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Created on December 15, 1791, the Second Amendment in the United States Constitution is the part of the United States Bill of Rights that establishes the right of citizens to possess firearms for lawful purposes.[a] It says, "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."[2]

When America was being colonized by European countries, firearms were very important to colonists.[3] When Europeans came here they brought with them the idea of land ownership by an individual.[4] They received this right from their king through land grants.[4] This was completely foreign to Native Americans who considered a particular territory belonged to the tribe.[4] Colonists defended their claims against Native Americans and other Europeans whose king may have granted them the same lands.[3] They also needed firearms for hunting. In many towns and villages, men were required to own firearms for the defense of the community. Most colonists coming to America in the 17th century had no experience as soldiers.[5] The British kept few soldiers in the colonies and colonists soon found they needed to establish militias.[5]

Colonies had militia laws that required every able-bodied man to be available for militia duty and to provide his own arms.[5] In 1774 and 1775, the British government, which now had a larger presence, attempted to disarm American colonists. This caused the formation of private militias independent of any control by the governors appointed by the British government.[5] The Minutemen who opposed the British Army at the Battles of Lexington and Concord were an independent militia.[5] After the American Revolutionary War, the framers of the Constitution, like most Americans of the time, distrusted standing armies and trusted militias.[5] After the Revolutionary war, state militias were trusted to defend the country. The Articles of Confederation, the new nation's first constitution, called for each state to maintain a well-armed militia. Congress could only form a standing army by approval of nine of the thirteen states. This was one of the weaknesses that led to the Constitutional Convention of 1787 and a new constitution. This gave Congress the power to call up the militias to defend the country against any foreign power. In the 18th century, the word "army" meant mercenaries.[5] Americans distrusted standing armies and were afraid they could be used to take over the country.[6]Oliver Cromwell and his military dictatorship of England was still well-remembered.[6]

Virginia was one of the first colonies to adopt a state constitution. They included the words: "a well regulated Militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the proper, natural, and safe defence of a free State."[3] Other states followed with similar wording in their own constitutions. Pennsylvania declared: the people have a right to bear arms for the defence of themselves and the state; and as standing armies in the time of peace are dangerous to liberty, they ought not to be kept up; And that the military should be kept under strict subordination to, and governed by, the civil power."[3] In 1781 the Continental Congress approved the Articles of Confederation. This recognized the thirteen original states had the power to govern themselves. They acted collectively to have a congress, but did not provide any money to run it. There was no president and no court system. This confederation of states proved to be a very poor form of central government.

The Constitutional Convention met in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania from May 25 to September 17, 1787.[7] The purpose of the Convention was to revise the Articles of Confederation. But it became clear that the intention many of its members, including James Madison and Alexander Hamilton, was to create a new government rather than fix the existing one. The delegates elected George Washington to preside over the Convention. They eventually agreed on agreed on Madison's Virginia Plan and began to make changes. The result was the Constitution of the United States and the present form of government.[7]

The constitution debate at Philadelphia caused two groups to form, the Federalists and the Anti-federalists. The federalists wanted a strong central government. The anti-federalists wanted the state governments to have the authority. The vote on the new Constitution was passed on a promise by federalists to support a Bill of Rights to be added to the Constitution.[8] Originally 12 amendments were considered. But in their final form, 10 amendments to the Constitution were agreed on. The Bill of Rights, as the first 10 amendments came to be called, originally applied to the national government rather than to states.[8] Many states already had their own Bill of Rights.[8] The Bill of Rights were ratified and went into effect in 1791.

