Second Amendment Flashcards
Second Amendment
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.
While the text associates the right to bear arms with participation in a militia, this amendment has been interpreted gun ownership and possession for a variety of different reasons.
Firearms were considered necessary during colonization and westward expansion for hunting, for ”defense” against the Native American population, and to forcibly maintain the institution of slavery.
Many Americans also consider the Second Amendment as a form of protection against the potentially excessive authoritarianism of their own (federal) government.
Presser v. Illinois (1886)
Herman Presser was a German American who participated in a citizen militia group which associated armed ethnic German members of the Socialist labor party. This militia was intended as a counter force to the Pinkerton National Detective Agency.
Presser was arrested after leading a group of 400 armed men through the streets of Chicago.
Presser claimed that the Illinois law forbidding militias was unconstitutional because the second amendment mentions maintaining a militia.
The Supreme Court ruled that the Illinois state law was constitutional because it did not infringe on the right to bear arms, it just regulated militia activity, thus creating a distinction between the right to bear arms and the right to form a militia,
And that the second amendment only applied to the federal government and not to the states. This would theoretical allowing states to limit or restrict not only the arming, organization and training of private militias, but even the individual right to bear arms.
United States v. Miller, (1939)
Jack Miller was arrested for transporting a sawed-off shotgun across state lines.
He argued that possession of that weapon was protected by the second amendment, the Supreme Court did not agree.
“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”.
District of Columbia v. Heller,(2008)
Provisions of the District of Columbia Code made it illegal to carry an unregistered firearm and prohibited the registration of handguns, though the chief of police could issue one-year licenses for handguns.
The Code also contained provisions that required owners of lawfully registered firearms to keep them unloaded and disassembled or bound by a trigger lock or other similar device unless the firearms were located in a place of business or being used for legal recreational activities.
Dick Anthony Heller was a D.C. special police officer who was authorized to carry a handgun while on duty. He applied for a one-year license for a handgun he wished to keep at home, but his application was denied.
Heller sued the District of Columbia. He sought an injunction against the enforcement of the relevant parts of the Code and argued that they violated his Second Amendment right to keep a functional firearm in his home without a license.
Did the provisions of the District of Columbia Code that restrict the licensing of handguns and require licensed firearms kept in the home to be kept nonfunctional violate the Second Amendment?
The ban on registering handguns and the requirement to keep guns in the home disassembled or nonfunctional with a trigger lock mechanism violate the Second Amendment.
In A 5-4 decision, the Court held that the first clause of the Second Amendment that references a “militia” is a prefatory clause that does not limit the operative clause of the Amendment.
Additionally, the term “militia” should not be confined to those serving in the military, because at the time the term referred to all able-bodied men who were capable of being called to such service.
To read the Amendment as limiting the right to bear arms only to those in a governed military force would be to create exactly the type of state-sponsored force against which the Amendment was meant to protect people.
Therefore, banning handguns, an entire class of arms that is commonly used for protection purposes, and prohibiting firearms from being kept functional in the home, the area traditionally in need of protection, violates the Second Amendment.
McDonald v. City of Chicago (2010)
It wasn’t until this 2010 Supreme court decision that the second amendment right was “incorporated”, and therefore was also found to be applicable to the states.
As a result, a number of state and local gun laws have recently been found unconstitutional.
One dramatic example of this is related to a mass shooting in Boulder CO last year.
Boulder
Mass shooting in Boulder, CO
On March 22, 2021, amass shootingoccurred at aKing Soopers supermarket inBoulder, Colorado.
Ten people were killed, including a local on-duty police officer.
The alleged shooter, 21-year-old Ahmad Al Aliwi Al-Issa, was arrested after being shot in the right leg.
After undergoing mental evaluations during the legal proceedings, Al-Issa was found mentally incompetent to stand trial in December.
