Category Archives: Second Amendment

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump addresses the audience during a campaign event at Trask Coliseum in Wilmington, N.C., on Tuesday. Sara D. Davis/Getty Images hide caption

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump addresses the audience during a campaign event at Trask Coliseum in Wilmington, N.C., on Tuesday.

Updated at 9 p.m. ET

Donald Trump has been saying for months that Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton wants to "abolish the Second Amendment," but now the Republican presidential nominee has gone even further.

At a rally in Wilmington, N.C., on Tuesday afternoon, Trump repeated that charge and then appeared to many observers to suggest taking up arms against his rival.

"Hillary wants to abolish essentially abolish the Second Amendment," Trump said. "If she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks. Although the Second Amendment people, maybe there is. I don't know."

You can watch that portion of Trump's speech here:

The response from Clinton and her supporters was swift. In an interview with the public radio program Texas Standard, Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Kaine said, "There is absolutely no place, there should be no place in our politics for somebody who wants to be a leader to say something even in an offhand way that is connected to inciting violence."

Almost immediately after Trump spoke, the pro-Clinton superPAC Priorities USA Action emailed out a clip of Trump's comments with the subject heading, "Donald Trump Just Suggested That Someone Shoot Hillary Clinton," plus a one-sentence message: "THIS IS NOT OK."

Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook said in a statement, "This is simple what Trump is saying is dangerous. A person seeking to be president of the United States should not suggest violence in any way."

But the Trump campaign was quick to dispute that interpretation. In an emailed statement with the subject line, "Trump Campaign Statement on Dishonest Media," Trump spokesman Jason Miller said:

"It's called the power of unification 2nd Amendment people have amazing spirit and are tremendously unified, which gives them great political power. And this year, they will be voting in record numbers, and it won't be for Hillary Clinton, it will be for Donald Trump."

Trump reiterated that explanation in an interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity on Tuesday: "This is a political movement. This is a strong, powerful movement, the Second Amendment. You know, Hillary wants to take your guns away."

CNN commentator and Trump supporter Kayleigh McEnany explained it this way:

"I think he's referring to the fact that the National Rifle Association is the most powerful lobby, hands-down, in the United States. So if anyone can stop a very anti-Second Amendment agenda, it would be the NRA and the Second Amendment folks."

Clinton has not called for abolishing the Second Amendment. What she has called for is tougher gun regulations including expanded background checks and allowing families of victims of gun violence to sue gun manufacturers or dealers.

Hillary Clinton's Twitter account sent out a message from former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, who was badly injured in a shooting at a constituent outreach event she held in Tucson, Ariz., in 2011 that killed six people.

The U.S. Secret Service, charged with protecting both nominees, said on Tuesday evening that it was "aware" of Trump's comments, but the agency did not comment further.

Continued here:
Trump: '2nd Amendment' Could Stop Hillary - npr.org

House Speaker Paul Ryan points to his copy of the Constitution as he emphasizes to reporters that the GOPs proposed gun-control measures protect Second Amendment rights on July 6, at Republican National Committee Headquarters.

Re: Still making it too easy for a crazy guy with a gun, July 14 Greg Dobbs column.

I have read many distorted interpretations of the Second Amendment, but Greg Dobbs columnsets a new low bar. His interpretation of the amendments phrase well regulated Militiathat Either the militia bearing arms would be regulated by someone or something, or that the bearing of arms themselves would be regulated is nonsense. The phrase has nothing to do with regulations, or something being regulated. It simply means in the 1791 historical context when written a well-organized, well-equipped, well-trained and well-led militia.

Equally absurd is Dobbs suggestion to use his interpretation to change the language of the gun-control debate, from gun control to gun regulation. A rose by any other name smells the same. In this case, it stinks. Call it what you wish, but what the political left wants in the end is national firearm registration, followed shortly by firearm confiscation.

Stephen B. Pacetti, Lakewood

What Greg Dobbs and most people fail to realize is that the purpose of the Second Amendment is for the citizens of this country to protect the Constitution from the government.

It must be noted that when the Second Amendment was written, the word militia meant anarmy of trained civilians which may be called upon in time of need; or the entire able-bodied population of a state; or a private force, not under government control.

The important words are civilian and not under government control. Our forefathers understood the importance of keeping our government under control and they understood that history has shown that democracy can be lost when governments have absolute control.

Our country has always understood that peace is possible through strength. If we want peace in our streets, maybe everyone should be required to have firearm training.

