The Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution

With all of the debate in recent years about gun control, especially in the aftermath of the Waco and Ruby Ridge debacles and more recent events such as the schoolyard shootings in Jonesboro, AK, it is informative to read what the U.S. Congress wrote in 1982 on the subject of second amendment rights. Here are some comments gleaned from a Usenet post on this report:

The report is lengthy, but here are the immediate highlights:

Page VI
Line 6, "Yes in all too many instances, court or commentators have sought, for
reasons only tangentially related to constitutional history, to construe this
right our of existence.  They argue that the Second Amendment's words 'right of
the people' mean 'a right of the state' -- apparently overlooking the impact of
those same words when used in the First and Fourth Amendments."

Line 15, "This not only violates a consistent constitutional reading of 'right
of the peple' but also ignores that the second amendment protects a right to
'keep' arms.  These commentators contend instead that the amendment's preamble
regarding the necessity of a 'well regulated militia ... to a free state' means
that the right to keep and bear arms applies only to a National Guard.  Such a
reading fails to note that the Framers used the term 'militia' to relate to
every cicitzen capable of bearing arms, and that Congress has established the
rpesent 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."

Line 49, "The Senate [second session] in the process indicated its intent that
the right be an individual one, for private purposes, by rejecting an amendment
which would have limited the keeping and bearing of arms to bearing 'For the
common defense.'"

Page VII
Line 9, "[in a 1825 ruling] No clause in the Constitution could by a rule of
construction be conceived to give to Congress a power to disarm the people. 
Such a flagitious attempt could only be made under some general pretense by a
state legislature.  But if in blind pursuit of inordinate power, either should
attempt it, this [second] amendment  may be appealed to as a restraint on
both."

Line 26, "In the Militia Act of 1792, the second Congress defined 'militia of
the United States' to include almost every free adult mail in the United
States.  These persons were obligated by law to possess a firearm and a minimum
supply of ammunition and military equipment.  This statuse, incidentally,
remained in effect into the early years of the present century as a legal
requirement of gun ownership for most of the population of the United States."

Line 42, "If gun laws in fact worked, the sponsors of this type of legislation
should have no difficulty drawing upon long lists of examples of crime rates
reduced by such legislation.  That they cannot do so after a century and a half
of trying -- that they must sweep under the rug the southern attempts at gun
control in the 1870-1910 period, the northeastern attempts in the 1920-1939
period, the attempts at both Federal and State levels in 1965-1976 --
establishes the repeated, complete and inevitable failure of gun laws to
control serious crimes."

Page VIII
Line 4, "... the subcommittee has managed to uncover information on the right
to keep and bear arms which documents quite clearly its status as a major
individual right of American citizens."

Line 17, "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 protection of himself, his family, and his freedoms."

It goes on to list case citations, and allow for arguments by anti-gun groups -
and, as the committee puts it, "In the interest of fairness and the
presentation of a complete picture, we also invited groups which were likely to
oppose this recognition of freedoms to submit their views.  The statements of
two associations who replied are reproduced here following the report of the
Subcommittee.  The Subcommittee also invited statements by Messrs. Halbrook and
Hardy, and by the National Rifle Association, whose statements likewise follow
our report."

http://www.freedomusa.org/rkba1982.htm

and

http://www.constitution.org/mil/rkba1982.htm

It should also be for sale form the US GPO:

88-618 0
For sale by the Superintendent of Documents,
U. S. Government Printing Office
Washington, D.C. 20402

In light of this report, the current trend towards Federal government restrictions on firearms possession would clearly seem to be unconstitutional. But I'm no attorney. The report also acknowledges the fact that the BATF, far from trying to pursue violent criminals and people with criminal intent, tend to focus their efforts on unwitting NFA violators. Just because you may not care personally about the second amendment, don't you think you should do all that you can to help preserve it? Who knows, your "favorite" amendment may be next.

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Last modified 16 April 1998 by Tim Melton