Al-Issa legally purchased a Ruger AR-556 pistol on March 16 at a local gun shop in Arvada that used Colorado’suniversal background checklaw, even though he was previously convicted of third-degree assault, a misdemeanor with a sentencing maximum of 18 months in county jail. Federal firearms laws only prohibit weapons purchases for those convicted of afelony, or a misdemeanor with a prison term of over 24 months.
On March 12, four days before Al-Issa bought his Ruger AR-556 pistol and ten days before the shooting, a Boulder County judge had blocked a ban on the sale and possession of assault weapons and large capacity magazines in a lawsuit backed by theNational Rifle Association(NRA).
New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen
A New York law that imposes strict limits on carryinggunsoutside the home seems unlikely to survive its encounter with the Supreme Court, based onquestioning from the justiceson Wednesday.
The law requires people seeking a license to carry a handgun in public to show a “proper cause,” and a majority of the justices seemed prepared to say that it imposes an intolerable burden on the rights guaranteed by theSecond Amendment.
But several justices seemed open to allowing the state to exclude guns from crowded public settings or other sensitive places.
The Second Amendment protects a constitutional right just as the First Amendment does, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. said. People seeking to exercise either of those rights, he said, should not have to demonstrate to the government that they have a good reason or special need to do so.
“You don’t have to say, when you’re looking for a permit to speak on a street corner or whatever, that, you know, your speech is particularly important,” he said. “So why do you have to show in this case, convince somebody, that you’re entitled to exercise your Second Amendment right?”
Adam Liptak, New York Times
The Right to Peaceably Assemble, with Guns
In 1967, 30 members of the Black Panthers protested on the steps of the California Statehouse armed with .357 Magnums, 12-gauge shotguns and .45-caliber pistols and announced, “The time has come for black people to arm themselves.”
As a result CA legislators passed the Mulford Act and Republican Gov. Ronald Reagan signed it into law.
There is “No reason why, on the street today, a citizen should be carrying loaded weapons”Governor Ronald Reagan
3 ideals of America
America has 3 ideals : independence, federalism and the Bill of RIghts.
The US include that sth doesn’t exist in France
The US include that sth doesn’t exist in France: it includes voting for judges, sheriff, attorney general that makes those position, which in france are based on concours, in Wisconsin every state had a SC and this position : 2 judges wanted to run & one said : if i’m elected i’ll vote against the current abortion law. A woman said she was against this and if people voted for her she would make sure the 1848 law was unconstitutional. 3rd candidate : no abortion in Wisconsin.
EVeryone in Wisconsin voted : the woman won by 15/20 points : this never happens in American pol = strong signal of what is important to them.
State can make laws as long as they follow the constitution. In some states, CF MAP,
Deep green colour = you can if you’re an adult and buy a gun, munitions, load the gun and put it in an holster & walk around with your loaded gun like a cowboy (=2nd amendment)
Each state determines
In NY if you want a permit to carry a gun you have to prove that you have a proper cause = there is a good reason why you’re carrying that gun : business owner that has ++ cash, you are a detective.. You have to explain what you want it.
The SC Said that asking people why they are getting a gun = unconstitutional.
But Why people bear arms ?
It’s fun !
It’s cultural : at a certain age, you’re supposed to know how to swim, to ride a bicycle, but also to hold a gun. To realise how dangerous it is, to make sure you don’t shoot yourself or someone accidentally.
In the USA there are more guns that there are people : a lot of people have guns & household that have guns probably have many guns.
Shooting on targets is an activity like another.
Some way of controlling guns :
hen you buy a gun : you pay, give a receipt and then wait 3 days so that your ager can pass by and you won’t shoot your neighbours with whom your wife cheated on you.
Other law : limiting the number of bullet your gun can hold. Reloading your gun takes time so that makes easier to stop you for the police
⇒ shows that it’s a good idea.
Red flag law
N-Y state : has red flag law,
Most Americans are in favour of reasonable gun control law but there is no majority in America to control guns. No majority of the against guns : most people think if you’re competent and sain you can be able to have a gun. // abortion : you should be able to have access to abortion
You can’t take away a right that everybody is supposed to have.
