Why is the department of education buying shotguns?
by GunRights4USMarch 10, 2010
The U.S. Department of Education (ED) intends to purchase twenty-seven (27) REMINGTON BRAND MODEL 870 POLICE 12/14P MOD GRWC XS4 KXCS SF. RAMAC #24587 GAUGE: 12 BARREL: 14" - PARKERIZED CHOKE: MODIFIED SIGHTS: GHOST RING REAR WILSON COMBAT; FRONT - XS CONTOUR BEAD SIGHT STOCK: KNOXX REDUCE RECOIL ADJUSTABLE STOCK FORE-END: SPEEDFEED SPORT-SOLID - 14"
By the way... YOU can't own a shotgun with a barrel shorter than 18 inches according to the National Firearms Act of 1934! So what are they doing buying "sawed off" shotguns!!!
Alan Gura And Alan Gottlieb On McDonald v. Chicago
by Tom RemingtonMarch 4, 2010
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McDonald v. City of Chicago: How Limited Will The Right Be?
by Tom RemingtonMarch 3, 2010
Yesterday the United States Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case of McDonald v. City of Chicago. It appears from comments made during arguments that probably the court will incorporate the Second Amendment into the Fourteenth Amendment via the “Due Process Clause” and not entertain the idea of opening a can of worms by incorporating with the “Privileges or Immunities Clause”. On the surface it would appear that gun rights advocates will win another victory in that a ruling of incorporation would say that the rights guaranteed under the Second Amendment extend beyond the scope of the federal government and forces the states and local communities to honor that right. But how much?
District of Columbia v. Heller ruled that citizens have a right to have a gun in their homes to protect themselves. The ruling made it clear that the Second Amendment guaranteed an individual the right to keep and bear arms. What didn’t get decided in Heller was what, if any, restrictions on those guaranteed rights were allowable. It appears McDonald will not tell us that either.
There is no clear cut established “gun right”. It is not defined. The only thing that has shaped gun rights or gun restrictions, has been state and local laws through our jurisprudence. As we have seen, some of those restrictions have gone so far as to deny certain citizens the right to possess a gun at all, as was the case in Heller, in the District of Columbia and McDonald, in Chicago.
If SCOTUS should rule to force Chicago to abide by the Second Amendment through the “Due Process Clause” of the Fourteenth Amendment, then the question becomes, how much? Will the court offer any ruling as to where Chicago should begin?
In oral arguments, former Solicitor General Paul D. Clement, representing the NRA, suggested that there should be a “carry over” of Second Amendment laws along with the Fourteenth Amendment incorporation.
Personally, I believe the Court will react much the same way it did in Heller. They will make a ruling of whether Second Amendment rights extend to the states and then leave it up to the courts to hammer out what will then become “reasonable” restrictions on guns.
After Heller, even though the High Court ruled that a ban on gun ownership was unconstitutional, the District of Columbia did not make it easy for anyone to get a gun and register it. I foresee the same events in McDonald.
Tom Remington
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Personal ruminations on SCOTUS and the 2A
by GunRights4USMarch 2, 2010
How silly.
Either I have the right to keep and bear arms… or I don’t.
The plainly written and clear meanings found in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights have been steadily subverted over the years by lawyers and judges that tell us that UP means DOWN and RIGHT means WRONG. The most glaring example I can think of is the right to privacy that the in-Justices found years ago when they ruled on Roe vs. Wade. The word “privacy” doesn’t even appear in either of these documents, but the Wizards of Law tell us they’re there nonetheless.
Yet we have crystal clear verbiage from the Founders that culminates with the phrase “shall not be infringed”, and I still see infringement on my 2A rights everywhere I look!
It doesn’t say infringements are okay if “within reason”. But there are thousands and thousands of gun laws in every direction covering what kind of gun you can own, who can possess guns, where you can carry guns (or can’t), who can buy guns, how many you can buy in a given period, etc. And usually the anti-gun camp claims to only want “reasonable” restrictions.
I also hear a lot from both the Pro and Anti side of the debate about “sporting purpose”. Who dreamed that up? What the hell is “sporting purpose” and tell me how it’s relevant or where it appears in the 2A?
There’re a lot of things in this world I don’t know. But there are a few things I DO know and no amount of propaganda or coercion will EVER sway my opinion on the following truths:
1. The Second Amendment was written to make it clear that government power has its boundaries, and the citizenry would forever have the means to enforce those boundaries if government should forget them.
2. The right to defend myself and my family (and not just in my home) is what the Founders called an unalienable right. That is to say it is a Natural Right that supersedes all Human authority.
3. Many people cry and wring their hands over what effect some piece of gun regulation is going to have over their lives. That includes many so-called “gun people”, because they know that whatever laws come down the pipe, they’re going to obey them.
4. My line in the sand is citizen disarmament. And it’s not drawn in sand, it’s drawn in stone. The rotten, corrupt scumbags that pretend to be our masters can write whatsoever laws they like. But when it comes to legislating my right to keep and bear arms, they are on IGNORE mode where I am concerned.
My final word on the topic is simply this: No one needs to fear me if they have no plans to hurt me or my family, or they have no intentions to rob me of God-given liberties like the right to keep and bear arms. But putting my rights, my person, or my family in peril will draw a most vigorous response from me. Of that I can guarantee!
