Second Amendment Print Foreign And Domestic In Middlesex
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Constitution of the United States.
Constitutional Amendments – Amendment 2 – “The Right to Keep and Bear Arms” Amendment Two to the Constitution was ratified on December 15, 1791. It protects the right for Americans to possess weapons for the protection of themselves, their rights, and their property.
Constitutional Amendments – Amendment 2 – “The Right to Keep and Bear Arms” Amendment Two to the Constitution was ratified on December 15, 1791. It protects the right for Americans to possess weapons for the protection of themselves, their rights, and their property.
The Second Amendment was written to protect Americans' right to establish militias to defend themselves, not to allow individual Americans to own guns; consequently, gun-control measures do not violate the U.S. Constitution.
§ 922(g)(1), which prohibits the possession of a firearm by a person convicted of “a crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year,” violates the Second Amendment (at least as applied to certain nonviolent offenders).
The Second Amendment protects arms, not firearms,6 and in Heller, the Supreme Court defined an arm as any “weapon of offence” or “thing that a man wears for his defence, or takes into his hands,” that is “carried . . . for the purpose of 'offensive or defensive action.
The word 'infringe' in the Second Amendment states that the government may not take away a person's individual right to keep and bear firearms. The phrasing in the amendment is '...the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
During the Constitutional Convention, the Framers understood the necessity of a citizen militia to resist a potentially oppressive military if constitutional order broke down. The Second Amendment codified the individual right to firearm possession to combat this fear.
In fact, most current gun laws restrict access by ordinary citizens to guns, or limiting their ability to carry them in public, are violations of the Second Amendment because they “infringe” the right of ordinary citizens (ie, the people) to go armed.
In short, the Second Amendment states that as an American citizen, you have the individual right to arm yourself. The amendment also firmly establishes that the government cannot infringe on that right.
