U.S. Supreme Court to Determine Meaning of Second Amendment
by Staff
May 26, 2008
OAKLAND, Calif., (christiansunite.com) -- After nearly 70 years of silence regarding the Second Amendment, the U.S. Supreme Court is presiding over the District of Columbia vs. Heller and is expected to render a decision in June.At issue, as attorney and Independent Institute Research Fellow Stephen P. Halbrook explains in his new book The Founders' Second Amendment: Origins of the Right to Bear Arms (June 6, 2008 / Ivan R. Dee / $28.95), is whether the Second Amendment protects a citizen's right to privately keep arms.
Many have argued that the language in the Bill of Rights refers only to individuals active in a militia, such as the National Guard. But as Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has opined, and as a growing body of evidence seems to indicate, the "right of the people to keep and bear arms" may very well be personal.
Having won three cases before the Supreme Court, Halbrook filed an Amici Curiae Brief on behalf of 55 Members of the Senate, the Senate President, and 250 Members of the House of Representatives, available for download at: www.independent.org.
While many books have been penned on gun control and related issues, none have delved so deeply into the nature of the right to keep and bear arms as it was understood and practiced during the first generation of the American Republic. The Founders' Second Amendment captures the intent of the Founders in their own words from newspapers, correspondence, and political debates; and also draws on archival sources revealed for the first time ever. Thomas Jefferson, an avid gun collector, believed that "all power is inherent in the people . . . it is their right and duty to be at all times armed." Samuel Adams understood that "peaceable citizens" should "keep their own arms." And as Federalist Tench Coxe understood the right, it concerned "private arms."
By placing historical events and their modern-day applications in context, Halbrook reveals how the intent of the Founders is hard to misinterpret. From the 1768 Redcoat occupation of Boston and disarming of citizens to the Declaration of Independence in 1776, Halbrook's authoritative analysis of history demonstrates the great significance of this right to the Founders. When controversy ignited in 1787 over the ratification of a Constitution without a corresponding declaration of rights, compromise was only reached after James Madison drafted the Bill of Rights, affirming later on his association of republican government with an armed populace.
Now, more than 200 years later, as the Supreme Court weighs the arguments in the city known as Murder Capital U.S.A., Stephen P. Halbrook urges the Justices to recognize that the true meaning of the Second Amendment is as essential to the Bill of Rights as is that of the First.
About the Author
Stephen P. Halbrook is a Research Fellow at the Independent Institute and author of The Founders' Second Amendment: Origins of the Right to Bear Arms (June 6, 2008/Ivan R. Dee). An attorney in Fairfax, VA and an expert on gun control and the Second Amendment, he has won three cases before the U.S. Supreme Court. He has filed an amicus brief in District of Columbia vs. Heller and is representing more than 300 members of Congress. His other books include That Every Man Be Armed: The Evolution of a Constitutional Right; Freedmen, the Fourteenth Amendment, and the Right to Bear Arms, 1866-1876; A Right to Bear Arms: State and Federal Bills of Rights and Constitutional Guarantees; Firearms Law Deskbook: Federal and State Criminal Practice; The Swiss and the Nazis; and Target Switzerland: Swiss Armed Neutrality in World War II.
