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.
Wednesday, June 27, 2018
“The Heller decision didn’t really have an impact on gun violence in our city,” D.C. Police Chief Peter ...
Wednesday, June 27, 2018
Dick Heller, a 76-year-old special police officer whose Supreme Court case changed the District’s gun laws a decade ...
Tuesday, June 26, 2018
The cornerstone gun-rights decision, Heller v. D.C., the case in which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the ...
Monday, June 25, 2018
For 20 years now, a well-meaning law professor has been peddling the fiction that the Second Amendment – ...
Monday, June 18, 2018
The all-Democratic governing body in Piscataway has unanimously approved an ordinance targeting weapons retailers -- a move apparently ...
Monday, June 11, 2018
I’m pro-gun. Maybe that’s shocking to you. I believe my interpretation of the Second Amendment is shared with ...
Friday, June 1, 2018
States controlled by the Democratic party have chosen to ignore an individual right protected by an amendment to ...
Wednesday, May 30, 2018
Citizens of America have Second Amendment rights because they live and breathe — not because government officials have ...
Wednesday, May 30, 2018
Those who wrote the Constitution knew the importance of protecting core values, defending their life, liberty and pursuit ...
Tuesday, May 15, 2018
In the first case, decided yesterday, a district judge ruled against the National Rifle Association's state affiliate in ...