The right of the individual to keep and bear arms was closely associated by the framers with the militia tradition that the American colonists brought with them from England.
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But the meaning of his words may depend upon which of his words are quoted. Patrick Henry, the Virginia orator who opposed the Constitution because he feared a strong central government, said access to arms was a key to liberty. Ad Hoc Group of Law Professors and Historians, 52 scholars urging the reversal of Judge Cummings's ruling If the Second Amendment had been adopted as originally drafted by Madison, its scope would unmistakably be limited to the possession of weapons for use in the militia.Īs it happened, Congress removed the conscientious objector clause, but this deletion should not change our understanding of the remaining language. Congresses between 17 30 uses of the phrase ''bear arms'' or ''bearing arms'' (other than in discussing the proposed Second Amendment) in every single one of these uses, the phrase has an unambiguously military meaning. Records of debates in the Continental and U.S. Madison's use of the phrase ''bear arms'' to refer to military activities is echoed in other contemporary usages. the conscientious objector provision, Madison clearly used the phrase ''bearing arms'' to refer solely to the possession of weapons for military use.
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The best evidence for the Second Amendment meaning of ''bear arms'' is in the original draft of the Amendment proposed in the First Congress by James Madison: ''The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed a well-armed, and well-regulated militia being the best security of a free country: but no person religiously scrupulous of bearing arms shall be compelled to render military service in person.'' The Second Amendment Foundation, a group that promotes the right to firearmsįollowing common usage, the framers of the Second Amendment used the phrase ''bear arms'' to refer to possession of weapons for military use. These provisions recollect the spirit at the time when the Constitution was adopted which was the simple recognition that ''the people'' have liberty to keep and bear arms to fulfill various individual needs, including self-defense. The common theme running through these state conventions which took place in the spring and summer of 1788 was the clear and unequivocal understanding that the right to keep and bear arms belonged to ''the people'' independent of ''the state.''įor example, in the New Hampshire convention held on June 21, 1788, the delegates adopted the following language: Congress shall never disarm any citizen, unless such as are or have been in actual rebellion. The Bill of Rights was thus infused from the bottom up with the dominant ideology of the day. Madison drafted the Bill of Rights with the aid of innumerable suggestions from his countrymen, most commonly in the form of the state bills of rights and the hundreds of amendments suggested by the state conventions that ratified the Constitution.
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But the lawyers - and historians - don't agree on what Madison meant. The Second Amendment can be understood, lawyers on all sides argue, by examining the intentions of James Madison, the primary drafter of the Bill of Rights. Prosecutors appealed and the case is awaiting a decision by the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in New Orleans, which heard arguments in June.įriend-of-the-court briefs were filed by more than 50 groups on every side of the issue, presenting the judges with a fierce historical debate about what the nation's founders meant when they wrote, ''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 following excerpts reveal sharply different readings of the Founding Fathers' comments. The judge dismissed gun possession charges that had been filed against Timothy Joe Emerson, a doctor in San Angelo, Tex. His decision, with its emotional resonance for gun supporters, was in conflict with the vast weight of modern rulings, which have held that the amendment merely gave the states a right to keep armed militia units. Cummings, held that history proves that the right ''to keep and bear arms'' in the Second Amendment gave individual citizens a right to weapons. A FEDERAL judge in Texas gave gun groups a startling victory last year and set off an appeals battle that legal experts say could be the most important dispute over the Constitutional right to firearms in recent memory.