The second amendment was a result of several proposals being combined together and simplified into just 27 words.[9] This simplification has caused many debates over gun ownership and individual rights. Historians, judges and others have repeatedly looked for the intended meaning by the 18th century writers of this amendment. [9] Different interpretations of the Second Amendment still cause public debates concerning firearm regulations and gun control.[9]

The case of District of Columbia v. Heller brought before the Supreme Court was based on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit decision written by Judge Laurence H. Silberman.[10] The decision made the ban on guns by the District of Columbia invalid.[10] The decision was based on the second comma (after the word "state") as proof that the Second Amendment allows individuals the right to carry a gun.[10] This is in addition to the right of states to maintain militias.[10]

The Second Amendment ratified by the States and approved by the Secretary of State, Thomas Jefferson, said:

The version passed by Congress and signed by President George Washington (but never ratified by the States) said:

Go here to see the original:
Second Amendment to the United States Constitution - Simple ...

UPDATE 11:43 a.m. ET: President Barack Obama nominated Judge Merrick Garland, citing bipartisan respect in the past, to fill the vacancy on the U.S. Supreme Court left by the death to Justice Antonin Scalia.

Garland, 63, is the chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, where he has served since 1997.

I said I would take this process seriously and I did. I chose a serious man and an exemplary judge, Obama said standing next to Garland in the Rose Garden Wednesday morning. To find someone who just about everyone not only respects, but genuinely likesthat is rare.

Judge Merrick B. Garland speaks after being nominated to the US Supreme Court as U.S. President Barack Obama looks on, in the Rose Garden at the White House, March 16, 2016 in Washington, DC. Garland currently serves as the chief judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, and if confirmed by the US Senate, would replace Antonin Scalia who died suddenly last month. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Senate Republicans have vowed to block any nominee Obama puts forward, preferring to let voters choose the kind of justice who will replace Scalia through the 2016 presidential elections.

Garland comes in with a mixed record and will likely face scrutiny from Republicans about his stance on the Second Amendment.

As a Justice Department attorney in the 1990s, he assisted in the high profile prosecutions of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh and Unabomber Ted Kaczynski.

President Bill Clinton named Garland to the D.C. Circuit Court in 1997 and he was confirmed by a bipartisan vote in the Senate.

Fidelity to the constitution and the law has been the cornerstone of my professional life and it is the hallmark of the kind of judge I have tried to be for the past 18 years, Garland said Tuesday in the Rose Garden. If the Senate sees fit to confirm me to the position for which I have been nominated today, I promise to continue on that course. Mr. president, its a great privilege to be nominated by a fellow Chicagoan.

In the D.C. vs. Heller gun case, which eventually made it to the Supreme Court, a three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit struck down most of the Washington, D.C., handgun ban. However, Garland joined Judge David Tatel in voting to have the full court reconsider the decision. Garland and Tatel were on the losing side when the Supreme Court recognized the individual right to bear arms in the Heller case and struck down the districts ban.

There is no freedom more fundamental than the right to defend ones life and family, said Erich Pratt, executive director of the Gun Owners of America. The Heller and McDonald decisions are hanging by a thread, as both were decided by 5-4 majorities. If Garland were confirmed, we can expect to see more gun registration, more gun bans, more limitations on ammunition, and all of it would be approved by the Supreme Court.

In a National Review piece, Carrie Severino, chief counsel for the Judicial Crisis Network, also wrote about Garland voting to uphold an executive action by President Clinton to establish what some considered a de facto gun registration requirement.

But Garland has a long record, and, among other things, it leads to the conclusion that he would vote to reverse one of Justice Scalias most important opinions, D.C. vs. Heller, which affirmed that the Second Amendment confers an individual right to keep and bear arms. Back in 2007, Judge Garland voted to undo a D.C. Circuit court decision striking down one of the most restrictive gun laws in the nation. The liberal District of Columbia government had passed a ban on individual handgun possession, which even prohibited guns kept in ones own house for self-defense. A three-judge panel struck down the ban, but Judge Garland wanted to reconsider that ruling. He voted with Judge David Tatel, one of the most liberal judges on that court. As Dave Kopel observed at the time, the [t]he Tatel and Garland votes were no surprise, since they had earlier signaled their strong hostility to gun owner rights in a previous case. Had Garland and Tatel won that vote, theres a good chance that the Supreme Court wouldnt have had a chance to protect the individual right to bear arms for several more years

Garland thought all of these regulations were legal, which tells us two things. First, it tells us that he has a very liberal view of gun rights, since he apparently wanted to undo a key court victory protecting them. Second, it tells us that hes willing to uphold executive actions that violate the rights of gun owners. Thats not so moderate, is it?

