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.
Gun rights are defined as belonging to a group: a well regulated militia, and the collective right of the people. But it does not talk about individual gun ownership.
So here's a theoretical situation: A town passes an ordinance that all militia weapons shall be stored in militia stations strategically located around town. When sued by the NRA, they respond that they are living within the terms of the second amendment: Indeed, they have a better regulated militia than one where no one knows where the guns are.
I know this sounds a bit off the wall, but would it have any merit as a legal tactic?
The great problem of any civilization is how to rejuvenate itself without rebarbarization.
- Will Durant "Of what meaning is the world without mind? The question cannot exist."
- Edwin Land
It might have been an interesting test case at some time in the past, but the Court has already decided that the right is an individual right and not a group right. I don’t see that changing until most of the current Justices have retired.
ETA: The first and fourth amendments also use the phrase “right of the people,” so I’m skeptical that the language itself is sufficient to establish the intent to create a group, as opposed to an individual, right.
he/him we all just have to live through it,
holding each other’s hands.
I typed up a lengthy post last night on my phone, only to have it lost when I went to post it. So here's my abbreviated attempt.
I don't think the question is too off the wall given the issue of whether the amendment refers to collective rights or individual rights has been a central question surrounding it. But as Res says, Heller definitively established the modern interpretation of ownership being an individual right. That said, Scalia made it explicit that the right to bear arms was not unlimited, and that the government could rightly preclude private ownership of certain types of arms.
I think the historic answer is the amendment refers to a collective right extrapolated out from an individual right. When James Madison presented the amendments to the House with what became the Second Amendment actually legible in form, it read:
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 person.
Madison was seeking to keep faith with promises made during ratification to bring amendments to the Constitution forward demanded by Antifederalists. As a Federalist, his concern was that failure to do so could give leverage to Antifederalists in convening a second convention which could undo the Constitution and send the nation backwards yet again. One concern held by the States was that a strong Federal government could disband State militias. I think his wording shows thia concerned deserved being enumerated and protected. But also, it gets to his own views regarding rights. That being, enumerating them was not valuable, and potentially dangerous. Prior to being elected to the House, he had referred to enumerated rights in State constitutions as parchment barriers or paper barriers, easily bypassed by State governments when it had suited them. He feared that enumerating rights would lead to the belief that any right not explicitly enumerated was not, therefore a right. He inserted the Ninth Amendment precisely because he felt it needed enumerated that rights existed that weren't enumerated explicitly. And I think this is how the individual right to bear arms is treated in the original language - it is assumed so it need not be expanded upon. Rather the protection of State militias was built up upon those assumed individual rights.
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.
Where is the sentence about promoting gun sales?
Honor, in the deliberations leading up to the Constitution, was there talk of allowing property owners to hire somebody to fight in their stead for the militia?
Honor, in the deliberations leading up to the Constitution, was there talk of allowing property owners to hire somebody to fight in their stead for the militia?
A violent insurrection in the Massachusetts countryside during 1786 and 1787, Shays' Rebellion was brought about by a monetary debt crisis at the end of the American Revolutionary War. Although Massachusetts was the focal point of the crisis, other states experienced similar economic hardships. In particular, Continental Army and state militia veterans struggled, as many received little in the way of pay or reimbursement for their military service. Among these disgruntled former soldiers was the Continental Army Captain Daniel Shays, who led a violent uprising against debt collection in Massachusetts. The rebellion set the stage for George Washington's return to political life and highlighted weaknesses inherent within the Articles of Confederation. The United States emerged after Shays' Rebellion a stronger nation, with a new Constitution and George Washington as its first President.
Following the Revolutionary War, merchants in Europe and America felt a need to rein in the enormous debts they were owed, refusing further loans while also demanding payment in cash for any future goods and services. This demand for hard-currency caused a chain reaction, eventually placing the average American borrower under unrealistic schedules of payment given the small amount of cash in circulation. As rural farmers began to lose land and property to debt collectors, hostile sentiments boiled over, especially among those owed payment for military service. In September 1786, Henry Lee wrote to Washington that the restlessness was "not confined to one state or to one part of a state," but rather affected "the whole."1 Washington wrote to friends such as David Humphreys and Henry Knox, conveying his alarm at the turn of events in the states, and in response received reports that confirmed his fears.
Protests in western Massachusetts grew more tumultuous in August 1786 after the convening of the state legislature failed to address any of the numerous petitions it had received concerning debt relief. Daniel Shays quickly rose among the ranks of the dissidents, having participated in the protest at Northampton courthouse in late August. Shays' followers called themselves "Regulators," in reference to a reform movement in North Carolina that occurred two decades earlier. After the state legislature failed to address the group’s petitions, Shays led organized protests at county court hearings, effectively blocking the work of debt collectors. In response to the growing crisis, Washington wrote desperately to Humphreys, worried that "commotions of this sort, like snow-balls, gather strength as they roll, if there is no opposition in the way to divide and crumble them."2
By December 1786, the conflict between eastern Massachusetts creditors and western rural farmers escalated. Massachusetts Governor James Bowdoin mobilized a force of 1,200 militiamen to counter Shays. The army was led by former Continental Army General Benjamin Lincoln and funded by private merchants. Lincoln's forces anticipated that the Regulators would storm the federal armory at Springfield, Massachusetts, and were waiting when Shays approached the armory with approximately 1,500 men on January 25, 1787. The army fired warning shots followed by artillery fire, killing four of the insurgents and wounding twenty. The rebel force quickly faltered and scattered into the countryside. Many participants were later captured and most men, including Shays, eventually received amnesty as part of a general pardon.
In February 1787, once Shays' Rebellion had been quelled, Knox reported to Washington on Lincoln’s successful operations. Washington replied to Knox that "On the prospect of the happy termination of this insurrection I sincerely congratulate you; hoping that good may result from the cloud of evils which threatened, not only the hemisphere of Massachusetts but by spreading its baneful influence, the tranquility of the Union."3 The rebellion called into serious question the state of the country's finances and the viability of the weak national government under the Articles of Confederation. Shays' Rebellion accelerated calls to reform the Articles, eventually resulting in the Philadelphia Convention of 1787. The Convention elected Washington as its president and ultimately produced the Constitution of the United States. Thus, in no small way, Shays' Rebellion contributed to Washington’s return to public life and the creation of a strong federal government more capable of addressing the pressing economic and political needs of a new nation.
The mass murderer was stopped after someone wrestled the gun away from him[.]
How did he avoid getting shot himself?
He just grabbed it. The lobby camera captured it. What's kind of amazing is he didn't then shoot the guy who continued to attack him while trying to get the firearm back.