Sheriff Richard Mack on Freedomizer Radio
by Greg FarberFebruary 27, 2010
Pt1 Sheriff Mack on Freedomizer Radio
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When they have the guns and you do not have any guns, they will do this to YOU.
by Greg FarberFebruary 10, 2010
Communist Obama and his leftist Marxist lackey squads would do this to you, if you are unarmed and you disagreed with them, they are setting this up for a future coup now. WAKE UP! This is who the left really are.. Communists.
Reports of extrajudicial killings by Nigerian security forces circulated widely in the aftermath of clashes last year between the police and members of Boko Haram, a group that called for the enforcement of Islamic law, or sharia, across Nigeria.
Now Al Jazeera has obtained exclusive footage that appears to show Nigerian security forces ordering a number of people to lie in the road and then shooting them at close range.
Human rights groups allege that many of those killed following the clashes were unarmed civilians.
The footage obtained by Al Jazeera would appear to confirm those accusations.
VERY BRUTAL NEWS CLIP, YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.
Nigeria Security Forces Kills Unarmed Muslims
THE SECRET END RUN AROUND SOVEREIGNTY IN AMERICA
by Greg FarberFebruary 2, 2010
Justice in government starts with YOU..
by Greg FarberJanuary 26, 2010
And excellent Constitutional Scholar, from Montana no less. Who has taught me over many years and many others the true definitions of the Constitution. This is priceless information for free, I advise you down load it and study on it.. Only YOU and I can stop these misinformed thugs and their misplaced values, the Authority is ours not theirs. It never was theirs. Eventually when we prove this tyrant to be in error, they will show YOU who they really are, because they would kill you rather than return to you what is rightfully yours.
Red Beckman 1 – We The People are Above the Government
Red Beckman’s Fully Informed Jury Training Part 2
Red Beckman’s Fully Informed Jury Training Part 3
Red Beckman’s Fully Informed Jury Training Part 4
Red Beckman’s Fully Informed Jury Training Part 5 >>>>
Red Beckman 6 – Trust In Government Betrayed
Red Beckman 7 – Truth About Grand Juries
Red Beckman 8 – IRS Unconstitutional Under the Executive Bra
Red Beckman 9 – Grand Jury & Trial Jury Powers
Does anyone believe there’s any justice in our justice system?
by GunRights4USJanuary 26, 2010
The truth of the matter is far removed from the perception that has been created by the multitude of cop shows where in the end justice is always served. In fact, there are certain parts of our system that are as evil and destructive as anything ever devised by the most barbarous rulers in history.
Would it surprise you to discover that uniformed government thugs, once they’ve determined you’re their enemy, will lie or manufacture evidence, even if it means they condemn an innocent man?
Well let me introduce you to Len Savage. Read about his struggle with ATF in this article by James Bovard, and also in Len’s own words. This man is a straight up guy who became the target of a government agency, and now they’re slowly strangling his ability to make a living.
The History of the Second Amendment speaks loud and proud
by Greg FarberJanuary 26, 2010
You take my guns and do not kill me, I will pick up my bow, you take my bow and do not kill me, I will pick up my spear, you take my spear and do not kill me, I will pick up my knife, you take my knife and do not kill me, I will pick up a stone from the ground, you take my stone and chain my hands I shall use the chain against you. Why would we give you our guns ? We know what you mean to do once you have them… You people and your family blood lines have a history, we know it. You mean to have us dead, we know it, why not stop with this bantering and just get on with it then.. We know who you are and what you want.. I tire of your bullshit, G.F.
The right to keep and bear arms as a part of English and American law antedates not only the Constitution, but also the discovery of firearms. Under the laws of Alfred the Great, whose reign began in 872 A.D., all English citizens from the nobility to the peasants were obliged to privately purchase weapons and be available for military duty.This was in sharp contrast to the feudal system as it evolved in Europe, under which armament and military duties were concentrated in the nobility. The body of armed citizens were known as the “fyrd”.
While a great many of the Saxon rights were abridged following the Norman conquest, the right and duty of arms possession was retained. Under the Assize of Arms of 1181, “the whole community of freemen” between the ages of 15 and 40 were required by law to possess certain arms, which were arranged in proportion to their possessions. They were required twice a year to demonstrate to Royal officials that they were appropriately armed. In 1253, another Assize of Arms expanded the duty of armament to include not only freemen, but also villeins, who were the English equivalent of serfs. Now all “citizens, burgesses, free tenants, villeins and others from 15 to 60 years of age” were obligated to be armed. While on the Continent the villeins were regarded as little more than animals hungering for rebellion, the English legal system not only permitted, but affirmatively required them, to be armed.
The thirteenth century saw further definitions of this right as the long bow, a formidable armor-piercing weapon, became increasingly the mainstay of British national policy. In 1285, Edward I commanded that all persons comply with the earlier Assizes and added that “anyone else who can afford them shall keep bows and arrows. The right of armament was subject only to narrow limitations. In 1279, it was ordered that those appearing in Parliament or other public assemblies “shall come without all force and armor, well and peaceably”. In 1328, the statute of Northampton ordered that no one use their arms in “affray of the peace, nor to go nor ride armed by day or by night in fairs, markets, nor in the presence of the justices or other ministers. English courts construed this ban consistently with the general right of private armament as applying only to wearing of arms “accompanied with such circumstances as are apt to terrify the people. In 1369, the King ordered that the sheriffs of London require all citizens “at leisure time on holidays” to “use in their recreation bowes and arrows” and to stop all other games which might distract them from this practice.