Gary Montijo,Lakewood

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Interpreting the language of the Second Amendment (2 letters)

Supreme Court Declares That the Second AmendmentGuarantees an Individual Right to Keep and Bear Arms -- June 26, 2008

Fairfax, VA Leaders of the National Rifle Association (NRA) praised the Supreme Courts historic ruling overturning Washington, D.C.s ban on handguns and on self-defense in the home, in the case of District of Columbia v. Heller.

This is a great moment in American history. It vindicates individual Americans all over this country who have always known that this is their freedom worth protecting, declared NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre. Our founding fathers wrote and intended the Second Amendment to be an individual right. The Supreme Court has now acknowledged it. The Second Amendment as an individual right now becomes a real permanent part of American Constitutional law.

Last year, the District of Columbia appealed a Court of Appeals ruling affirming that the Second Amendment to the Constitution guarantees an individual right to keep and bear arms, and that the Districts bans on handguns, carrying firearms within the home and possession of functional firearms for self-defense violate that fundamental right.

Anti-gun politicians can no longer deny that the Second Amendment guarantees a fundamental right, said NRA chief lobbyist Chris W. Cox. All law-abiding Americans have a fundamental, God-given right to defend themselves in their homes. Washington, D.C. must now respect that right.

Read the opinion (1 MB)

Highlights From The Heller Decision

On March 18, 2008, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in District of Columbia v. Heller.

Listen to the audio recording of the oral arguments (RealPlayer required)

View the transcript

The Court announced its decision to take the case in which plaintiffs challenge the constitutionality of the District'sgun ban last Fall. The District of Columbia appealed a lower courts ruling last year affirming that the Second Amendment of the Constitution protects an individual right to keep and bear arms, and that the Districts bans on handguns, carrying firearms within the home, and possession of loaded or operable firearms for self-defense violate that right.

In March, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit held that [T]he phrase the right of the people, when read intratextually and in light of Supreme Court precedent, leads us to conclude that the right in question is individual. The D.C. Circuit also rejected the claim that the Second Amendment does not apply to the District of Columbia because D.C. is not a state.

The case marks the first time a Second Amendment challenge to a firearm law has reached the Supreme Court since 1939.

Briefs filed on behalf of Heller and Washington D.C.

Amicus brief filed by the United States

Amicus briefs filed in support of Heller

Click the links below to read recently filed amicus briefs in support of Dick Anthony Heller in the upcoming case District of Columbia v. Heller.

Click the links below to read recently filed amicus briefs in support of Washington D.C.

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Supreme Court Declares That the Second Amendment ... - NRA-ILA

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 Second Amendment to the US Constitution

Does the Second Amendment prevent effective gun regulations? What is the right to bear arms? Second Amendment litigation has become a critical battleground since the U.S. Supreme Court held, in District of Columbia v. Heller, that the Amendment guarantees an individual right to possess a firearm in the home for self-defense. This decision created a radical shift in the meaning of the Second Amendment, but it doesnt prevent smart gun regulations. In fact, since Heller, courts nationwide have found a wide variety of firearms laws constitutional because they can help prevent gun deaths, injuries, and crimes in communities across the country.

The Law Center not only tracks the extensive Second Amendment litigation currently happening nationwide, but also analyzes the trends, to bring you the latest developments in the courts.

Learn more about the 2008 DC vs Heller decision.

Learn more about the 2010McDonald v. City of Chicago decision.

In 2008, the U.S. Supreme Court singlehandedly inserted the judicial system into the ongoing national debate over gun laws in America. In a 5-4 decision inDistrict of Columbia v. Heller, the Court invalidated the District of Columbias handgun ban and firearm storage law, stating for the first time that the Second Amendment protects a responsible, law-abiding citizens right to possess an operable handgun in the home for self-defense.

Heller was unquestionably a radical decision, overturning the Courts previous ruling that the Second Amendment was tied to state militia service. For almost seventy years, lower federal and state courts nationwide had relied on that pronouncement to reject hundreds of Second Amendment challenges.

The Heller decision immediately drew strong criticism from a wide array of legal scholars, historians, advocates and legislators, including a particularly scathing rebuke from respected conservative judge Richard Posner, who noted that, The only certain effect of the Heller decision will be to increase litigation over gun ownership.

In fact, new litigation started almost immediately. The day that Heller was announced, plaintiffs filed a lawsuit challenging the City of Chicagos handgun ban, with a second suit filed the next day. Other suits emerged soon after, escalating once the Supreme Court confirmed that the Second Amendment also applied to state and local laws in 2010s McDonald v. City of Chicago decision. After that case, the number of lawsuits challenging gun laws nationwide skyrocketed.

