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What did the Second Amendment do?
What does the Second Amendment say about the military?
Did the Second Amendment impair a state militia?
Is the Second Amendment infringing the right to bear arms?
Dec 19, 2017 · It’s interesting to think about why the Founders needed the Second Amendment when the power of Congress to organize the Militia was written in Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution: “To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions; To provide for organizing, arming ...
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- Supreme Court interpretations
The original text for the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is, “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.”
Does the Second Amendment allow owning guns for self-defense?
In the 2008 landmark case District of Columbia v. Heller, the U.S. Supreme Court concluded that the Second Amendment includes the right of individuals to bear arms for self-defense. In 2010 McDonald v. City of Chicago extended the prior ruling from federal laws to state and local laws. This opinion is controversial.
Who wrote the Second Amendment?
The Second Amendment, ratified in 1791, was proposed by James Madison to allow the creation of civilian forces that can counteract a tyrannical federal government. Anti-Federalists believed that a centralized standing military, established by the Constitutional Convention, gave the federal government too much power and potential for violent oppression.
Which U.S. Supreme Court justices think the Second Amendment recognizes the individual’s right to bear arms in self-defense?
Until 2008 the Supreme Court of the United States had never seriously considered the constitutional scope of the Second Amendment. In its first hearing on the subject, in Presser v. Illinois (1886), the Supreme Court held that the Second Amendment prevented the states from “prohibit[ing] the people from keeping and bearing arms, so as to deprive the United States of their rightful resource for maintaining the public security.” More than four decades later, in United States v. Schwimmer (1929), the Supreme Court cited the Second Amendment as enshrining that the duty of individuals “to defend our government against all enemies whenever necessity arises is a fundamental principle of the Constitution” and holding that “the common defense was one of the purposes for which the people ordained and established the Constitution.” Meanwhile, in United States v. Miller (1939), in a prosecution under the National Firearms Act (1934), the Supreme Court avoided addressing the constitutional scope of the Second Amendment by merely holding that the “possession or use of a shotgun having a barrel of less than eighteen inches in length” was not “any part of the ordinary military equipment” protected by the Second Amendment.
For more than seven decades after the United States v. Miller decision, what right to bear arms that the Second Amendment protected remained uncertain. This uncertainty was ended, however, in District of Columbia v. Heller (2008), in which the Supreme Court examined the Second Amendment in exacting detail. In a narrow 5–4 majority, delivered by Antonin Scalia, the Supreme Court held that self-defense was the “central component” of the amendment and that the District of Columbia’s “prohibition against rendering any lawful firearm in the home operable for the purpose of immediate self-defense” to be unconstitutional. The Supreme Court also affirmed previous rulings that the Second Amendment ensured the right of individuals to take part in the defending of their liberties by taking up arms in an organized militia. However, the court was clear to emphasize that an individual’s right to an “organized militia” is not “the sole institutional beneficiary of the Second Amendment’s guarantee.”
Because the Heller ruling constrained only federal regulations against the right of armed self-defense in the home, it was unclear whether the court would hold that the Second Amendment guarantees established in Heller were equally applicable to the states. The Supreme Court answered that question in 2010, with its ruling on McDonald v. Chicago. In a plurality opinion, a 5–4 majority held that “the right to possess a handgun in the home for the purpose of self-defense” is applicable to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment’s due process clause.
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Amendments to the U.S. Constitution
However, despite the use of “person” in that clause, the McDonald decision did not apply to noncitizens, because one member of the majority, Justice Clarence Thomas, refused in his concurring opinion to explicitly extend the right that far. Thomas wrote, “Because this case does not involve a claim brought by a noncitizen, I express no view on the difference, if any, between my conclusion and the plurality with respect to the extent to which States may regulate firearm possession by noncitizens.” Thomas’s conclusion was also supported by his view that the Second Amendment should be incorporated through the Fourteenth Amendment’s “privileges or immunities” clause, which recognizes only the rights of “citizens.”
United States v. Miller, 307 U.S. 17 4, 17 8 (1939) (explaining that the Second Amendment was enacted [w]ith obvious purpose to assure the continuation and render possible the effectiveness of [militia] forces and must be interpreted and applied with that end in view).
The Second Amendment originally applied only to the federal government, leaving the states to regulate weapons as they saw fit. Although there is substantial evidence that the Privileges or Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment was meant to protect the right of individuals to keep and bear arms from infringement by the states, the ...
Nov 9, 2020 · Nation. The ‘scope’ of the argument: Why the Second Amendment matters. By. Nathan Wanlass. - November 9, 2020. 14113. The U.S. Constitution’s guarantee of the right to bear arms has been a primary conversation topic among Americans in 2020.
1. United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U.S. 542 (1875); Presser v. Illinois, 116 U.S. 252 (1886); Miller v. Texas, 153 U.S. 535 (1894). The Fourteenth Amendment, through which the Second Amendment was later held to be applicable to the states, was ratified following the Civil War, in 1868.
Mar 1, 2018 · To some extent, the issue was clarified, if not settled, by the Heller decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in 2008. The 5-4 decision held that the Second Amendment meant individuals had an...
