The Right to Bear ArmsThe Right to Bear ArmsThe Right to Bear ArmsIntroductionThe Second Amendment to the United States Constitution reads, “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.” (“Second Amendment to the United States Constitution”). Today, the interpretation of the amendment has polarized the American people among two different views (Greenslade, 2004). Those opposed to private ownership of firearms agrue that there is no individual right to keep and bear arms because the Second Amendment refers to the people’s collective right as a members of a well-regulated State militia. In contrast, the individual right view holds that individuals may bring claims or raise challenges based on a violation of their rights under the Second Amendment just as they do to vindicate individual rights secured by other provisions of the Bill of Rights. This view appears to be the most valid after placing the Second Amendment in appropriate historical and Constitutional context.
Historical BackgroundPrior to the United States Constitution, the right to arms was consistently a personal one based on several factors. “Beginning with the right of individual English subjects to have arms for their defense, it was supplemented in revolutionary America with the notion that a citizen militia, comprising the armed citizenry, was a particularly important means of securing free government.” (“Whether the Second Amendment Secures An Individual Right”, 2004) American leaders such as Thomas Jefferson proposed that “no free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms,” and Samuel Adams called for an amendment banning any law “to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms.” (“The Right to Keep and Bear Arms”, 1982) Following the American Revolution, several states such as Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Vermont and Massachusetts included explicit right-to-bear-arms provisions in their declarations of rights. The bills of rights emerged from the ratifying conventions of several of these States. Every recommendation in these state conventions regarding the right to arms sought to protect an individual right – not a right to maintain well-regulated state militias, whether belonging to the States or to those serving in such entities and served as a basis for the Second Amendment.
Constitutional InterpretationAn analysis of the context and meaning of “the right of the people”, “to keep and bear arms” and “a well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free State” supports private gun ownership rights.
“The Right of the People”The “rights of the people” means the rights of individuals. The right to keep and bear arms is an individual right just as are all rights in the first ten amendments (“Second Amendment to the United States Constitution”). Further, “the people” used in the 1st, 4th, 9th and 10th amendments refers only to individual rights. Although in some contexts entities other than individuals are said to have “rights,” the Constitution itself does not use the word “right” in this way (“Whether the Second Amendment Secures an Individual Right”, 2004). For example, the Constitution never confers a “right” on any governmental entity, state or federal. Nor does it confer any “right” restricted to persons in governmental service, such as members of an organized military unit. Instead, state and federal governments have in the Constitution only “powers” or “authority”.
When “right” is used together with “the people” the right must belong to individuals because people are not a State or the Militia (“Whether the Second Amendment Secures An Individual Right”, 2004). Evidence shows that the only truly “collective” use of the “the people” at the time of the Founding was to refer to the people as they existed apart from government or any service to it. For example, The Declaration of Independence refers to “one People” dissolving their political bonds with another and forming their own nation, and “We the people” created the Constitution in ratifying conventions chosen “by the People” of each State. Thus, when “the right of the people” appears in the Constitution, it indicates a personal right of individuals, whether that be a right to assemble and petition, to be secure in ones person and property, or to keep and bear arms.
The Constitutional “right of the people, in this case, of the people of this state of Texas, constitutes a right for any state or of private law, civil, or military jurisdiction to do things as they please within their rights and functions of law, without the consent of the Government of a State. Therefore, the right of the people of this state of Texas to assemble in public gatherings, assemble without the government’s approval, or to keep and bear arms in this state of Texas does not, for lack of a genuine or legitimate right to do any of these things, come from an unconstitutional State, or from a private law, civil, or military authority, because the right of the people of this state, when it comes to their general government’s power on this matter, is personal.
In the case of the right of the people of this state of Texas to assemble to and for personal use in other cities, towns, or other public places, the right of the people is personal. It is personal to the people, which means the right to assemble and to assemble freely, without the intervention of the Government of their respective states, to exercise their particular governmental functions in their own people. If a State legislature does not legislate for this governmental or other right of self-determination, as long as it does so at the direction of an outside governmental authority, then the People of Texas, when they convene a constitutional assembly, may refuse to acknowledge or recognize it as a municipal right. Such a refusal may be found justified upon the principle of common law and does not violate any substantive right of the People of Texas, and those who do assert such a right are not persons, and do not have a right to say so under Texas law.
The First Amendment states:
The right as to any right, under any instrument, or of any kind, not expressly reserved for a public or private servant, nor to be limited to an office of public or private jurisdiction, shall not be infringed; nor shall it be denied or abridged, and no person holding any office of public or private jurisdiction, shall, on account of sex, be compelled in any suit brought by any such person, to be a plaintiff in any suit brought by that person, as well as any suit brought against any person that has invaded his private place of residence, or from whom any such person has been deprived of public benefits.
We have never understood that the right to assemble at city and county festivals was a personal right, i or 2 of the People of Texas. The Right to gather in public meetings is a state right.
In the case of the right of persons to assemble, we are not dealing with that right, and it is something of a philosophical matter because no one is trying to figure out which of those rights a member can exercise. The Right to exercise those rights is a private right so not to be confined to the United States or to the States government, but it is not something in the collective nature of a constitutional right, but at least to the United States government.
Our rights as a People are personal to a certain point (which, given the historical history of our Country the individual rights to free speech and assembly come in at least into connection with our national government’s Constitution, and it would seem to me that it would be better to think of it like it itself) and we do not want to make a person, for that matter, a member of any State in which those rights are not at present confined to the United