This is a Complaint pleading for use in litigation of the title matter. Adapt this form to comply with your facts and circumstances, and with your specific state law. Not recommended for use by non-attorneys.
This is a Complaint pleading for use in litigation of the title matter. Adapt this form to comply with your facts and circumstances, and with your specific state law. Not recommended for use by non-attorneys.
“Every citizen shall have the right to keep and bear arms in the lawful defense of himself or the State; but the Legislature shall have power, by law, to regulate the wearing of arms, with a view to prevent crime.”
Writing for the majority, Justice Scalia noted: “Like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited. It is not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose.”
“The Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia, and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home,” Scalia said.
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.
Heller, the Supreme Court held that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess firearms for certain purposes, including at least self-defense in the home. Two years later, in McDonald v. City of Chicago, the Court determined that the right to bear arms is a “fundamental” right.
On June 16, 2021, Governor Greg Abbott signed the Second Amendment Sanctuary Act (87(R) HB 2622). The Act went into effect September 1, 2021, and prohibits Texas agencies from assisting the federal government in enforcing federal gun-control laws passed after January 19, 2021. The text of the Act can be read here.
Scalia espoused a conservative jurisprudence and ideology, advocating textualism in statutory interpretation and originalism in constitutional interpretation. He peppered his colleagues with "Ninograms" (memos named for his nickname, "Nino") intending to persuade them to his point of view.
"The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered, as the palladium of the liberties of a republic; since it offers a strong moral check against the usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers; and will generally, even if these are successful in the first instance, enable the people to resist and ...
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.
By Adam Winkler. Modern debates about the Second Amendment have focused on whether it protects a private right of individuals to keep and bear arms, or a right that can be exercised only through militia organizations like the National Guard.