The Tudor kings experimented with limits upon specialized weapons–mainly crossbows and the then-new firearms. These measures were not intended to disarm the citizenry, but on the contrary, to prevent their being diverted from longbow practice by sport with other weapons which were considered less effective. Even these narrow measures were short-lived. In 1503, Henry VII limited shooting (but not possession) of crossbows to those with land worth 200 marks annual rental, but provided an exception for those who “shote owt of a howse for the lawefull defens of the same”. In 1511, Henry VIII increased the property requirement to 300 marks. He also expanded the requirement of longbow ownership, requiring all citizens to “use and exercyse shootyng in longbowes, and also have a bowe and arrowes contynually” in the house. Fathers were required by law to purchase bows and arrows for their sons between the age of 7 and 14 and to train them in longbow use.
In 1514 the ban on crossbows was extended to include firearms. But in 1533, Henry reduced the property qualification to 100 pounds per year; in 1541 he limited it to possession of small firearms (“of the length of one hole yard” for some firearms and “thre quarters of a yarde” for others) and eventually he repealed the entire statute by proclamation. The later Tudor monarchs continued the system and Elizabeth added to it by creating what came to be known as “train bands”, selected portions of the citizenry chosen for special training. These trained bands were distinguished from the “militia”, which term was first used during the Spanish Armada crisis to designate the entirety of the armed citizenry.
The militia continued to be a pivotal force in the English political system. The British historian Charles Oman considers the existence of the armed citizenry to be a major reason for the moderation of monarchical rule in Great Britain; “More than once he [Henry VIII] had to restrain himself, when he discovered that the general feeling of his subjects was against him…His ‘gentlemen pensioners’ and yeomen of the guard were but a handful, and bills or bows were in every farm and cottage”.
When civil war broke out in 1642, the critical issue was whether the King or Parliament had the right to control the militia. The aftermath of the civil war saw England in temporary control of a military government, which repeated dissolved Parliament and authorized its officers to “search for, and seize all arms” owned by Catholics, opponents of the government, “or any other person whom the commissioners had judged dangerous to the peace of this Commonwealth”.
The military government ended with the restoration of Charles II. Charles in turn opened his reign with a variety of repressive legislation, expanding the definition of treason, establishing press censorship and ordering his supporters to form their own troops, “the officers to be numerous, disaffected persons watched and not allowed to assemble, and their arms seized”. In 1662, a Militia Act was enacted empowering officials “to search fro and seize all arms in the custody or possession of any person or persons whom the said lieutenants or any two or more of their deputies shall judge dangerous to the peace of the kingdom”. Gunsmiths were ordered to deliver to the government lists of all purchasers. These confiscations were continued under James II, who directed them particularly against the Irish population: “Although the country was infested by predatory bands, a Protestant gentleman could scarcely obtain permission to keep a brace of pistols.”
In 1668, the government of James was overturned in a peaceful uprising which came to be know as “The Glorious Revolution”. Parliament resolved that James had abdicated and promulgated a Declaration of Rights, later enacted as the Bill of Rights. Before coronation, his successor William of Orange, was required to swear to respect these rights. The debates in the House of Commons over this Declaration of Rights focused largely upon the disarmament under the 1662 Militia Act. One member complained that “an act of Parliament was made to disarm all Englishmen, who the lieutenant should suspect, by day or night, by force or otherwise–this was done in Ireland for the sake of putting arms into Irish hands.” The speech of another is summarized as “militia bill–power to disarm all England–now done in Ireland.” A third complained “Arbitrary power exercised by the ministry. . . . Militia–imprisoning without reason; disarming–himself disarmed.” Yet another summarized his complaints “Militia Act–an abominable thing to disarm the nation. . . .”
The Bill of Rights, as drafted in the House of Commons, simply provided that “the acts concerning the militia are grievous to the subject” and that “it is necessary for the public Safety that the Subjects, which are Protestants, should provide and keep arms for the common defense; And that the Arms which have been seized, and taken from them, be restored. The House of Lords changed this to make it a more positive declaration of an individual right under English law: “That the subjects which are Protestant may have arms for their defense suitable to their conditions and as allowed by law. The only limitation was on ownership by Catholics, who at that time composed only a few percent of the British population and were subject to a wide variety of punitive legislation. The Parliament subsequently made clear what it meant by “suitable to their conditions and as allowed by law”. The poorer citizens had been restricted from owning firearms, as well as traps and other commodities useful for hunting, by the 1671 Game Act. Following the Bill of Rights, Parliament reenacted that statute, leaving its operative parts unchanged with one exception–which removed the word “guns” from the list of items forbidden to the poorer citizens The right to keep and bear arms would henceforth belong to all English subjects, rich and poor alike.
In the colonies, availability of hunting and need for defense led to armament statutes comparable to those of the early Saxon times. In 1623, Virginia forbade its colonists to travel unless the were “well armed”; in 1631 it required colonists to engage in target practice on Sunday and “to bring their peeces to church. In 1658 it required every householder to have a functioning firearm within his house and in 1673 its laws provided that a citizen who claimed he was too poor to purchase a firearm would have one purchased for him by the government, which would then require him to pay a reasonable price when able to do so. In Massachusetts, the first session of the legislature ordered that not only freemen, but also indentured servants own firearms and in 1644 it imposed a stern 6 shilling fine upon any citizen who was not armed.
