A well armed populace is the only effective control the citizen has over a
despotic ruling class, and even that doesn't work all the time, ie: the
current resident at 1600 Penneslyvania Blvd.
"Jonathan Ganz" wrote in message
...
Yeah, but it's unclear that the 2nd Amendment gives
Americans the right to bear arms. Maybe bear hugs,
but not arms.

The modern version:

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.

The original version:

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.

Note the difference? If it's not clear, check the following link. It's a
fairly well
balanced discussion.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_...ates_Constitut
ion

--
"j" ganz @@
www.sailnow.com

"N1EE" wrote in message
m...
Origins of the Right to Bear Arms

Too often, public debate on gun control and related
issues seems to takes place in a historical vacuum.
Yet, as Second Amendment scholar and attorney
Stephen P. Halbrook shows, Americans' right to keep
and bear arms - institutionalized by the Second
Amendment of the U.S. Constitution - grew out of a
rich political and philosophical tradition that
dates back to the origins of Western Civilization.
In the 4th century B.C., for example, Greek
philosophers Plato and Aristotle, despite their
profound differences, shared the belief that an
armed populace was essential for preventing the
imposition of tyranny. A few centuries later, Roman
lawyer Cicero warned that replacing the private
ownership of weapons with standing armies was
contributing to the fall of the Roman Empire. In
Renaissance Italy, Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527)
argued that an armed public promotes civic virtue,
which in turn promotes responsible arms use. In
16th century France, political philosopher Jean
Bodin (1530-1596) argued that disarming the
citizenry helped create an absolute monarchy.
Across the English Channel, philosophers Thomas
Hobbes (1588-1679) and John Locke (1632-1704) also
shared the view that an armed populace deters tyranny.

Similar views were reflected in the English legal
tradition, the precursor to the American legal
system. As far back as the rule of Alfred (871-899),
the English common law presumed that an armed
populace was desirable for ensuring security. So
entrenched was this belief that the bearing of arms
was made a citizen's legal duty. However, as
Englishmen sought greater political freedom, the
monarchy came to feel threatened by an armed
populace and sought to curtail private ownership
of weapons. Both the Magna Carta (1215) and the
English Declaration of Rights (1688) grew out of
the struggle of armed Englishmen.

Influenced by these traditions, the American
colonists insisted that Britain recognize their
common-law right of individuals to own and use
arms in self-defense against tyranny. British gun
restrictions in colonies - aimed first at Native
Americans and later extended to the white colonists
during Bacon's Rebellion in 1676 - were therefore
bound to provoke conflict. After the American
Revolution, the Federalists promised that the new
government would have no power to disarm the
populace. The Anti-Federalists, who were especially
leery of a strong central government, feared that
a standing army and select militia would come to
overpower the people. These concerns led to the
ratification of the federal Bill of Rights in 1791.


From the ratification of the Constitution to the
Civil War, the act of keeping and bearing arms,
including firearms, was treated as a virtually
unquestioned right of each individual citizen -
for self-defense as well as for subsistence hunting.
That the Second Amendment recognized an individual
right to keep and bear arms was not an issue for
partisan politics, and the courts consistently so
held. The only exception to this rule, of course,
appeared in the context of slavery.


To disarm slaves as well as black freemen, certain
courts originated the view that the Second Amendment
applied only to citizens rather than to all of the
people, and that the Second Amendment did not apply
to the states. These decisions were aberrations
intended to prevent black liberation. Most
commentaries and courts that analyzed the Second
Amendment treated all individuals as possessing the
right to bear arms; they also construed it as a
restraint on state and federal power. After the
Civil War, judicial commentators continued to
interpret the Second Amendment as protection of an
individual right from both state and federal
infringement. The right to keep and bear arms, and
other freedoms in the Bill of Rights, were viewed
as common-law rights explicitly protected by the
Constitution.


Debates about the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment
and the Civil Rights Act of 1866 play an important
role in clarifying how the right to bear arms was
perceived following the Civil War. The importance
of this debate is heightened by the fact that Southern
blacks found their right to bear arms violated and
sought federal protection under the auspices of the
Fourteenth Amendment.

State, Federal and Supreme Court Decisions

Prior to the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment,
the bearing of arms and other civil rights were deemed
as protected by the Constitution. But after the
adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment, and with the end
of Reconstruction, the Supreme Court took a restrictive
view of the extent to which the federal government
could protect civil rights. Still, the Court continued
to treat the right to have arms as a fundamental right
and vindicated the right to use deadly force in
self-defense. Then, in United States v. Miller (1939)
the Court held that the Second Amendment protected the
right to keep and bear militia-type arms and relied on
case law holding that all citizens were members of the
militia. More recently, the Court has also alluded to
the right to have arms as a specific guarantee
provided in the Constitution.


Immediately following Reconstruction, the Second
Amendment was viewed only as a restriction on
Congress and not the creation of a right. The right
to bear arms was not incorporated through the
Fourteenth Amendment and states had to make laws
regarding it. Furthermore, the Court clarified the
regulation of weapons regarded as modified and those
which were not ordinarily used for militia purposes.


As the Court began to incorporate more of the Bill
of Rights in the twentieth century, the possibility
of incorporating the Second Amendment was revived.
Although the right to bear arms has yet to be
incorporated, Halbrook discusses several cases which
favor the possibility that it one day might be. One
of the ways he shows this is through penumbras, by
which the Court uses "shadows" cast by amendments
constituting the Bill of Rights to extend certain
rights to the states.


Without the incorporation of the Second Amendment,
state court decisions regarding the right to bear
arms remain crucial. Halbrook offers a brief survey
of some of the most important state decisions since
Reconstruction, attempting to find some consensus
on the issue. Particularly interesting are the
state judicial decisions regarding the right to
carry a concealed weapon and regarding the definition
of what an "arm" is. Lastly, Halbrook explains the
continued swing since Reconstruction of state
judicial decisions toward, and away from, the right
to bear arms.



Stephen Halbrook, one of the many lawyer specializing
in constitutional law whose logic and common sense
infuriates liberals.

http://www.stephenhalbrook.com/

His book documenting the history of the Second
Amendment from the moment it was being prepared,
though history, from a legal perspective.

http://independent.org/tii/content/b...riefTEMBA.html