MISSING SOMETHING? Second Amendment wrong on Senate site, critics say

By Maxim Lott

FoxNews.com

Shown, at right, is a screen shot of the Senate web entry on the 2nd Amendment. The controversial passage is highlighted.Reuters/Senate.gov

Does the Second Amendment guarantee an individual right to own guns?

The Supreme Court has ruled that it does. But you might be confused if you visit the official Senate web page on the Constitution, which says only: "Whether this provision protects the individual's right to own firearms or whether it deals only with the collective right of the people to arm and maintain a militia has long been debated."

That particular wording was posted on the Senate website in 2009, based on archived web pages at The Internet Archive. However, that's one year after the Supreme Court ruled: "The Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia, and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense."

Given the court ruling, critics say the Senate site's administrators are just wrong.

"After five-and-a-half years of litigation, the Supreme Court unequivocally resolved the long-standing debate over the meaning of the Second Amendment," Bob Levy, one of the lawyers who won the 2008 Supreme Court case, told FoxNews.com.

"No one on either side of the gun debate -- with the possible exception of those persons who devised the U.S. Senate's official website explaining the Constitution -- doubts that the Supreme Court has affirmed the individual rights view of the Second Amendment," he added.

The issue follows on the heels of a similar Second Amendment controversy, in which a Texas history textbook was found to claim that the Second Amendment means "the people have the right to keep and bear arms in a state militia."

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MISSING SOMETHING? Second Amendment wrong on Senate site, critics say