The Second Amendment

The Second Amendment was ratified in 1791 and is the Amendment to the US Constitution that protects the persons right to bear arms. Yet there have been numerous challenges to this Amendment, particularly since gun violence has increased in America in recent decades. Some believe the Amendment should be restricted or overturned, while others believe that the right to own and carry a gun is an inherent right in America that must be protected at all costs. This paper will discuss why the Second Amendment was added to the US Constitution and what the Supreme Court has had to say about it in important cases.

The right to bear arms in the US was based upon common law in England, where it was held that the natural right to self-defense meant that one could bear arms. Sir Blackstones Commentaries laid the foundation for this system of natural rights and it carried on for centuries, informing the new American citizens when they set up their own Constitution.[footnoteRef:2] The notions of independence and self-determination were bound up in the idea of bearing arms in self-defense. Yet, ironically, it was the Federalists who justified the idea of bearing arms by stating that state militias would be needed to keep a standing federal army in check.[footnoteRef:3] That is ironic, because today the federal government represents the biggest threat to the individuals right to bear arms. It was as though at the end of the 18th century, the Federalists knew that if they wanted the states to accept the Constitution, they would need to persuade them that a centralized power would not be a threat to their individual rights. Regardless of the motive, the right was recorded in history in these words: 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.[footnoteRef:4] [2: Sir William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England, https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/blackstone_bk1ch1.asp] [3: James Madison, Federalist No. 46, https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed46.asp] [4: 2nd Amendment, US Constitution]

The right to bear arms was, in other words, synonymous with the right to operate a regulated militia. This right was born out of the sense that the colonists had of the need to protect their homes, land, frontier, and communities from invasion, attack, or corruption. The idea was connected to having a militia because there was little in the way of police or other kind of protection at the time. If the only defense the settlers had was the defense supplied by the British army, they were unlikely to feel confident in their persons or possessions.

The colonists also wanted to make sure...

…the fact that guns have become so powerful and can be easily obtained by people who have bad intentions on others. People who want to limit the spread of guns on the streets are seen as left-wing, and people who want to see guns as legal and capable of being carried everywhere are seen as right-wing, and this creates a conflict in society as two sides are unable to debate an issue without resorting to name calling fighting.

The 2nd Amendment was not meant to be such a controversial right; it was meant to be a curb on the power of the federal government to act tyrannically over the states. In that sense it has obviously failed as today the federal government acts with virtual impunity, unchecked by any power other than the courts if and when they ever decide to take up a case. The people themselves have very little power; militias are seen by the federal government as terrorist groups in the making and are targeted by the federal agencies for being radical cells. The 2nd Amendment is not necessarily going to be of much protection today for such groupsbut that is exactly what it was meant to be in the beginning when it was ratified at the end of the 18th century. Now, more than 200 years later, people have forgotten that…