When the British government began to increase its military presence in the colonies in the mid-eighteenth century, Massachusetts responded by calling upon its citizens to arm themselves in defense. One colonial newspaper argued that it was impossible to complain that this act was illegal since they were “British subjects, to whom the privilege of possessing arms is expressly recognized by the Bill of Rights” while another argued that this “is a natural right which the people have reserved to themselves, confirmed by the Bill of Rights, to keep arms for their own defense”. The newspaper cited Blackstone’s commentaries on the laws of England, which had listed the “having and using arms for self preservation and defense” among the “absolute rights of individuals.” The colonists felt they had an absolute right at common law to own firearms.
Together with freedom of the press, the right to keep and bear arms became one of the individual rights most prized by the colonists. When British troops seized a militia arsenal in September, 1774, and incorrect rumors that colonists had been killed spread through Massachusetts, 60,000 citizens took up arms. A few months later, when Patrick Henry delivered his famed “Give me liberty or give me death” speech, he spoke in support of a proposition “that a well regulated militia, composed of gentlemen and freemen, is the natural strength and only security of a free government. . . .” Throughout the following revolution, formal and informal units of armed citizens obstructed British communication, cut off foraging parties, and harassed the thinly stretched regular forces. When seven states adopted state “bills of rights” following the Declaration of Independence, each of those bills of rights provided either for protection of the concept of a militia or for an express right to keep and bear arms.
Following the revolution but previous to the adoption of the Constitution, debates over militia proposals occupied a large part of the political scene. A variety of plans were put forth by figures ranging from George Washington to Baron von Steuben. All the proposals called for a general duty of all citizens to be armed, although some proposals (most notably von Steuben’s) also emphasized a “select militia” which would be paid for its services and given special training. In this respect, this “select militia” was the successor of the “trained bands” and the predecessor of what is today the “national guard”. In the debates over the Constitution, von Steuben’s proposals were criticized as undemocratic. In Connecticut on writer complained of a proposal that “this looks too much like Baron von Steuben’s militia, by which a standing army was meant and intended. In Pennsylvania, a delegate argued “Congress may give us a select militia which will, in fact, be a standing army–or Congress, afraid of a general militia, may say there will be no militia at all. When a select militia is formed, the people in general may be disarmed.
Richard Henry Lee, in his widely read pamphlet “Letters from the Federal Farmer to the Republican” worried that the people might be disarmed “by modeling the militia. Should one fifth or one eighth part of the people capable of bearing arms be made into a select militia, as has been proposed, and those the young and ardent parts of the community, possessed of little or no property, the former will answer all the purposes of an army, while the latter will be defenseless.” He proposed that “the Constitution ought to secure a genuine, and guard against a select militia,” adding that “to preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them.
The suspicion of select militia units expressed in these passages is a clear indication that the framers of the Constitution did not seek to guarantee a State right to maintain formed groups similar to the National Guard, but rather to protect the right of individual citizens to keep and bear arms. Lee, in particular, sat in the Senate which approved the Bill of Rights. He would hardly have meant the second amendment to apply only to the select militias he so feared and disliked.
Other figures of the period were of like mind. In the Virginia convention, George Mason, drafter of the Virginia Bill of Rights, accused the British of having plotted “to disarm the people–that was the best and most effective way to enslave them”, while Patrick Henry observed that, “The great object is that every man be armed” and “everyone who is able may have a gun”.
Nor were the anti-federalists, to whom we owe credit for a Bill of Rights, alone on this account. Federalist arguments also provide a source of support for an individual rights view. Their arguments in favor of the proposed Constitution also relied heavily upon universal armament. The proposed Constitution had been heavily criticized for its failure to ban or even limit standing armies. Unable to deny this omission, the Constitution’s supporters frequently argued to the people that the universal armament of Americans made such limitations unnecessary. A pamphlet written by Noah Webster, aimed at swaying Pennsylvania toward ratification, observed:
Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom in Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword, because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops that can be, on any pretense, raised in the United States.
In the Massachusetts convention, Sedgewick echoed the same thought, rhetorically asking an oppressive army could be formed or “if raised, whether they could subdue a Nation of freemen, who know how to prize liberty, and who have arms in their hands? In Federalist Paper 46, Madison, later author of the Second Amendment, mentioned “The advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of all other countries” and that “notwithstanding the military establishments in the several kingdoms of Europe, which are carried as far as the public resources will bear, the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms.”
A third and even more compelling case for an individual rights perspective on the Second Amendment comes from the State demands for a bill of rights. Numerous state ratifications called for adoption of a Bill of Rights as a part of the Constitution. The first such call came from a group of Pennsylvania delegates. Their proposals, which were not adopted but had a critical effect on future debates, proposed among other rights 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 a real danger of public injury from individuals. In Massachusetts, Sam Adams unsuccessfully pushed for a ratification conditioned on adoption of a Bill of Rights, beginning with a guarantee “That the said Constitution shall never be construed to authorize Congress to infringe the just liberty of the press or the rights of conscience; or to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms. . . When New Hampshire gave the Constitution the ninth vote needed for its passing into effect, it called for adoption of a Bill of Rights which included the provision that “Congress shall never disarm any citizen unless such as are or have been in actual rebellion”. Virginia and North Carolina thereafter called for a provision “that the people have the right to keep and bear arms; 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.
