USA Today’s 2nd Amendment Poll

The folks at USA Today had a poll which came to me via my email; thank you Richard for sending it along. I can’t say I agree with the way the question was asked; all the same I participated under the loose adaption of poorly written words.

“Does the Second Amendment give individuals the right to bear arms?” The correct answer would be, “No, God gives individuals the right to bear arms; the Second Amendment acknowledges this God given right and is intended to prevent government usurpation of this individual right.”

That having been said, the question should have been worded, “Do individuals have the right to bear arms as protected by the Second Amendment?” You might insist that such minor alterations in the wording is trivial; to which I would add, trivial only to those who would distance individuals from one of our most important God given rights as if governments had the power to grant such rights. On these principles our nation’s foundations are built and the assault on individual rights is constant and unrelenting.

If the adversaries of liberty are permitted the opportunity to “sell” their agenda, the abandonment of founding principles which include the understanding that rights are bestowed on individuals from God, then America has lost the greatest leverage against tyranny; the godless will have won.

In the Supreme Court case, District of Columbia v. Heller , Justice Scalia, writing for the majority, identified the following issues in ruling against the D. C. ban on the individual’s right to bear arms:

1. The Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia, and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home. Pp. 2–53.
(a) The Amendment’s prefatory clause announces a purpose, but does not limit or expand the scope of the second part, the operative clause. The operative clause’s text and history demonstrate that it connotes an individual right to keep and bear arms. Pp. 2–22.
(b) The prefatory clause comports with the Court’s interpretation

2 DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA v.
HELLER

Syllabus of the operative clause. The “militia” comprised all males physically capable of acting in concert for the common defense. The Anti federalists feared that the Federal Government would disarm the people in order to disable this citizens’ militia, enabling a politicized standing army or a select militia to rule. The response was to deny Congress power to abridge the ancient right of individuals to keep and bear arms, so that the ideal of a citizens’ militia would be preserved. Pp. 22–28.
(c) The Court’s interpretation is confirmed by analogous arms bearing rights in state constitutions that preceded and immediately followed the Second Amendment. Pp. 28–30.
(d) The Second Amendment’s drafting history, while of dubious interpretive worth, reveals three state Second Amendment proposals that unequivocally referred to an individual right to bear arms. Pp. 30–32.
(e) Interpretation of the Second Amendment by scholars, courts and legislators, from immediately after its ratification through the late 19th century also supports the Court’s conclusion. Pp. 32–47.
(f) None of the Court’s precedents forecloses the Court’s interpretation. Neither United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U. S. 542, 553, nor Presser v. Illinois, 116 U. S. 252, 264–265, refutes the individual rights interpretation. United States v. Miller,
307 U. S. 174, does not limit the right to keep and bear arms to militia purposes, but rather limits the type of weapon to which the right applies to those used by the militia, i.e., those in common use for lawful purposes. Pp. 47–54.
2. Like most rights, the Second Amendment right is not unlimited. It is not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever
and for whatever purpose: For example, concealed weapons prohibitions have been upheld under the Amendment or state analogues. The Court’s opinion should not be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms. Miller’s holding that the sorts of weapons protected are those “in common use at the time” finds support in the historical tradition of prohibiting the carrying of dangerous and unusual weapons. Pp. 54–56.
3. The handgun ban and the trigger-lock requirement (as applied to self-defense) violate the Second Amendment. The District’s total ban on handgun possession in the home amounts to a prohibition on an entire class of “arms” that Americans overwhelmingly choose for the lawful purpose of self-defense. Under any of the standards of scrutiny the Court has applied to enumerated constitutional rights, this Cite as: 554 U. S. ____ (2008) 3

Syllabus prohibition—in the place where the importance of the lawful defense of self, family, and property is most acute—would fail constitutional muster. Similarly, the requirement that any lawful firearm in the home be disassembled or bound by a trigger lock makes it impossible for citizens to use arms for the core lawful purpose of self-defense and is hence unconstitutional. Because Heller conceded at oral argument that the D. C. licensing law is permissible if it is not enforced arbitrarily and capriciously, the Court assumes that a license will satisfy his prayer for relief and does not address the licensing requirement. Assuming he is not disqualified from exercising Second Amendment rights, the District must permit Heller to register his handgun and must issue him a license to carry it in the home. Pp. 56–64.

Here’s your homework assignment, click on the provided link and read the entire SCOTUS decision and get a feel of why it’s important to have originalist judges sitting on the bench rather than activist judges who would have us believe the founding documents of our nation come with “white out” in order to marginalize God given individual rights.