Second Amendment & the Right to Keep and Bear Arms
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 protects the right of the people to keep and bear arms for defense of life and liberty.
In U.S. v. Cruikshank (1876), Presser v. Illinois (1886), Miller v. Texas (1894) and U.S. v. Miller (1939), the Supreme Court recognized that the amendment protects an individual right. It has never taken a different view. However, in Salina v. Blaksley (1905), the Kansas Supreme Court invented the idea that the amendment instead protected a “right” of a person to keep and bear arms only while serving in a state militia, and in U.S. v. Tot (1942), the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit advanced the idea that the amendment protects the “right” of a state to have a militia.
In District of Columbia v. Heller (2008), the Supreme Court heard its first case specifically centered on whether the amendment protects an individual right to arms. Gun control supporters advanced essentially the "Salina" argument, but the Court, consistent with its previous rulings in Second Amendment-related cases, ruled that the amendment protects an individual right to keep arms and to bear arms "in case of confrontation," without regard to a person’s relationship to a militia.
In McDonald v. Chicago (2010), the court extended the Second Amendment's protection nationwide.
Thursday, March 29, 2018
In a New York Times op-ed, former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens flat out calls for repealing ...
Thursday, March 29, 2018
American democracy is under siege, and gun control is at the very center of the left’s war on ...
Wednesday, March 28, 2018
What if there was a Freedom Caucus-like group in the Democratic Party—without the complete detachment from reality—that argued ...
Wednesday, March 28, 2018
"The real discussion should be about the Second Amendment. Is it useful? Does it serve its purpose the ...
Wednesday, March 28, 2018
Progressives have long had a love-hate relationship — mostly hate — with the U.S. Constitution and its checks ...
Tuesday, March 27, 2018
One problem with Stevens' position is that he is dead wrong about the legal history. His preferred reading ...
Tuesday, March 27, 2018
The demonstrators should seek more effective and more lasting reform. They should demand a repeal of the Second ...
Thursday, March 15, 2018
Today, some students, teachers, and other Americans who share their views are walking out of classes across the ...
Monday, March 12, 2018
The National Rifle Association sued in federal court Friday to block a new Florida law, just signed by ...
Monday, March 12, 2018
The political and legal fallout from Florida Gov. Rick Scott’s decision to sign a sweeping gun bill into ...