When the first Congress convened for the purpose of drafting a Bill of Rights, it delegated the task to James Madison. Madison did not write upon a blank tablet. Instead, he obtained a pamphlet listing the State proposals for a Bill of Rights and sought to produce a briefer version incorporating all the vital proposals of these. His purpose was to incorporate, not distinguish by technical changes, proposals such as that of the Pennsylvania minority, Sam Adams, and the New Hampshire delegates. Madison proposed among other rights that:
“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 the House, this was initially modified so that the militia clause came before the proposal recognizing the right. The proposals for the Bill of Rights were then trimmed in the interests of brevity. The conscientious objector clause was removed following objections by Eldridge Gerry, who complained that future Congresses might abuse the exemption for the scrupulous to excuse everyone from military service.
The proposal finally passed the House in its present form: “A well regulated militia, being necessary for the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.” In this form it was submitted to the Senate, which passed it the following day. The Senate in the process indicated its intent that the right be an individual one, for private purposes, by rejecting an amendment which would have limited the keeping and bearing of arms to bearing “for the common defense”.
The earliest American constitutional commentators concurred in giving this broad reading to the amendment. When St. George Tucker, later Chief Justice of the Virginia Supreme Court, in 1803 published an edition of Blackstone annotated to American law, he followed Blackstone’s citation of the right of the subject “of having arms suitable to their condition and degree, and such as are allowed by law” with a citation to the Second Amendment, ” “And this without any qualification as to their condition or degree, as is the case in the British government.” William Rawle’s “View of the Constitution” published in Philadelphia in 1825 noted that under the Second Amendment
“The prohibition is general. No clause in the Constitution could by a rule of construction be conceived to give to Congress a power to disarm the people. Such a flagitious attempt could only be made under some general pretense by a state legislature. But if in blind pursuit of inordinate power, either should at tempt it, this amendment may be appealed to as a restraint on both.”
The Jefferson papers in the Library of Congress show that both Tucker and Rawle were friends of, and corresponded with, Thomas Jefferson. This suggests that their assessment, as contemporaries of the Constitution’s drafters, should be afforded special consideration.
Later commentators agreed with Tucker and Rawle. For instance, Joseph Story in his “Commentaries on the Constitution” considered the right to keep and bear arms as “the palladium of the liberties of the republic”, which deterred tyranny and enabled the citizenry at large to overthrow it should it come to pass.
Subsequent legislation in the second Congress likewise supports the interpretation of the Second Amendment that creates an individual right. In the Militia Act of 1792, the second Congress defined “militia of the United States” to include almost every free adult male in the United States. These persons were obligated by law to possess a firearm and a minimum supply of ammunition and military equipment. This statute, incidentally, remained in effect into the early years of the present century as a legal requirement of gun ownership for most of the population of the United States. There can by little doubt from this that when the Congress and the people spoke of a “militia”, they had reference to the traditional concept of the entire populace capable of bearing arms, and not to any formal group such as what is today called the National Guard. The purpose was to create an armed citizenry, such as the political theorists at the time considered essential to ward off tyranny. From this militia, appropriate measures might create a “well regulated militia” of individuals trained in their duties and responsibilities as citizens and owners of firearms.
The Second Amendment as such was rarely litigated prior to the passage of the Fourteenth Amendment. Prior to that time, most courts accepted that the commands of the federal Bill of Rights did not apply to the states. Since there was no federal firearms legislation at this time, there was no legislation which was directly subject to the Second Amendment, if the accepted interpretations were followed. However, a broad variety of state legislation was struck down under state guarantees of the right to keep and bear arms and even in a few cases, under the Second Amendment, when it came before courts which considered the federal protections applicable to the states. Kentucky in 1813 enacted the first carrying concealed weapon statute in the United States; in 1822, the Kentucky Court of Appeals struck down the law as a violation of the state constitutional protection of the right to keep and bear arms; “And can there be entertained a reasonable doubt but the provisions of that act import a restraint on the right of the citizen to bear arms? The court apprehends it not. The right existed at the adoption of the Constitution; it then had no limit short of the moral power of the citizens to exercise it, and in fact consisted of nothing else but the liberty of the citizen to bear arms.”
On the other hand, a similar measure was sustained in Indiana, not upon the grounds that a right to keep and bear arms did not apply, but rather upon the notion that a statute banning only concealed carrying still permitted the carrying of arms and merely regulated on possible way of carrying them. A few years later, the Supreme Court of Alabama upheld a similar statute but added, “We do not desire to be understood as maintaining, that in regulating the manner of wearing arms, the legislature has no other limit than its own discretion. A statute which, under the pretense of regulation, amounts to a destruction of that right, or which requires arms to be so borne as to render them wholly useless for the purpose of defense, would be clearly unconstitutional.” When the Arkansas Supreme Court in 1842 upheld a carrying concealed weapons statute, the chief justice explained that the statute would not “detract anything from the power of the people to defend their free state and the established institutions of the country. It prohibits only the wearing of certain arms concealed. This is simply a regulation as to the manner of bearing such arms as are specified”, while the dissenting justice proclaimed “I deny that any just or free government upon earth has the power to disarm its citizens”.
