment as a teaching tool in constitutional law. That is probably the most accurate statement that can be made about the case.". 
  130. ^ Tony Mauro (2008-06-27). "Supreme Court Strikes Down D.C. Gun Ban". http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1202422582170. Retrieved on 2009-01-05. "In a historic 5-4 decision... the landmark ruling..." 
  131. ^ Joan Biskupic and Kevin Johnson (2008-06-27). "Landmark ruling fires challenges to gun laws". USA Today. http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2008-06-26-scotus-guns_N.htm. Retrieved on 2009-01-05. 
  132. ^ James Vicini (2008-06-26). "Americans have right to guns under landmark ruling". Reuters. http://www.reuters.com/articlePrint?articleId=USWBT00928420080626. Retrieved on 2009-01-05. 
  133. ^ Linda Greenhouse (2008-06-27). "Justices, Ruling 5-4, Endorse Personal Right to Own Gun". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/27/washington/27scotus.html?ei=5124&en=21e70d4578db66b2&ex=1372305600&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink&pagewanted=all. Retrieved on 2009-01-05. "The landmark ruling..." 
  134. ^ District of Columbia, et al., Petitioners v. Dick Anthony Heller. 554 U.S. ___ (2008), page 13. "Giving 'bear Arms' its idiomatic meaning would cause the protected right to consist of the right to be a soldier or to wage war—an absurdity that no commentator has ever endorsed. See L. Levy, Origins of the Bill of Rights 135 (1999). Worse still, the phrase 'keep and bear Arms' would be incoherent. The word 'Arms' would have two different meanings at once: 'weapons' (as the object of 'keep') and (as the object of 'bear') one-half of an idiom. It would be rather like saying 'He filled and kicked the bucket' to mean 'He filled the bucket and died.' Grotesque."
  135. ^ Heller, Opinion of the Court, fn. 23
  136. ^ http://supreme.justia.com/us/554/07-290/dissent2.html
  137. ^ Winkler, Adam, Heller's Catch 22 (March, 13 2009) pg14. UCLA Law Review, Vol. 56, June 2009; UCLA School of Law Research Paper No. 09-10. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1359225
  138. ^ "Few Ripples From Supreme Court Ruling on Guns - NYTimes.com". http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/17/us/17bar.html?_r=1. Retrieved on 2009-03-26. 
  139. ^ "Adam Winkler: The New Second Amendment: A Bark Worse Than Its Right". http://www.huffingtonpost.com/adam-winkler/the-new-second-amendment_b_154783.html. Retrieved on 2009-02-06. 
  140. ^ "Links to new gun rights lawsuits | SCOTUSblog". http://www.scotusblog.com/wp/links-to-new-gun-rights-lawsuits/print/. Retrieved on 2009-02-02. 
  141. ^ NRA-ILA press release - Village of Morton Grove to Repeal Gun Ban
  142. ^ NRA-ILA press release - Evanston Amends Gun Ban
  143. ^ NRA-ILA press release - Winnetka, IL Repeals Draconian Handgun Ban Becomes Third Chicago Suburb to Drop Total Ban Since Supreme Court Ruling
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See also

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