“The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that they be properly armed.” — Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist Papers
“You know why there’s a Second Amendment? In case the government fails to follow the first one.” — Rush Limbaugh
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United Press International: Supreme Court To Decide On Gun Rights.
WASHINGTON, Nov. 20 (UPI) — The U.S. Supreme Court agreed Tuesday to decide whether individuals have a right under the Second Amendment “to keep and bear arms.”
In a case that will probably be heard in March and decided before the end of June, the District of Columbia asked the high court to review an appeals court decision that struck down a Washington gun ban last year. The appeals court ruled the amendment does contain an individual right to bear arms, at least to protect one’s home.
A ruling in the Supreme Court case could affect gun laws and bans across the nation.
The Second Amendment to the Constitution, part of the Bill of Rights, 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.”
From the Wall Street Journal’s editorial page:
The dispute arises from the first four words of the Second Amendment, the full text of which 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.” If the first two clauses were omitted, there would be no room for ambiguity. But part of the legal controversy has centered around what a “well regulated militia” means.
Judge Silberman’s opinion argued, with convincing historical evidence, that the “militia” the Framers had in mind was not the National Guard of the present, but referred to all able-bodied male citizens who might be called upon to defend their country. The notion that the average American urbanite might today go to his gun locker, grab his rifle and sidearm and rush, Minuteman-like, to his nation’s defense might seem quaint. But at stake is whether the “militia” of the Second Amendment is some small, discreet group of people acting under government control, or all of us.
The phrase “the right of the people” or some variation of it appears repeatedly in the Bill of Rights, and nowhere does it actually mean “the right of the government.” When the Bill of Rights was written and adopted, the rights that mattered politically were of one sort–an individual’s, or a minority’s, right to be free from interference from the state. Today, rights are most often thought of as an entitlement to receive something from the state, as opposed to a freedom from interference by the state. The Second Amendment is, in our view, clearly a right of the latter sort.
(h/t: LaJuntaBlog)