Sometimes courts went farther. When in 1837, Georgia totally banned the sale of pistols (excepting the larger pistols “known and used as horsemen’s pistols” ) and other weapons, the Georgia Supreme Court in Nunn v. State held the statute unconstitutional under the Second Amendment to the federal Constitution. The court held that the Bill of Rights protected natural rights which were fully as capable of infringement by states as by the federal government and that the Second Amendment provided
“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, and not merely such as are used by the militia, shall not be infringed, curtailed, or broken in on, in the slightest degree; and all this for the important end to be attained: the rearing up and qualifying of a well regulated militia, so vitally necessary to the security of a free state.”
Prior to the Civil War, the Supreme Court of the United States likewise indicated that the privileges of citizenship included the individual right to own and carry firearms. In the notorious Dred Scott case, the court held that black Americans were not citizens and could not be made such by any state. This decision, which by striking down the Missouri Compromise did so much to bring on the Civil War, listed what the Supreme Court considered the rights of American citizens by way of illustrating what rights would have to be given to black Americans if the Court were to recognize them as full fledged citizens:
It would give to persons of the negro race, who are recognized as citizens in any one state of the Union, the right to enter every other state, whenever they pleased. . . .and it would give them full liberty of speech in public and in private upon all subjects upon which its own citizens might meet; to hold public meetings upon political affairs, and to keep and carry arms wherever they went.
Following the Civil War, the legislative efforts which gave us three amendments to the Constitution and our earliest civil rights acts likewise recognized the right to keep and bear arms as an existing constitutional right of the individual citizen and as a right specifically singled out as one protected by the civil rights acts and by the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, against infringement by state authorities. Much of the reconstruction effort in the South had been hinged upon the creation of “black militias” composed of the armed and newly freed blacks, officered largely by black veterans of the Union Army. In the months after the Civil War, the existing southern governments struck at these units with the enactment of “black codes” which either outlawed gun ownership by blacks entirely, or imposed permit systems for them, and permitted the confiscation of firearms owned by blacks. When the Civil Rights Act of 1866 was debated members both of the Senate and the House referred to the disarmament of blacks as a major consideration. Senator Trumbull cited provisions outlawing ownership of arms by blacks as among those which the Civil Rights Act would prevent. Senator Sulsbury complained on the other hand that if the act were to be passed it would prevent his own state from enforcing a law banning gun ownership by individual free blacks. Similar arguments were advanced during the debates over the “anti-KKK act”; its sponsor at one point explained that a section making it a federal crime to deprive a person of “arms or weapons he may have in his house or possession for the defense of his person, family, or property” was “intended to enforce the well-known constitutional provisions guaranteeing the right in the citizen ‘keep and bear arms’. Likewise, in the debates over the Fourteenth Amendment Congress frequently referred to the Second Amendment as one of the rights which it intended to guarantee against state action.
Following adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment, however, the Supreme Court held that that Amendment’s prohibition against states depriving any persons of their federal “privileges and immunities” was to be given a narrow construction. In particular, the “privileges and immunities” under the Constitution would refer only to those rights which were not felt to exist as a process of natural right, but which were created solely by the Constitution. These might refer to rights such as voting in federal elections and of interstate travel, which would clearly not exist except by virtue of the existence of a federal government and which could not be said to be “natural rights”. This paradoxically meant that the rights which most persons would accept as the most important–those flowing from concepts of natural justice–were devalued at the expense of more technical rights. Thus when individuals were charged with having deprived black citizens of their right to freedom of assembly and to keep and bear arms, by violently breaking up a peaceable assembly of black citizens, the Supreme Court in United States v. Cruikshank held that no indictment could be properly brought since the right “of bearing arms for a lawful purpose” is “not a right granted by the Constitution. Neither is it in any manner dependent upon that instrument for its existence.” Nor, in the view of the Court, was the right to peacefully assemble a right protected by the Fourteenth Amendment: “The right of the people peaceably to assemble for lawful purposes existed long before the adoption of the Constitution of the United States. In fact, it is and has always been one of the attributes of citizenship under a free government. . . .It was not, therefore, a right granted to the people by the Constitution.” Thus the very importance of the rights protected by the First and Second Amendment was used as the basis for the argument that they did not apply to the states under the Fourteenth Amendment. In later opinions, chiefly Presser v. Illinois and Miller v. Texas the Supreme Court adhered to the view. Cruikshank has clearly been superseded by twentieth century opinions which hold that portions of the Bill of Rights–and in particular the right to assembly with which Cruikshank dealt in addition to the Second Amendment–are binding upon the state governments. Given the legislative history of the Civil Rights Acts and the Fourteenth Amendment, and the more expanded views of incorporation which have become accepted in our own century, it is clear that the right to keep and bear arms was meant to be and should be protected under the civil rights statutes and the Fourteenth Amendment against infringement by officials acting under color of state law.
