Feel free to point out any flaws in this essay. Just starting out writing, not that great at it yet.
II. “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 second amendment is a highly controversial subject in American politics. Earlier this year the Supreme Court of the United States ruled, 5-4, that the Second Amendment protects an individual’s right to keep and bear arms. And why wouldn’t it? The Second Amendment is clear: “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” While some argue that the right is limited to Militia’s, nowhere in the amendment does it state that, it merely suggests that a well regulated militia is necessary to protect freedoms. This idea dates back to England in the 1200’s, where the citizens not only had a right to carry arms; they had a legal obligation to. Without central police or a central military, the people had the obligation to protect themselves from those who committed wrongs on them, and were required to bear weapons to achieve this. Whether it be protecting themselves from others in their own communities or protecting themselves from foreign invaders, every able bodied male was a member of the local militia, and had an obligation to protect himself and his community from those who committed wrong – because they had the means to do so.
The founders knew this, and it wasn’t the only reason they included the amendment either. Not only were (are) weapons required to protect oneself from individuals; it’s needed to protect oneself from unfair tyranny as well. The Second Amendment was more or less a check and balance in the government; it established that people had the right – not the privilege, the right – to keep arms in the event that the government was unfairly removing other rights as well. This was essential to the revolution – if the English government had enforced gun restrictions on the colonies well before the revolution, the rebels would have had no way to fight them off. When the people don’t have a means to enforce their rights, the government can freely take away any right they want.
As Thomas Jefferson stated, “The beauty of the second amendment is that it will not be needed until they try to take it.”
I firmly held this belief before the DC vs. Heller case closed, and upon finding out the case won 5-4, I was lost. Why? I find that the Second Amendment is clear in what it says, in what it seeks to protect, and I feel it’s clear why we have it. I couldn’t grasp the idea that nearly half of our Supreme Court judges dissented against this right. These are the people given the highest judicial obligations in the country. Their most important job is to interpret the Constitution, and if they can’t interpret such a simple amendment, or don’t want to, then how can we have faith in our system? They have the job of providing the most important check and balance in our legal system, and they aren’t doing it right. But because I generally like to give the benefit of the doubt, I decided to read the opinion written by Justice Stevens that represents the dissenting opinion in the case.
The lengthy opinion, 43 pages in length, starts out by breaking the Amendment into three sections. 1. “A well regulated Militia,” 2. “being necessary to the security of a free State,” and 3. “the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”
He starts off by stating, “Three portions of that text merit special focus: the introductory language defining the Amendment’s purpose, the class of persons encompassed within its reach, and the unitary nature of the right that it protects.”
Given that, I find that he makes a mistake of interpreting “A well regulated Militia,” He interprets it as a collective military meaning when he says, “… the constitutional guarantee “to keep and bear arms” was on military uses of firearms, which they viewed in the context of state militias.” Yet a militia is by it’s nature is a private force that has no standard connection to the government; a private military not associated with the standard government sponsored and regulated military, and doesn’t have to be necessarily sponsored by the state government.
He also, in my opinion at least, misinterprets that the class of persons encompassed within the amendment’s reach is limited to those in a state sponsored militia. A militia can be made up of any number of persons, whether a single person or a large group of persons, by it’s nature, because a militia is nothing more than a force of civilians who voluntarily take it upon themselves to provide emergency enforcement for the protection of the local law, or the protection of rights, when a force such as police or the standard military isn’t present or goes against such rights/laws. And it’s the same concept whether they’re protecting against foreign invaders or individuals and groups within the community.
He goes on to mention that, “Without identifying any language in the text that even mentions civilian uses of firearms, the Court proceeds to “find” it’s preferred reading in what is at best an ambiguous text, and then concludes that its reading is not foreclosed by the preamble.”
However, the amendment doesn’t need to mention civilian use, it clearly state that “the people” have a right to keep and bear arms. Whether the amendment seeks to mention that the people have a right to protect themselves or not isn’t the issue, the issue is that we have a right to, at the very least, keep firearms regardless of their use. This doesn’t mean, as he himself suggests, that the constitution gives a right for people to rob banks using the firearms or do anything criminal, but it does mean that we have a right to have and keep the firearm without government interference.
He combats that argument by arguing that “the people” refers to a collective right, not an individual one. Yet he says himself that other amendments in the bill of rights use “the people” as a reference to individuals, not selective groups. He attempts to justify this by saying that it’s similar to the fourth amendment, which he claims, “… “the people” describes the class of persons protected from unreasonable searches and seizures by Government officials.” Of course it describes that class, that class is all of us. We each have an individual right to protections against those things. In this he tries to say that only certain classes of people have a right to this protection, when it clearly means that all of us have that right. It’s the same concept as in the second amendment; “the people” refers to all of us, as individuals, not as a collective right for the government to control willingly.
These are the dissenting opinions main points in the case, though I don’t see them being logical. I don’t doubt their intentions, they feel that government has the authority to limit the people’s ownership of firearms because of the risk it may cause. While that issue is certainly debatable (some argue that freedom to own guns lowers the crime rate), the fact that the constitution states our right to keep them is clear. Which is why I think it’s unacceptable that such a clear amendment is twisted so much to justify political attitudes, rather than interpreted to mean what it says.