The Supreme Court has NEVER viewed the 2nd Amendment as a collective right. The socialist King Brown from socialist Canada may like to think so, but he is deluded. The Right to Keep and Bear Arms was investigated in the Report of the Subcommittee on the Constitution of the Committee on the Judiciary US Senate, 97th Congress second session 2/82.There were even some severe low lifes on the committee like Teddy Kennedy, Howard Metzenbaum, Joe Biden, and Dennis DeConcini. The obvious conclusion was that it was an individual right originating as a natural right from God and guaranteed in the Constitution. Moreover, after it passed, later in the day someone tried to rephrase it as a collective right, and that was defeated.
Here is the complete report that Pete alluded to, saved by me and reprinted.
For Friar Tuck and oher interested parties, the 2nd Amendment history in court and the 97th Congress report on the Right
Forum: The gunshop.com Double Gun BBS
Date: Nov 29, 13:52
From: Pete
to Keep and Bear Arms. The committee print is available for a modest price from the Superintendent of Documents, US Govt Printing Office, Washington DC 20402. Ask for "The Right to Keep and Bear Arms" Report of the Subcommittee on the Constitution of the Committee on the Judiciary-United States Senate-97th Congress-second session Feb 1982.
The committee included Disgusting Democrats like Kennedy, Biden, Byrd, Metzenbaum, and DeConcini. It also in included Republicans Mathias, Laxalt, Hatch, Dole, Specter, Thurmond, and others.
The research was comprehensive and even the Democrat ranking minority member Deconcini admitted that: "The Right to keep and bare arms is a tradition with deep roots in American society. 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 Constituion of the state of Arizona (Deconcini's state), for example, recognizes the "Right of an individual citizen to bear arms in defence of himself and the state".
Chairman Hatch added: "We did not make suppositions as to colonial interpretations of that Declaration's Right to keep arms; we examined colonial newspapers which discussed it. We did not speculate as to the intent of the framers of the second amendment; we examined James Madison's drafts for it, his handwritten outlines of speaches upon the Bill of Rights, and discussions of the second amendment by early scholars who were personal friends of Madison, Jefferson, and Washington and wrote while these still lived. What the Subcommittee on the Constitution uncovered was clear-and long lost-proof that the second amendment to our Constitution was intended as an individual Right of the American citizen to keep and carry arms in a peaceful manner, for the protection of himself, his family, and his freedoms."
THe term militia was scutinized and was obviously private. An amendmend that would have added the term "for the common defense" was rejected at the time of the writing of the amendment showing further proof that this was a personal right. The framers used the term "militia" to relate to every citizen capable of bearing arms, and that the Congress has established the present National Guard under its power to raise armies, EXPRESSLY STATING that it was NOT doing so under its power to organize and arm the militia.
This is examined in great detail.
As for The US Supreme Court, only three times is the second amendment mentioned under case law. In Dread Scott, it indicated STRONGLY that the Right to keep and bear arms was an individual right; the Court noted that, were it to hold free blacks to be entitled to equality of citizenship, they would be entitled to keep and bear arms wherever they went. In Miller, indicated that a court cannot take judicial notice that a short-barreled shotgun is covered by that amendment-but the Court did not indicate that National Guard status is in any way required for protection by that amendment, and indeed DEFINED "militia" to include all citizens able to bear arms. The third, a footnote in Lewis v. United States indicated that only "these legislative restrictions on the use of firearms"-a ban on possession by FELONS-were permissable. But since felons may constitutionally be deprived of of many of the rights of citizens, including that of voting, this dicta reveals little. The case of Adams vs Williams has been cited as contrary to the principle that the second amendment is an individual right. But in fact, that reading of the opinion comes only in Justice Douglas's dissent from the majority ruling of the court.
In fact, that last sentence is the only fear we have. That a liberal President would appoint such liberal judges so far out of the proper view of the constitution, that they could destroy our one liberty that keeps our other liberties free. And THAT is why we can never vote for an individual like Gore.
I'll post other excepts from time to time. The committee report also included 21 case law studies from 1822 to 1981 showing how other courts had upheld the second amendment and overturned local laws or courts that had found otherwise.
Pete