Within our own century, the only occasion upon which the Second Amendment has reached the Supreme Court came in United States v. Miller. There, a prosecution for carrying a sawed off shotgun was dismissed before trial on Second Amendment grounds. In doing so, the court took no evidence as to the nature of the firearm or indeed any other factual matter. The Supreme Court reversed on procedural grounds, holding that the trial court could not take judicial notice of the relationship between a firearm and the Second Amendment, but must receive some manner of evidence. It did not formulate a test nor state precisely what relationship might be required. The court’s statement that the amendment was adopted “to assure the continuation and render possible the effectiveness of such [militia] forces” and “must be interpreted and applied with that end in view”, when combined with the court’s statement that all constitutional sources “show plainly enough that the militia comprised all males physically capable of acting in concert for the common defense. . . . these men were expected to appear bearing arms supplied by themselves and of the kind in common use at the time,” suggests that at the very least private ownership by a person capable of self defense and using an ordinary privately owned firearm must be protected by the Second Amendment. What the Court did not do in Miller is even more striking: It did not suggest that the lower court take evidence on whether Miller belonged to the National Guard or a similar group. The hearing was to be on the nature of the firearm, not on the nature of its use; nor is there a single suggestion that National Guard status is relevant to the case.
The Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms therefore, is a right of the individual citizen to privately possess and carry in a peaceful manner firearms and similar arms. Such an “individual rights” interpretation is in full accord with the history of the right to keep and bear arms, as previously discussed. It is moreover in accord with contemporaneous statements and formulations of the right by such founders of this nation as Thomas Jefferson and Samuel Adams, and accurately reflects the majority of the proposals which led up to the Bill of Rights itself. A number of state constitutions, adopted prior to or contemporaneously with the federal Constitution and Bill of Rights, similarly provided for a right of the people to keep and bear arms. If in fact this language creates a right protecting the states only, there might be a reason for it to be inserted in the federal Constitution but no reason for it to be inserted in state constitutions. State bills of rights necessarily protect only against action by the state, and by definition a state cannot infringe its own rights; to attempt to protect a right belonging to the state by inserting it in a limitation of the state’s own powers would create an absurdity. The fact that the contemporaries of the framers did insert these words into several state constitutions would indicate clearly that they viewed the right as belonging to the individual citizen, thereby making it a right which could be infringed either by state or federal government and which must be protected against infringement by both.
Finally, the individual rights interpretation gives full meaning to the words chosen by the first Congress to reflect the right to keep and bear arms. The framers of the Bill of Rights consistently used the words “right of the people” to reflect individual rights–as when these words were used to recognize the “right of the people” to peaceably assemble, and the “right of the people” against unreasonable searches and seizures. They distinguished between the rights of the people and of the state in the Tenth Amendment. As discussed earlier, the “militia” itself referred to a concept of a universally armed people, not to any specifically organized unit. When the framers referred to the equivalent of our National Guard, they uniformly used the term “select militia” and distinguished this from “militia”. Indeed, the debates over the Constitution constantly referred to the organized militia units as a threat to freedom comparable to that of a standing army, and stressed that such organized units did not constitute, and indeed were philosophically opposed to, the concept of a militia.
That the National Guard is not the “Militia” referred to in the second amendment is even clearer today. Congress has organized the National Guard under its power to “raise and support armies” and not its power to “Provide for the organizing, arming and disciplining the Militia”. This Congress chose to do in the interests of organizing reserve military units which were not limited in deployment by the strictures of our power over the constitutional militia, which can be called forth only “to execute the laws of the Union, suppress insurrections and repel invasions.” The modern National Guard was specifically intended to avoid status as the constitutional militia, a distinction recognized by 10 U.S.C. Sec. 311(a).
The conclusion is thus inescapable that the history, concept, and wording of the second amendment to the Constitution of the United States, as well as its interpretation by every major commentator and court in the first half-century after its ratification, indicates that what is protected is an individual right of a private citizen to own and carry firearms in a peaceful manner.
REFERENCES
1. Charles Hollister, Anglo-Saxon Military Institutions 11-42 (Oxford University Press 1962); Francis Grose, Military Antiquities Respecting a History of the British Army, Vol. I at 1-2 (London, 1812).
2. Grose, supra, at 9-11; Bruce Lyon, A Constitutional and Legal History of Medieval England 273 (2nd. ed. New York 1980).
3. J.J. Bagley and P.B. Rowley, A Documentary History of England 1066-1540, Vol. I at 155-56 (New York 1965).
4. Statute of Winchester (13 Edw. I c. 6). See also Bagley and Rowley, supra at 158.
5. 7 Ed. I c.2 (1279).
6. Statute of Northampton (2nd Edw. III c. 3).
7. Rex v. Knight, 90 Eng. Rep. 330; 87 Eng. Rep. 75 (King’s Bench, 1686).
8. E. G. Heath, The Grey Goose Wing 109 (London, 1971).
9. 19 Hen. VII c. 4 (1503).
10. 3 Hen. VIII c. 13 (1511).
11. 64 Hen. VIII c. 13 (1514).
12. 33 Hen. VIII c. 6 (1514).
13. Noel Perrin, Giving Up the Gun 59-60 (Boston, 1979)
14. Jim Hill, The Minuteman in War and Peace 26-27 (Harrisburg, 1968)
15. Charles Oman, A History of the Art of War in the Sixteenth Century 288 (New York, 1937).
16. William Blackstone, Commentaries, Vol. 2 at 412 (St. George Tucker, ed., Philadelphia 1803).
17. “An Act for Settling the Militia,” Ordinances and Acts of the Interregnum, Vol. 2 1320 (London, HMSO 1911).