Thankfully, despite the explosion of litigation, courts across the country have rejected the overwhelming majority of Second Amendment challenges initiated since Heller. Gun rights advocates and criminal defendants across the country have sought to expand the Second Amendment to invalidate almost every gun law on the books today. In siding with us and the majority of Americans who support sensible gun laws, courts are finding that smart laws arent just constitutionaltheyre also critical to keeping our communities safe from gun violence.

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Second Amendment Basics | Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence

Source: Jim Jesus / YouTube.com

The Second Amendment of the United States Constitution reads: "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 there have been countless debates, tests and judgments that have defined and re-defined how to interpret this amendment, the current prevailing interpretation and belief in America is that individual gun ownership is a constitutional right. As a result, America has seen a steady and consistent stream of deregulation around gun ownership, even as mass shootings appear to be on the rise. As progressives get increasingly concerned about the gun culture in America, as a tactic, they try to make their case by comparing gun ownership to other safety-related, common-sense laws:

While certainly humorous while making a practical point, this tweet burn completely misses the larger point: people don't have a constitutional right to buy Sudafed. You simply cannot compare a constitutional right to anything else not on the fundamental rights playing field.

This lack of focus on the constitutional argument is where progressives have lost their way. They have been so focused on the practical utility of public policy that they end up losing the larger fights that define America. Constitutional interpretation lends itself to a more strategic (and philosophical) debate platform than arguing the facts and stats on how laws can and should protect people. Constitutional theory is the debate platform that conservatives have been playing on for decades while progressives get frustrated and lose ground.

The remarkable irony is that the wording and intent within the Second Amendment is actually on progressive's side. In fact, the Second Amendment is a progressive's dream: the third word in the amendment is "regulated" for heaven's sake.

No matter the interpretation of every other word and phrase after the first three words, the entire context of the amendment is that it will be a regulated right. Through this lens, the Second Amendment is barely even comparable to the First Amendment in terms of what rights it enables. There is simply no language in the First Amendment that regulates the right to free speech... and yet we still regulate speech despite the unassailable strength of the the First Amendment constitutional language

The upshot? Even in today's hardcore gun rights environment and culture, the Constitution itself provides the guidance -- and mandate -- to not just regulate militia (i.e., groups of people) and arms, but to regulate them well.

How our culture defines "well" can and will certainly evolve over time, but we shouldn't let gun rights ideologues and arms industry special interests continue to convince the public that they're the only ones who have the Constitution on their side in this debate.

Yes, current Supreme Court interpretation is that every citizen has the right to bear arms. But it's also constitutionally mandated that we regulate these armed people (i.e., militia) and their arms well. Seeing as the right to bear arms has been implemented pretty effectively in America, perhaps now it's time to start implementing regulation well too, as the Constitution also mandates.

Editor's note: On 6/18, I revised the article to include people (i.e., militia)" as well as arms, because I originally mistakenly linked regulation only to arms, not the people who have the right to own them

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Yeah, About That Second Amendment

I teach the Constitution for a living. I revere the document when it is used to further social justice and make our country a more inclusive one. I admire the Founders for establishing a representative democracy that has survived for over two centuries.

But sometimes we just have to acknowledge that the Founders and the Constitution are wrong. This is one of those times. We need to say loud and clear: The Second Amendment must be repealed.

As much as we have a culture of reverence for the founding generation, it's important to understand that they got it wrong and got it wrong often. Unfortunately, in many instances, they enshrined those faults in the Constitution. For instance, most people don't know it now, but under the original document, Mitt Romney would be serving as President Obama's vice president right now because he was the runner-up in the last presidential election. That part of the Constitution was fixed by the Twelfth Amendment, which set up the system we currently have of the president and vice president running for office together.

Much more profoundly, the Framers and the Constitution were wildly wrong on race. They enshrined slavery into the Constitution in multiple ways, including taking the extreme step of prohibiting the Constitution from being amended to stop the slave trade in the country's first 20years. They also blatantly wrote racism into the Constitution by counting slaves as only 3/5 of a person for purposes of Congressional representation. It took a bloody civil war to fix these constitutional flaws (and then another 150 years, and counting, to try to fix the societal consequences of them).

There are others flaws that have been fixed (such as about voting and Presidential succession), and still other flaws that have not yet been fixed (such as about equal rights for women and land-based representation in the Senate), but the point is the same there is absolutely nothing permanently sacrosanct about the Founders and the Constitution. They were deeply flawed people, it was and is a flawed document, and when we think about how to make our country a more perfect union, we must operate with those principles in mind.

In the face of yet another mass shooting, now is the time to acknowledge a profound but obvious truth the Second Amendment is wrong for this country and needs to be jettisoned. We can do that through a Constitutional amendment. It's been done before (when the Twenty-First Amendment repealed prohibition in the Eighteenth), and it must be done now.