Garland does have a somewhat centrist record, siding with the Bush administration in a key terror case. In 2003, he joined an opinion on the D.C. Circuit prohibiting Guantanamo Bay prisoners from challenging their detention from appealing in civilian courts. The Supreme Court, in 2008, overturned this ruling in the case of Rasul v. Bush.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said the choice should be up to the voters, and without speaking no ill of Garland, said: This is not about the person. It is about the principle.

Obama said he is doing his job in nominating a justice and called on the Senate and insisted that Republicans in the Senate give Garland a hearing and a vote.

Presidents dont stop working in the final year of their term, Obama said. Neither should a Senator.

Read the rest here:
Obamas Supreme Court Nominee Revealed

Any discussion of the right to bear arms has to take note of the Second Amendment. Here's Anthony Mason:

At the heart of the debate over guns in America is a single, inscrutable sentence: The Second Amendment of the Bill of Rights, whose wording is unusual.

Simon & Schuster

"The Second Amendment says, '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.' What does that mean?"

The most-disputed clause in the Constitution is the phrase about militias, which were a great concern when the Bill of Rights was written in 1792.

"At the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, there was a very big controversy about how to allocate military power," said Nelson Lund, professor of constitutional law at George Mason University. He says the states feared the new government would try to disarm the 13 state militias, which required every white male over 16 to own a musket.

"The anti-Federalists were very worried that the states would be deprived of their power to resist federal tyranny," Lund said.

"The militia, sir, is our ultimate safety," Patrick Henry argued. "We can have no security without it."

While guns were commonplace then, so were gun regulations. New York and Boston prohibited the firing of guns within city limits.

And in the notes for the Constitutional Convention, Waldman says, "There's literally not a word about it protecting an individual right for gun ownership for self-protection, hunting, or any of the other things we think about now."

"There's one side that believes that this amendment refers specifically and only to militias," said Mason.

"Well, I know people say that, but it just can't be true," replied Lund. "If you look at what the words say, it says 'The right of the people to keep and bear arms.' It does not say, 'The right of the states' or 'The right of the militias.' It says 'the right of the people.'"

The debate over the Second Amendment came to a head at the Supreme Court in 2008, in a case filed over the Capital's gun laws, called District of Columbia v. Heller. In a 5-4 vote, the court affirmed an individual's right to keep and bear arms, striking down D.C.'s ban on handguns in the home.

'The inherent right of self-defense," Justice Antonin Scalia wrote in the majority opinion, "has been central to the Second Amendment right."

But, Scalia added, "The right ... is not unlimited," also leaving room for gun regulation.

Lund said, "It is absolutely a continuing grey area."

Another grey area is how the court might rule on future Second Amendment issues after the sudden death of Justice Scalia in February.

"So, you know, a lot depends on who replaces Justice Scalia," said Lund.

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Parsing the Second Amendment - CBS News

Experience and Results Like No Other

Gov. John R. Kasich continues to be a strong supporter of the right to bear arms and, as governor, has signed every pro-2nd amendment bill that has crossed his desk to defend this basic, constitutional right. John Kasich is a gun-owner himself, and in his 2014 reelection was endorsed by the National Rifle Association for his support of the Second Amendment as an inviolate part of our Constitution.

Removing Burdensome Restrictions for Law-Abiding Concealed Carry Licensees: John Kasich enacted legislation protecting Ohios concealed carry laws, including protecting the privacy of permit holdersandallowing for reciprocity licenses with other stateswhere permit holders can carry their firearms.

