The Bill of Rights

Halbrook, Stephen P. To Keep and Bear Their Private Arms The Adoption of the Second Amendment 1787-1791. Northern Kentucky Law Review, vol. 10, no. 1, 1982, n.p. Argues that for the framers of the Bill of Rights, the term the people as used in the Second Amendment means the... 

The Bill of Rights (the first ten amendments to the American Constitution)—461 words. 

In the second version of the Bill of Rights, the address of the declaration shifts from we have the right. .. to I have the right. So it seems that even within an already individualized movement, the scope of politics has narrowed. A semantic shift that is symptomatic of a general orientation in the movement which, to invert the feminist maxim, believes the political is personal. ... 

Louis Henkin, The International Bill of Rights The Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (New York Columbia University Press, 1981). 

Constitution was ratified by all thirteen states, although several did so on the condition that a bill of rights be added as soon as possible. The Bill of Rights - the first ten amendments to the new Constitution - drafted by Madison and adopted in 1791, explicitly enumerated the rights to freedom of speech, press, assembly, and other protections. Many other issues, however, remained unresolved. The most troubling of these were the questions of slavery and secession. 

Several provisions in the Bill of Rights that arose from that revolution noted the abuses of Charles II and James II and showed the importance attached to the right to bear arms ... 

In its list of remedies for these abuses, the second part of the Bill of Rights specified 7. The subjects which are Protestants may have arms for their defence suitable to their conditions and allowed by law. ... 

Levinson points out that the Second Amendment debate reveals a curious reversal of conservatives and liberals from their usual positions on civil rights. Liberals interpret tbe rest of the Bill of Rights broadly without worrying too much about tbe social cost of freeing criminals. However, they want to interpret the Second Amendment narrowly because of what they consider to be tbe social costs of gun ownership. Conservatives, on the other hand, often complain about the courts finding new rights in broad interpretations of the Bill of Rights but favor a broader interpretation where the Second Amendment is concerned. 

What is undisputed is that the Supreme Court decided that the Second Amendment, whatever sort of right it declared, was a restraint only on Congress, not on the states, localities, or citizens. As noted earlier, many parts of the Bill of Rights would later be incorporated into the Fourteenth Amendment and enforced against the states (notably, to protect the civil rights of African Americans and other minorities), but to date the Second Amendment has not been included in this process. 

Further, The provision in section 4 of the Bill of Rights that the people have the right to bear arms for their defense and security refers to the people as a collective body. It was the safety and security of society that was being considered when this provision was put into our Constimtion. The court went on to point out that the provisions for the maintenance of the state militia implied that the state could regulate the way in which weapons were to be carried. 

In addition to declaring independence, the various states write constitutions that include bills of rights. In general they refer to the danger of... 

The Bill of Rights to the U.S. Constitution is approved. It includes the Second Amendment, which guarantees the right to keep and bear arms to maintain a strong militia as a protector of liberty. 

In Dred Scott v. Sanford, Supreme Court Chief Justice Taney declares that the Bill of Rights had not been written to protect blacks and that doing so would mean that, among other things, they could keep and carry arms wherever they went. ... 

Polsby, Daniel B. Treating the Second Amendment as Normal Constitutional Law. Kentucky Firearms Foundation. Available online. URL http //www.kyfirearms.org/news/polsby.htm. Posted on December 13, 1997. Explores how the Second Amendment would be applied if it were treated like other first class provisions of the Bill of Rights, such as the First Amendment. Polsby suggests that, like speech, the time, place and manner of bearing arms could be regulated, but the right itself would have to be respected. 

Arms in State Constitutions. UCLA School of Law. Available online. URL http //www.law.ucla.edu/faculty/volokh/2amteach/sources.htm. Updated on July 7, 1999. Collection of texts, cases, and commentaries relating to the Second Amendment, including provisions in state constitutions and bills of rights. An interesting inclusion is state provisions that are grammatically similar to the Second Amendment in that they have an introductory clause, but that they also refer to such provisions as the freedoms of speech and expression. 

Kansas The people have the right to bear arms for their defense and security but standing armies, in time of peace, are dangerous to liberty, and shall not be tolerated, and the military shall be in strict subordination to the civil power. (Bill of Rights, Section 4)... 

Kentucky All men are, by nature, free and equal, and have certain inherent and inalienable rights, among which may be reckoned . . . Seventh The right to bear arms in defense of themselves and of the state, subject to the power of the general assembly to enact laws to prevent persons from carrying concealed weapons. (Bill of Rights, Section I, par. 7)... 

The 28th section of our bill of rights provides that no citizen of this State shall be compelled to bear arms provided he will pay an equivalent, to be ascertained by law. Here we know that the phrase has a military sense, and no other and we must infer that it is used in the same way in the 26th section, which secures to the citizen the right to bear arms. A man in pursuit of deer, elk, and buffaloes might carry his rifle every day for forty years, and yet it would never be said of him that he had borne arms.. . ... 

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