18. 8 Calendar of State Papers (Domestic), Charles II, No. 188, p. 150.
19. 14 Car. II c. 3 (1662).
20. Joyce Malcolm, Disarmed: The Loss of the Right to Bear Arms in Restoration England, at 11 (Mary Ingraham Bunting Institute, Radcliffe College 1980).
21. Thomas Macaulay, The History of England from the Accession of Charles II, Vol. II at 137 (London, 1856).
22. Phillip, Earl of Hardwicke, Miscellaneous State Papers from 1501-1726, vol. 2 at 407-17 (London, 1778).
23. J. R. Western, Monarchy and Revolution: The English State in the 1680’s, at 339 (Totowa, N.J., 1972).
24. Journal of the House of Commons from December 26, 1688 to October
26, 1693, at 29. (London, 1742). The Bill of Rights was ultimately enacted in this form. 1 Gul. and Mar. Sess., 2, c. 2 (1689).
25. Joyce Malcolm, supra, at 16.
26. William Hening, The Statutes at Large: Being a Collection of All the Laws of Virginia from the First Session of the Legislature in 1619, at pp.127, 173-74 (New York, 1823).
27. Id.
28. William Brigham, The Compact with the Charter and Laws of the Colony of New Plymouth, 31, 76 (Boston, 1836).
29. Oliver Dickerson, ed., Boston Under Military Rule, 61, 79 (Boston, 1936).
30. Steven Patterson, Political Parties in Revolutionary Massachusetts, at 103 (University of Wisconsin Press, 1973).
31. See Sprecher, The Lost Amendment, 51 A.B.A.J. 554, 665 (1965).
32. The most extensive studies of these miitia proposals are John Macauly Palmer, Washington, Lincoln, Wilson: Three War Statesmen (New York, 1930); Frederick Stern, Citizen ARmy (New York, 1957); John Mahon, the American Militia: Decade of Decision 1789-1800 (Univ. of Florida, 1960).
33. Merrill Jensen, ed., The Documentary of History of the Ratification of the Constitution, vol. 3 at 378 (Madison, Wisc.)
34. Id., vol. 2 at 508.
35. Walter Bennet, ed., Letters from the Federal Farmer to the Republican, at 21, 22, 124 (Univ. of Alabama Press, 1975).
36. Debates and other Proceedings of the Convention of Virginia, . . . taken in shorthand by David Robertson of Petersburg, at 271, 275 (2nd ed. Richmond, 1805).
37. Noah Webster, “An Examination into the Leading Principles of the Federal States, at 56 (New York, 1888).
38. Johnathan Elliott, ed., Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution, vol. 2 at 97 (2nd ed., 1888).
39. Merril Jensen, supra, vol. 2 at 597-98.
40. Debates and Proceeding at the Convention of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, at 86-87 (Pierce & Hale, eds., Boston, 1850); 2 B. Schwartz, the Bill of Rights 675 (1971).
41. Documents Illustrative of the Formation of the Union of the American States, at 1026 (Washington, D.C.,GPO, 1927).
42. Id. at 1030.
43. Annals of Congress 434 (1789).
44. St. George Tucker, ed., Blackstone’s Commentaries, Volume 1 at 143 n.
40, 41 (Philadelphia, 1803).
45. William Rawle, A View of the Constitution 125-6 (2nd ed., Philadelphia, 1803).
46. Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution, vol. 2 at 746 (1833).
47. Act of May 8, 1792; Second Cong., First Session, ch. 33.
48. Bliss vs. Commonwealth, 12 Ken. (2 Litt.) 90,92 (1822).
49. State v. Mitchell, (3 Black.) 229.
50. State v. Reid, 1 Ala. 612, 35 Am. Dec. 44 (1840).
51. State v. Buzzard, 4 Ark. 18, 27, 36 (1842). The Arkansas Constitutional provision at issue was narrower than the second amendment, as it protected keeping and bearing arms “for the common defense.” Id. at 34.
52. Nunn v. State, 1 Ga. 243, 251 (1846).
53. Dred Scott v. Sanford, 60 U.S. 691, 705.
54. The most comprehensive work in this field of constitutional law is Steven Halbrook, the Jurisprudence of the Second and Fourteenth Amendments (Institute for Humane Studies, Menlo Park, California, 1979), reprinted in 4 George Mason L. Rev. 1 (1981).
55. Cong. Globe, 39th Congress, 1st Sess., pt.1, p. 474 (Jan. 29, 1866).
56. Id. at 478.
57. H.R. Rep. No. 37, 41st Cong., 3d sess., p. 3 (1871).
58. See generally Halbrook, supra, at 42-62.
59. Slaughterhouse Cases, 83 U.S. 36 (L873).
60. United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U.S. 542 (1876).
61. Presser v. Illinois, 116 U.S. 252 (1886).
62. Miller v. Texas, 153 U.S. 535 (1894).
63. United States v. Miller, 307 U.S. 175 (1939).
64. Id. at 178, 179.
65. H.R. Report No. 141, 73d Cong., 1st sess. at 2-5 (1933).
Thanks to Robert Barefoot’s hard work researching this history over several years..
