Making Sense of the Meaning and Intent of the Second Amendment: It's Not Hard, Folks! | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's note: Contributor Diane Rufino primarily publishes under the Titled space of For Love of God of Country, and those many contributions can be found here.

    The Federal Farmer (anti-Federalist author) in 1788: "To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms and be taught how to use them."

    Patrick Henry to the Virginia Convention to Ratify the US Constitution, in June 1788: "The great object is that every man be armed."

    At the same time it ratified the US Constitution in 1788, the New Hampshire Ratifying Convention proposed this amendment for the Bill of Rights: "Congress shall never disarm any citizen, unless such as are or have been in actual rebellion."

    The Federal Gazette, dated June 18, 1789, described James Madison's proposal for a Bill of Rights: "The people are confirmed in their right to keep and bear their private arms."

    "We have found no historical evidence that the Second Amendment applies only to members of a select militia while on active duty. All the evidence indicates that the amendment, like other parts of the Bill of Rights, applies to and protects individual Americans." - The Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit (2001)

    INTRODUCTION -

    The Second Amendment: "A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

    For most of our nation's history, the Supreme Court has essentially managed to avoid ruling on the meaning and intent of the Second Amendment and that worked out just fine. And that's probably because for about 150 years, it apparently was universally understood that the amendment protected an individual right to arms rather than a right only when organized in a militia. It wasn't until the 20th century that a legal debate began in earnest over the characterization of the right recognized in the Second Amendment.

    Is the right to arms an individual right or a collective right? Indeed, in the 20th century, federal courts have seemed confused on this question. Some embrace the historical model, which holds that the amendment recognizes the right of people, as individuals, to bear arms. And others embrace the more radical model, the "collective rights" model, which holds that individuals have the right to arms but only when they are members of a militia.

    The "collective rights" model was embraced in 1939 in a case called United States v. Miller. The case arose after two men, Jack Miller and Frank Layton, were arrested for transporting a double-barrel 12-gauge shotgun across state lines and in interstate commerce. They were charged with violating the National Firearms Act ("NFA"). Miller and Layton argued that the NFA violated their Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms and therefore it was unconstitutional as it applied to them. The federal district court agreed and dismissed the case. The government appealed and it went to the Supreme Court. The issue at the heart of the case was whether the Second Amendment protects an individual's right to keep and bear arms? The Supreme Court concluded that it does not. It reasoned that because the possession of a sawed-off double barrel shotgun does not have a reasonable relationship to the functioning or efficiency of a well-regulated militia, the Second Amendment does not protect the possession of such an instrument.

    Although the right to arms became an increasingly heated topic as the 20th century went on, the Supreme Court refused to hear cases to re-address the amendment. And so, the Miller decision defined the position of the federal judiciary from 1939 for almost 70 years. The Second Amendment did not recognize an individual's right to have and bear arms for self-defense - only the defense of a State. But then in 2008 and then in 2010, the Supreme Court, with the late great Antonin Scalia on the bench, agreed to hear two cases, each addressing the same issue and each directly asking the Court to re-address the meaning and intent of the Second Amendment. The 2008 case, District of Columbia v. Heller, addressed a federal gun control law, and the 2009 case, McDonald v. Chicago, addressed a state gun control law. [The first was a direct challenge to the Second Amendment and the second was a challenge under the incorporation clause of the Fourteenth Amendment].

    In Heller, at issue was a gun ban in the District of Columbia (hence, it was a federal gun law) which regulated firearms in several ways: (1) It made it illegal to carry an unregistered firearm; (2) It prohibited the registration of handguns; (3) It required owners of lawfully-registered firearms to keep them unloaded and disassembled, even in the home, or bound by a trigger lock or other similar device unless the firearms were located in a place of business or being used for legal recreational activities. Dick Anthony Heller was a D.C. special police officer who was authorized to carry a handgun while on duty. He applied for a one-year license for a handgun he wished to keep at home, but his application was denied, and so he brought suit to challenge the gun ban as violative of the Second Amendment.

    The Supreme Court agreed with Officer Heller (5-4 majority, of course). It held that the Second Amendment protects an individual's 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. Therefore, the ban on registering handguns and the requirement to keep guns in the home disassembled or nonfunctional with a trigger lock mechanism was inconsistent with the intent of the Second Amendment. Justice Antonin Scalia delivered the opinion. The Court held that the first clause of the Second Amendment that references a "militia" is a prefatory clause that does not limit the operative clause of the Amendment. Additionally, the term "militia" should not be confined to those serving in the military, because at the time the term referred to all able-bodied men who were capable of being called to such service. To read the Amendment as limiting the right to bear arms only to those in a governed military force would be to create exactly the type of state-sponsored force against which the Amendment was meant to protect people. Because the text of the Amendment should be read in the manner that gives greatest effect to the plain meaning it would have had at the time it was written, the operative clause should be read to "guarantee an individual right to possess and carry weapons in case of confrontation." This reading is also in line with legal writing of the time and subsequent scholarship. Therefore, banning handguns, an entire class of arms that is commonly used for protection purposes, and prohibiting firearms from being kept functional in the home, the area traditionally in need of protection, violates the Second Amendment.