Opposing Barack Obamas Gun Control Efforts: John Kasich opposes President Obamas gun control executive orders. The Second Amendment is too important and Obamas hostility to it is too well known for him to be allowed to go around Congress and undermine the Second Amendment. His efforts to expand the federal governments interference with Americans Right to Keep and Bear Arms are wrong and the governor opposes them.

Upholding Ohios Outdoors Traditions: In addition to having a $3.6 billion annual economic impact in Ohio, hunting and fishing are parts of Ohios long tradition of enjoying our natural places. John Kasich upheld this heritage by enacting legislation that removes restrictions on licensing requirements for hunters and by creating new policies to expand hunting rights in Ohio.

Read this article:
Defending the Second Amendment - Kasich for America

The Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution protects the right to keep and bear arms.

The Second Amendment, a provision of the U.S. Constitution, was ratified on December 15, 1791, forming what is known as the Bill of Rights. The Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution[1] reads:

The subject matter and unusual phrasing of this amendment led to much controversy and analysis, especially in the last half of the twentieth century. Nevertheless, the meaning and scope of the amendment have long been decided by the Supreme Court.

Firearms played an important part in the colonization of America. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, European colonists relied heavily on firearms to take land away from Native Americans and repel attacks by Native Americans and Europeans. Around the time of the Revolutionary War, male citizens were required to own firearms for fighting against the British forces. Firearms were also used in hunting.

In June 1776, one month before the signing of the Declaration of Independence, Virginia became the first colony to adopt a state constitution. In this document, the state of Virginia pronounced that "a well regulated Militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the proper, natural, and safe defence of a free State." After the colonies declared their independence from England, other states began to include the right to bear arms in their constitution. Pennsylvania, for example, declared that

The wording of clauses about bearing arms in late-eighteenth-century state constitutions varied. Some states asserted that bearing arms was a "right" of the people, whereas others called it a "duty" of every able-bodied man in the defense of society.

Pennsylvania was not alone in its express discouragement of a standing (professional) army. Many of the Framers of the U.S. Constitution rejected standing armies, preferring instead the model of a citizen army, equipped with weapons and prepared for defense. According to Framers such as Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts and George Mason of Virginia a standing army was susceptible to tyrannical use by a power-hungry government.

At the first session of Congress in March 1789, the Second Amendment was submitted as a counterweight to the federal powers of Congress and the president. According to constitutional theorists, the Framers who feared a central government extracted the amendment as a compromise from those in favor of centralized authority over the states. The Revolutionary War had, after all, been fought in large part by a citizen army against the standing armies of England.

The precise wording of the amendment was changed two times before the U.S. Senate finally cast it in its present form. As with many of the amendments, the exact wording proved critical to its interpretation.

In 1791 a majority of states ratified the Bill of Rights, which included the Second Amendment. In its final form, the amendment presented a challenge to interpreters. It was the only amendment with an opening clause that appeared to state its purpose. The amendment even had defective punctuation; the comma before shall seemed grammatically unnecessary.

Legal scholars do not agree about this comma. Some have argued that it was intentional and that it was intended to make militia the subject of the sentence. According to these theorists, the operative words of the amendment are "[a] well regulated Militia shall not be infringed." Others have argued that the comma was a mistake, and that the operative words of the sentence are "the right of the people to bear arms shall not be infringed." Under this reading, the first part of the sentence is the rationale for the absolute, personal right of the people to own firearms. Indeed, the historical backdrophighlighted by a general disdain for professional armieswould seem to support this theory.

Some observers argue further that the Second Amendment grants the right of insurrection. According to these theorists, the Second Amendment was designed to allow citizens to rebel against the government. Thomas Jefferson is quoted as saying that "a little rebellion every now and then is a good thing."