The Second Amendment needs to be repealed because it is outdated, a threat to liberty and a suicide pact. When the Second Amendment was adopted in 1791, there were no weapons remotely like the AR-15assault rifle and many of the advances of modern weaponry were long from being invented or popularized.

Sure, the Founders knew that the world evolved and that technology changed, but the weapons of today that are easily accessible are vastly different than anything that existed in 1791. When the Second Amendment was written, the Founders didn't have to weigh the risks of one man killing 49and injuring 53 all by himself. Now we do, and the risk-benefit analysis of 1791 is flatly irrelevant to the risk-benefit analysis of today.

Gun-rights advocates like to make this all about liberty, insisting that their freedom to bear arms is of utmost importance and that restricting their freedom would be a violation of basic rights.

But liberty is not a one way street. It also includes the liberty to enjoy a night out with friends, loving who you want to love, dancing how you want to dance, in a club that has historically provided a refuge from the hate and fear that surrounds you. It also includes the liberty to go to and send your kids to kindergarten and first grade so that they can begin to be infused with a love of learning. It includes the liberty to go to a movie, to your religious house of worship, to college, to work, to an abortion clinic, go to a hair salon, to a community center, to the supermarket, to go anywhere and feel that you are free to do to so without having to weigh the risk of being gunned downby someone wielding a weapon that can easily kill you and countless others.

The liberty of some to own guns cannot take precedence over the liberty of everyone to live their lives free from the risk of being easily murdered. It has for too long, and we must now say no more.

Finally, if we take the gun-rights lobby at their word, the Second Amendment is a suicide pact. As they say over and over, the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. In other words, please the gun manufacturers by arming even the vast majority of Americans who do not own a gun.

Just think of what would have happened in the Orlando night-club Saturday night if there had been many others armed. In a crowded, dark, loud dance club, after the shooter began firing, imagine if others took out their guns and started firing back. Yes, maybe they would have killed the shooter, but how would anyone else have known what exactly was going on? How would it not have devolved into mass confusion and fear followed by a large-scale shootout without anyone knowing who was the good guy with a gun, who was the bad guy with a gun, and who was just caught in the middle? The death toll could have been much higher if more people were armed.

The gun-rights lobby's mantra that more people need guns will lead to an obvious result more people will be killed. We'd be walking down a road in which blood baths are a common occurrence, all because the Second Amendment allows them to be.

At this point, bickering about the niceties of textual interpretation, whether the history of the amendment supports this view or that, and how legislators can solve this problem within the confines of the constitution is useless drivel that will lead to more of the same. We need a mass movement of those who are fed up with the long-dead Founders' view of the world ruling current day politics. A mass movement of those who will stand up and say that our founding document was wrong and needs to be changed. A mass movement of those who will thumb their nose at the NRA, an organization that is nothing more than the political wing of the country's gun manufacturers, and say enough is enough.

The Second Amendment must be repealed, and it is the essence of American democracy to say so.

Watch four pro-gun arguments we're sick of hearing.

See original here:
Why It's Time to Repeal the Second Amendment

If you think the Supreme Court is poised to expand or restrict gun rights sometime soon, don't hold your breath.

As handwringing continues over what might have prevented the Orlando massacre-- an old-time filibuster sparked by it even broke outin the Senate on Wednesday -- the justices are about to consider a state gun control law enacted in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook school massacre in Newtown, Connecticut.

According to its docket, the court on Thursday will weigh whether to take up Shew v. Malloy, a case with all the elements that could make it emblematic for the battle over the Second Amendment's meaning.

It's a dispute between a host of gun rights groups, businesses and individual gun owners against Connecticut over the constitutionality of a sweeping regulatory regime that bans so-called "assault weapons" -- semiautomatic firearms and large-capacity magazines of the very sort used in Newtown and Orlando.

Back in October, an appeals court in Manhattan said the Connecticut law and a similarly restrictive law in New Yorkwere constitutional --and the plaintiffs vowed to take the battle to the Supreme Court.

Tom King, the head of New York's biggest gun rights group, even said he was "happy" to have lost the case because that meant his organization could now ask the highest court of the land to decide the issue once and for all.

Brendan McDermid / Reuters

But then Justice Antonin Scalia died. And suddenly,the gun lobby's calculations changed -- including King's, who told the New York Daily News weeks after Scalia's death that it was "just the wrong time" to continue the fight in the absence of a reliable conservative vote at the Supreme Court.

That might explain why Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) glowingly pointed to the National Rifle Association's opposition to Merrick Garland, the president's high court nominee, to rationalize his own refusal to hold a vote and a hearing for Garland.