    The piece of legislation addressed in the McDonald case was Chicago's gun registration law, which: (1) Prohibited the registration of handguns, thus effecting a broad handgun ban; (2) Requires that guns be registered prior to their acquisition by Chicago residents; (3) Mandated that guns be re-registered annually, with another payment of the fee; and (4) Rendered any gun permanently non-registrable if its registration lapses. 76-year-old Chicago resident Otis McDonald, a retired maintenance engineer, had lived in the Morgan Park neighborhood since buying a house there in 1971. He complained about the decline of his neighborhood, describing it as being taken over by gangs and drug dealers. His home and garage had been broken into five times. An experienced hunter, McDonald legally owned shotguns, but believed them too uncontrollable in the event of a robbery, and so he wanted to purchase a handgun for personal home defense. Due to Chicago's requirement that all firearms in the city be registered, yet refusing all handgun registrations after 1982 when a city-wide handgun ban was passed, he was unable to legally own a handgun. So he and some of his neighbors challenged the Chicago gun registration law as violative of the Second Amendment, as applied to the States through the Fourteenth Amendment.

    The Supreme Court held that the Fourteenth Amendment makes the Second Amendment' right to keep and bear arms for the purpose of self-defense applicable to the states. With Justice Samuel A. Alito writing for the majority, the Court reasoned that rights that are "fundamental to the Nation's scheme of ordered liberty" or that are "deeply rooted in this Nation's history and tradition" are appropriately applied to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment. The Court recognized in Heller that the right to self-defense was one such "fundamental" and "deeply rooted" right, and so, the Second Amendment's protections and prohibitions apply to the States.

    As you read the body of this article, consider what liberal justices Stephen G. Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Sonia Sotomayor argued in their dissent. They wrote that there is nothing in the Second Amendment's "text, history, or underlying rationale" that characterizes it as a "fundamental right" warranting incorporation through the Fourteenth Amendment. Keep that in mind.

    Heller and McDonald were decided after a deep look into the historical roots of the Second Amendment, something that the Court should have done in the Miller case. The current understanding is that the Second Amendment recognizes and protects an individual's right to arms for self-defense and equally recognizes the right to have and bear arms for the purpose of a state militia.

    The opinion makes sense. According to the Declaration of Independence, and natural law, we have the right to life and liberty. These rights are inherent with our humanity. They are inalienable. We never surrender them. Therefore, by extension (by corollary), we must have the right to defend them. Otherwise, the rights are meaningless; there are merely parchment pronunciations.

    The desire to live and survive is innate; we reflexively act to protect our lives and to thrive. And when we can't, we feel violated. Just ask anyone who has been the victim of a violent crime, of a robbery, an assault, a break-in. Ask someone who has the experience of a stranger breaking into their house in the middle of the night. I had that experience. And I have a gun today because I never want to feel helpless and vulnerable and the victim of predation again.

    From a simple reading of the Bill of Rights, one notices that the First Amendment and the other amendments as well, address individual rights. If the Bill of Rights identifies individual rights - as did the Magna Carta and the English Bill of Rights - shouldn't one sense pressure to view the Second Amendment similarly?

    Historically, the "individual right" view is the best proven one, and so the Supreme Court rightly decided the Heller and McDonald cases. But what is that history that so grounds our Second Amendment and so secures its meaning as an individual right?

    The DVD "In Search of the Second Amendment" explains this history very clearly:

    THE HISTORY of the SECOND AMENDMENT -

    [This section is lifted, in part, from the DVD "In Search of the Second Amendment (A Documentary)," produced and directed by David T. Hardy (2006)]

    The 1930's through the 1970's was a time period when Americans were embracing their gun rights, but lawyers weren't paying much attention to the Second Amendment - one way or another (that is, on either side of its interpretation). There wasn't much thought given to it. But as the years went on, there was growing evidence for the "individual right" view. Law reviews were publishing articles on the topic and books on the Constitution were taking notice of this meaning. Momentum was slowly building for a show-down in the Supreme Court to address this building consensus.

    One of the leading Constitutional Law treatises of the later 20th century, American Constitutional Law, was written by Laurence Tribe, professor of Constitutional Law at Harvard Law School. His first edition was written in 1978. Attorney Leonard Levy wrote a subsequent book, Essays on the Making of the Constitution, in which he attacked Tribe's textbook for failing to acknowledge the growing the evidence of the "individual right" view of the right to have a bear arms. Tribe immediately published a second edition accepting this evidence.

    Why this growing trend? And what does it mean for the Miller decision? Did the Court at the time not have the evidence? Before coming to the conclusion that the Second Amendment conferred only a collective right (although it appears they only alluded to this viewpoint without coming right out with a bright line rule of construction), didn't they bother to go back and research the amendment's history?