Prior to the courts ruling in Heller v. District of Columbia[2], 128 S. Ct. 2783 (2008)(see infra), the Supreme Court had made the ultimate determination of the Constitution's meaning, and it defined the amendment as simply granting to the states the right to maintain a militia separate from federally controlled militias. This interpretation first came in United States v. Cruikshank,[3] 92 U.S. 542, 23 L. Ed. 588 (1875). In Cruikshank, approximately one hundred persons were tried jointly in a Louisiana federal court with felonies in connection with an April 13, 1873, assault on two AfricanAmerican men. One of the criminal counts charged that the mob intended to hinder the right of the two men to bear arms. The defendants were convicted by a jury, but the circuit court arrested the judgment, effectively overturning the verdict. In affirming that decision, the Supreme Court declared that "the second amendment means no more than that [the right to bear arms] shall not be infringed by Congress, and has no other effect than to restrict the powers of the national government."

In Presser v. Illinois,[4] 116 U.S. 252, 6 S. Ct. 580, 29 L. Ed. 615 (1886), Herman Presser was charged in Illinois state court with parading and drilling an unauthorized militia in the streets of Chicago in December 1879, in violation of certain sections of the Illinois Military Code. One of the sections in question prohibited the organization, drilling, operation, and parading of militias other than U.S. troops or the regular organized volunteer militia of the state. Presser was tried by the judge, convicted, and ordered to pay a fine of $10.

On appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, Presser argued, in part, that the charges violated his Second Amendment right to bear arms. The Court disagreed and upheld Presser's conviction. The Court cited Cruikshank for the proposition that the Second Amendment means only that the federal government may not infringe on the right of states to form their own militias. This meant that the Illinois state law forbidding citizen militias was not unconstitutional. However, in its opinion, the Court in Presser delivered a reading of the Second Amendment that seemed to suggest an absolute right of persons to bear arms: "It is undoubtedly true that all citizens capable of bearing arms constitute the reserved military force or reserve militia of the United States," and "states cannot prohibit the people from keeping and bearing arms."

Despite this generous language, the Court refused to incorporate the Second Amendment into the Fourteenth Amendment. Under the first section of the Fourteenth Amendment, passed in 1868, states may not abridge the privileges and immunities of citizens of the United States. The privileges and immunities of citizens are listed in the Bill of Rights, of which the Second Amendment is part. Presser had argued that states may not, by virtue of the Fourteenth Amendment, abridge the right to bear arms. The Court refused to accept the argument that the right to bear arms is a personal right of the people. According to the Court, "The right to drill or parade with arms, without, and independent of, an act of congress or law of the state authorizing the same, is not an attribute of national citizenship."

The Presser opinion is best understood in its historical context. The Northern states and the federal government had just fought the Civil War against Southern militias unauthorized by the federal government. After this ordeal, the Supreme Court was in no mood to accept an expansive right to bear arms. At the same time, the Court was sensitive to the subject of federal encroachment on states' rights.

Several decades later, the Supreme Court ignored the contradictory language in Presser and cemented a limited reading of the Second Amendment. In United States v. Miller,[5] 307 U.S. 174, 59 S. Ct. 816, 83 L. Ed. 1206 (1939), defendants Jack Miller and Frank Layton were charged in federal court with unlawful transportation of firearms in violation of certain sections of the National Firearms Act of June 26, 1934 (ch. 757, 48 Stat. 12361240 [26 U.S.C.A. 1132 et seq.]). Specifically, Miller and Layton had transported shotguns with barrels less than 18 inches long, without the registration required under the act.

The district court dismissed the indictment, holding that the act violated the Second Amendment. The United States appealed. The Supreme Court reversed the decision and sent the case back to the trial court. The Supreme Court stated that the Second Amendment was fashioned "to assure the continuation and render possible the effectiveness of militia forces."

The Miller opinion confirmed the restrictive language of Presser and solidified a narrow reading of the Second Amendment. According to the Court in Miller, the Second Amendment does not guarantee the right to own a firearm unless the possession or use of the firearm has "a reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia."

