Also, I noticed you avoided answering any of those questions. That's ok, I can understand.
But I digress: What does the 2nd amendment mean?
What it means is: Besides National Guards being considered the militia, men between the ages of 17 and 45 are considered the "Unorganized Militia" and are expected to come to the common defense of the country in time of invasion bearing their own "common" weapon in use at the time. Today that "common" weapon is the M16 Auto/SimiAuto rifle. This is corroborated in the SCOTUS Miller case.
The second amendment and individual rights argument have already been litigated by the SCOTUS a long time before and I'll cite a few cases for you:
First, back in 1876 we have the case of United States Vs Cruikshank, where SCOTUS cites that "This is not a right granted by the Constitution. Neither is it in any manner dependent upon that instrument for its existence." They say that the constitution doesn't grant this right......because......First off it is a "Natural Right", and secondly, the constitution is actually citing individuals who constitute the "organized" and "unorganized" militia as being granted the right to keep and bear arms for the common defense of the nation with the weapons in common use at the time. In the below SCOTUS Miller case below this is corroborated.
United States Vs Cruikshank:The second and tenth counts are equally defective. The right there specified is that of 'bearing arms for a lawful purpose.'
This is not a right granted by the Constitution. Neither is it in any manner dependent upon that instrument for its existence. The second amendment declares that it shall not be infringed; but this, as has been seen, means no more than that it shall not be infringed by Congress. This is one of the amendments that has no other effect than to restrict the powers of the national government, leaving the people to look for their protection against any violation by their fellow-citizens of the rights it recognizes, to what is called, in The City of New York v. Miln, 11 Pet. 139, the 'powers which relate to merely municipal legislation, or what was, perhaps, more properly called internal police,' 'not surrendered or restrained' by the Constituton of the United States.
The Court recognized that the right of the people to keep and bear arms was a right which existed prior to the Constitution when it stated that such a right "is not a right granted by the Constitution . . . neither is it in any manner dependent upon that instrument for its existence." The indictment in Cruikshank charged, inter alia, a conspiracy by Klansmen to prevent blacks from exercising their civil rights, including the bearing of arms for lawful purposes. The Court held, however, that because the right to keep and bear arms existed independent of the Constitution, and the Second Amendment guaranteed only that the right shall not be infringed by Congress, the federal government had no power to punish a violation of the right by a private individual; rather, citizens had "to look for their protection against any violation by their fellow-citizens" of their right to keep and bear arms to the police power of the state.
This brings us to the SCOTUS case: Presser Vs State of Illinois.
Although the Supreme Court affirmed the holding in Cruikshank that the Second Amendment, standing alone, applied only to action by the federal government, it nonetheless found the states without power to infringe upon the right to keep and bear arms, holding that:
Presser Vs State of Illinois."the States cannot, even laying the constitutional provision in question out of view, prohibit the people from keeping and bearing arms, as so to deprive the United States of their rightful resource for maintaining the public security and disable the people from performing their duty to the general government."
Presser, moreover, plainly suggested that the Second Amendment applies to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment and thus that a state cannot forbid individuals to keep and bear arms. To understand why, it is necessary to understand the statutory scheme the Court had before it.
The statute under which Presser was convicted did not forbid individuals to keep and bear arms but rather forbade "bodies of men to associate together as military organizations, or to drill or parade with arms in cities and towns unless authorized by law . . . ." Thus, the Court concluded that the statute did not infringe the right to keep and bear arms.
The Court, however, went on to discuss the Privileges and Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, noting that "it is only the privileges and immunities of citizens of the United States that the clause relied on was intended to protect." As the Court had already held that the substantive right to keep and bear arms was not infringed by the Illinois statute since that statue did not prohibit the keeping and bearing of arms but rather prohibited military-like exercises by armed men, the Court concluded that it did not need address the question of whether the state law violated the Second Amendment as applied to the states by the Fourteenth Amendment.
Now lets look at: United States Vs Miller:
This is still the only case in which the Supreme Court has had the opportunity to apply the Second Amendment to a federal firearms statute. The Court, however, carefully avoided making an unconditional decision regarding the statute's constitutionality; it instead devised a test by which to measure the constitutionality of statutes relating to firearms and remanded the case to the trial court for an evidentiary hearing. The trial court had held that Section 11 of the National Firearms Act was unconstitutional. The Court remanded to the case because it had concluded that:
http://supreme.justia.com/us/307/174/case.html">United States Vs Miller:
In the absence of any evidence tending to show that possession or use of a "shotgun having a barrel of less than eighteen inches in length" at this time has some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia, we cannot say that the Second Amendment guarantees the right to keep and bear such an instrument. Certainly it is not within judicial notice that this weapon is any part of the ordinary military equipment or that its use could contribute to the common defense.
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The signification attributed to the term Militia appears from the debates in the Convention, the history and legislation of Colonies and States, and the writings of approved commentators.
These show plainly enough that the Militia comprised all males physically capable of acting in concert for the common defense. "A body of citizens enrolled for military discipline." And further, that ordinarily, when called for service these men were expected to appear bearing arms supplied by **themselves** and of the kind in common use at the time. Thus, for the keeping and bearing of a firearm to be constitutionally protected, the firearm should be a militia-type arm.
The case also made clear that the militia consisted of "all males physically capable of acting in concert for the common defense" and that "when called for service these men were expected to appear bearing arms supplied by themselves and of the kind in common use at the time."
In setting forth this definition of the militia, the Court implicitly rejected the view that the Second Amendment guarantees a right only to those individuals who are members of the militia. Had the Court viewed the Second Amendment as guaranteeing the right to keep and bear arms only to "all males physically capable of acting in concert for the common defense," it would certainly have discussed whether, on remand, there should also be evidence that the defendants met the qualifications for inclusion in the militia, much as it did with regard to the militia use of a short-barrelled shotgun.
As for what does the term militia mean as written into our laws?
Militia: composition and classes(a) The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age and, except as provided in section 313 of title 32, under 45 years of age who are, or who have made a declaration of intention to become, citizens of the United States and of female citizens of the United States who are members of the National Guard.
(b) The classes of the militia are—
(1) the organized militia, which consists of the National Guard and the Naval Militia; and
(2) the
*unorganized militia*, which consists of the members of the militia who are not members of the National Guard or the Naval Militia.
So in a way you're right. The second amendment doesn't grant the right of any citizen to own guns, actually the ninth amendment does in that owning a gun is considered a inalienable right. But the second amendment does protect the right for organized and unorganized militia to keep and bear the common arm of the time.
So careful what you ask for.....you just might not like the outcome..
;)
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