    What got the ball rolling towards the "individual right" point of view? One article appears to be responsible. The recent boom in Second Amendment legal scholarship that has led to most constitutional scholars to accept the view that the amendment protects an individual's right to have and bear arms began with an article by Don Kates, published in the Michigan Law Review. That article was titled "Handgun Prohibition and the Original Meaning of the Second Amendment.' [http://www.constitution.org/2ll/2ndschol/57mich.pdf].

    Top legal scholars, many of which are liberal, such as Sandy Levinson (of the University of Texas, writing in the Yale Law Journal), Randy Barnett (Boston University School of Law), Bill Van Alstyne (Duke University), and Eugene (Professor at the UCLA School of Law) have made it clear that their research has led them to conclude that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to have arms.

    The history behind the Second Amendment goes back well before the colonies were even settled. It goes back to the very history of the fore-fathers and founders of our country. It goes back to the history of England, the country that gave us so much of our common law, gave us our Bill of Rights, and gave us much of the foundation upon which we built our Declaration, our Constitution, and our system of government.

    In medieval England, there was no royal army. There wasn't enough money or control to have such a formal army. Instead, the King would have to count on his subjects to fight for him - to fight for the kingdom. And so, by law, the King established a citizen militia. By law - the Militia laws - every male subject, beginning at a certain age, was required to own guns, have ammunition, be trained in their use, and show up for regular training sessions. Citizens could be called up at any time by the King to form the militia and so they had to always be in a state of readiness. Henry VIII lowered the age of the males required to be trained to use guns. Under his rule, fathers were required to train their sons from age 7 and older in the use of firearms. "Bring them up in shooting!"

    In 1688, a medieval "duty" to have and bear arms became an "indubitable right." How did this happen? Dr. Joyce Malcolm, Patrick Henry Professor of Constitutional Law and the Second Amendment at George Mason University School of Law and fellow of the Royal Historical Society, is an expert on this topic. She has been called "the leading historian on the history of English gun rights and English gun control." Malcolm explains that gun ownership transformed into a "right" during the tumultuous 17th century in England, and for understandable reasons. The transformation arose out of a conflict between King Charles I and Parliament. Eventually, in 1642, civil war broke out and members of Parliament, led by Oliver Cromwell, brought charges against Charles. He was captured, tried for treason, and beheaded. His sons, the future King Charles II and King James II had fled to France at the time.

    After Cromwell died and his son took over, rather than stability in England, there was mass chaos. The people, out of sheer desperation, asked Charles II to come back to England, assert his right to the throne, and rule, which he did. But what did Charles come home to? He returned to a country that turned on his father; a country that beheaded him. He also returned to a country that was very well-armed. Almost immediately, he sought to disarm the subjects and control the bearing of arms. He instituted serious gun control measures, both on individuals and on manufacturers. Gun manufacturers had to report to the King how many guns they manufactured each week and who purchased them. There were controls on the importing of guns, licenses were required for subjects who needed to move weapons around the countryside, and subjects had to report if they were traveling with a firearm. In the year 1660, King Charles II issued a series of orders to disarm those citizens that he deemed were - or would be - political opponents. One particular act that Parliament passed, in 1662, was especially repugnant. It was the Militia Act of 1662 and it gave militia officers the power to disarm anyone they believed was likely to be an opponent of the Crown. And at first, the Act was actively enforced. In 1671, Parliament passed the Game Act, which proved to be the greatest control over ownership of firearms that England ever had. The Game Act listed a whole host of weapons that were prohibited for hunting, and at the head of that list was guns !!

    Charles II died and having produced no heirs, he was succeeded by his brother James. King James II would use the Game Act to try to disarm all those subjects who he deemed were not well-enough off. In other words, he tried to limit gun ownership to only those of a certain class of subjects. He sent out mass orders to disarm the citizenry. According to the record, Dr. Malcolm explains, the orders were apparently not carried out. But the actions of the King to disarm his subjects certainly arose concern and fear among the people of England.

    And so, finally in 1688, the English people had had enough. They, together with a union of Parliamentarians, invited William and Mary, of Orange to take over the throne and depose King James II. Mary was the daughter of the king. The people promised they would oust James and offer no resistance to William and Mary if they agreed to sign a Bill of Rights acknowledging the rights of the people and promised to be held to that document. William and Mary agreed. They sailed from Orange and were met with the support of the citizenry, in what would be known as the "Bloodless Revolution" (or Glorious Revolution). James was forced to flee. A new Parliament was formed (one not loyal to James, who was still alive) and this Parliament decided that a Bill of Rights was necessary to re-affirm all the rights that had been imperiled by James. In order to tie the new King and Queen to an obligation to abide by these rights, the same statue that elevated William and Mary to the throne also contained those rights - The Charter of Rights - The Charter of Ancient and Indubitable Rights." In fact, this Bill of Rights of 1689 was referred to as "The new Magna Carta." The statue created a contractual obligation, one that tied the right of the King and Queen to rule to an obligation to respect the rights contained in the Charter.
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