However, in Heller v. District of Columbia, 128 S. Ct. 2783 (2008), the Supreme Court reviewed a case where D.C. residents challenged an ordinace which banned the possession of handguns. The Supreme Court held that the constitution protects the right of individuals to possess a firearm.

The legislative measures that inspire most Second Amendment discussions are gun control laws. Since the mid-nineteenth century, state legislatures have been passing laws that infringe a perceived right to bear arms. Congress has also asserted the power to regulate firearms. No law regulating firearms has ever been struck down by the Supreme Court as a violation of the Second Amendment.

Historically, the academic community has largely ignored the Second Amendment. However, gun control laws have turned many laypersons into scholars of the Second Amendment's history. The arguments for a broader interpretation are many and varied. Most center on the original intent of the Framers. Some emphasize that the Second Amendment should be interpreted as granting an unconditional personal right to bear arms for defensive and sporting purposes. Others adhere to an insurrection theory, under which the Second Amendment not only grants the personal right to bear arms, it gives citizens the right to rebel against a government perceived as tyrannical.

In response to these arguments, supporters of the prevailing Second Amendment interpretation maintain that any right to bear arms should be secondary to concerns for public safety. They also point out that other provisions in the Constitution grant power to Congress to quell insurrections, thus contradicting the insurrection theory. Lastly, they argue that the Constitution should be interpreted in accordance with a changing society and that the destructive capability of semiautomatic and automatic firearms was not envisioned by the Framers.

In response to the last argument, critics maintain that because such firearms exist, it should be legal to use them against violent criminals who are themselves wielding such weapons.

In the 2000s, federal courts continue to revisit the scope and detail of the Second Amendment right to bear arms. In particular federal courts have recast much of the debate as one over whether the Second Amendment protects a "collective" right or an "individual" right to bear arms. If the Second Amendment protects only a collective right, then only states would have the power to bring a legal action to enforce it and only for the purpose of maintaining a "well-regulated militia." If the Second Amendment protects only an individual right to bear arms, then only individuals could bring suit to challenge gun-control laws that curb their liberty to buy, sell, own, or possess firearms and other guns.

Not surprisingly, courts are conflicted over how to resolve this debate. In United States v. Emerson,[6][7] 270 F.3d 203 (5th Cir. 2001), the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit found that the original intent of the Founding Fathers supported an individual-rights interpretation of the Second Amendment, while the Ninth Circuit came to the opposite conclusion in Nordyke v. King,[8] 319 F.3d 1185 (9th Cir. 2003). Although no court has concluded that the original intent underlying the Second Amendment supports a claim for both an individual- and a collective rights based interpretation of the right to bear arms, the compelling historical arguments marshaled on both sides of the debate would suggest that another court faced with the same debate may reach such a conclusion.

Becker, Edward R. 1997. "The Second Amendment and Other Federal Constitutional Rights of the Private Militia." Montana Law Review 58 (winter).

Bogus, Carl T., ed. 2000. The Second Amendment in Law and History: Historians and Constitutional Scholars on the Right to Bear Arms. New York: New Press.

Dolan, Edward F., and Margaret M. Scariano. 1994. Guns in the United States. New York: Watts.

Dunlap, Charles J., Jr. 1995. "Revolt of the Masses: Armed Civilians and the Insurrectionary Theory of the Second Amendment." Tennessee Law Review 62 (spring).

Hanson, Freya Ottem. 1998. The Second Amendment: The Right to Own Guns. Springfield, N.J.: Enslow.

Hook, Donald D. 1992. Gun Control: The Continuing Debate. Washington, D.C.: Second Amendment Foundation.

Hoppin, Jason. 2003. "Ninth Circuit Upholds Controversial Ruling on Second Amendment." Legal Intelligencer (May 8).

. 2003. "Second Amendment Fight Steals Show in Gun Ban Case: Panel Enters Fray over Individual Rights." San Francisco Recorder (February 19).

McAffee, Thomas B. 1997. "Constitutional Limits on Regulating Private Militia Groups." Montana Law Review 58 (winter).

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