Supreme Court Defines
“Right to Bear Arms”
Lyle Denniston, writing for the Constitution Daily,
reports about two gun rights cases that may get a hearing before the U.S.
Supreme Court. Both cases hinge on the difference between the right to “keep” a
gun and a right “bear” one. The National Rifle Association thinks the issue is
ripe for Supreme Court review. The justices are expected to discuss the cases
next week and may then decide whether to grant review.
Writes Mr. Denniston:
The Supreme Court in 2008 made it clear that the
right to “keep” a gun is a personal right, and that it means one has a right to
keep a functioning firearm for self-defense within the home. But it has refused
repeatedly since then to take on the question of whether that right exists also
outside the home. If there is a separate right to “bear” a gun (and the Court,
in fact, did say in 2008 that the two rights were separate), it has not said
what that means.
The NRA says you can’t really ‘bear’ something in
the privacy of your home.
“The explicit guarantee of the right to ‘bear’ arms
would mean nothing if it did not protect the right to ‘bear’ arms outside of
the home, where the Amendment already guarantees that they may be ‘kept,’ ”
write the NRA’s lawyers in one of their petitions to the high court.
“The most
fundamental canons of construction forbid any interpretation that would discard
this language as meaningless surplus.”
The federal government wants the Supreme Court to
take a pass. If the justices agree to hear the cases, they might not get to
them until their next term, beginning in October.
AMENDMENT II
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.
So, what does this really mean?
Do we still need this right if we have a military, a
national guard, and a police force?
And, if we do still need this right and have to
defend our country by arming citizens to resist an invading army, then one must
conclude that we have already lost the war and arming citizens is rather pointless…
Just a thought…
In case you were wondering…
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