None of this matters, and yet it matters a great deal.

Because despite the pleas from gun rights advocates who still want the Supreme Court to take up the challenge to the weapons ban, the justices could wield all kinds of reasons not to touch the case with a 10-foot pole.

It's not that they aren't interested in clarifying the scope of the Second Amendment in the wake of Scalia's magnum opus in District of Columbia v. Heller, which for the first time recognized a fundamental right to gun ownership in the home. But to echo King, it's just not the right time -- not with a short-staffed Supreme Court, a volatile political environment, and a nomination fight that may very well continue after President Barack Obama's successor takes office.

As things stand now, all signs point to an extremely quiet and uncontroversial Supreme Court term beginning next October -- a dry season that will stand in stark contrast to the current term's constitutional blockbusters on affirmative action, abortion and immigration, to name only a few.The court just isn't taking many new cases.

This paucity of potential big decisions aside, the courthassent some signals that the Second Amendment is safe, even as it has rejected dozens of cases challenging gun control measures across the country, leaving lower courts as the final decision-makers.

Over the protest of Scalia and Justice Clarence Thomas, the Supreme Court refused in December to review an appeals court decision that effectively upheld an assault weapons ban in a small Illinois town. Thomas said that decision treated the Second Amendment as a second-class right.

But in March, a month after Scalia's death, the justices tipped their hand the other way, ruling that a Massachusetts ban on stun guns may violate the right to bear arms, quietly but forcefully endorsing the late justice's Heller decision.

The Second Amendment extends ... to all instruments that constitute bearable arms, even those that were not in existence at the time of the founding," the court said in a very brief rulingthat no justice signed his or her name to.

But writing separately, Thomas and Justice Samuel Alito said they would have gone further, asserting that indeed, gun ownership for self-defense is a "fundamental right" while making clear that Americans' safety shouldn't be "left to the mercy of state authorities who may be more concerned about disarming the people than about keeping them safe."

Fighting words, as well as fodder for debate about where the court may go next on guns.

It is precisely this seeming tension within the Supreme Court -- plus the political fallout from Scalia's vacancy and all the work that other courts are doing to make some sense of the Second Amendment -- that indicates why the justices probably won't pull the trigger on the next big gun rights case soon.

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Don't Bank On The Supreme Court To Clarify The Second ...

Stand for your Second Amendment rights against those Gun Free folks who just dont get it.

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The Patriot Post Shop - 2A - Second Amendment

Saying she hopes to continue to have an important conversation about reducing gun deaths in America, Couric took the rap Monday for a controversial pause in her Under the Gun documentary.

Last Julys high profile murder of Kathryn Steinle as she was walking along San Franciscos iconic Pier 14 with a gun stolen from a federal agent has wound up in court.

Cars for Freedom is a new fundraising project by the NRA Foundation, the fundraising arm of the national organization.

Libertarian party candidate Gary Johnson has been gaining media attention as a possible third party contender in the 2016 presidential election.

For the report, Judicial Watch cross referenced details with published news reports and was able to deduce incidents in which Fast and Furious guns were likely used.

Lawmakers in both the House and the Senate proposed making June 2 a day of remembrance for victims of gun violence, an event largely propagated by gun control groups.

During the legislative process to achieve open carry protections under the law in the Lone Star State, some forecast gun fights in the street. About that.

At least two national petitions have begun this week, accompanied by op-ed pieces, seeking the ouster of a Yahoo news personality over a controversial anti-gun film.

Second Amendment advocates are taking California officials into federal court arguing an obscure law preventing the use of videos taken during lawmaker debate violates the First Amendment.

Gov. John Bel Edwards made Louisiana the first state in the nation to adopt legislation making attacks on police, firefighters and emergency medical personnel a hate crime.

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Politics & 2nd Amendment Archives - Guns.com

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 Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution

Does the Second Amendment prevent effective gun regulations? What is the right to bear arms? Second Amendment litigation has become a critical battleground since the U.S. Supreme Court held, in District of Columbia v. Heller, that the Amendment guarantees an individual right to possess a firearm in the home for self-defense. This decision created a radical shift in the meaning of the Second Amendment, but it doesnt prevent smart gun regulations. In fact, since Heller, courts nationwide have found a wide variety of firearms laws constitutional because they can help prevent gun deaths, injuries, and crimes in communities across the country.

The Law Center not only tracks the extensive Second Amendment litigation currently happening nationwide, but also analyzes the trends, to bring you the latest developments in the courts.

See more recent developments in court >>

See more in-depth resources on the Second Amendment >>

See more amicus briefs >>

Read the original here:
Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence Second Amendment Rights