Supreme Court Said Right to Bear Arms Belongs to You

"(H)istory showed that the way tyrants had eliminated a militia consisting of all the able-bodied men was not by banning the militia but simply by taking away the people's arms, enabling a select militia or standing army to suppress political opponents." -- D.C. v Heller (2008), U. S. Supreme Court

The Second Amendment provides, "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."

So, is the "right of the people to keep and bear Arms" the individual right of every American citizen, or do Americans have that right only while serving on active duty in the militia? In the Heller decision, the Supreme Court has unequivocally said that the right belongs to the individual.

The right to keep and bear arms of course is premised on the God-given right of every individual to act in self-defense, and in defense of his family. In the colonial period, Americans in the 13 colonies -- especially those who lived on the frontier -- had to act for their own protection against robbers, hostile Indians and from time to time French soldiers. There were no police forces, and the sheriff was often miles away.

The point that has to be understood is this: The right to keep and bear arms in the English-American colonies pre-existed the Second Amendment. In the words of the Heller court, "The very text of the Second Amendment implicitly recognizes the pre-existence of the right and declares only that it 'shall not be infringed.'"

Additionally, however, the individual's right was rooted in experience -- in the history of the English-speaking peoples.

"Between the Restoration and the Glorious Revolution, the Stuart Kings, Charles II and James II, succeeded in using select militias loyal to them to suppress political dissidents, in part by disarming their opponents.... These experiences caused Englishmen to be extremely wary of concentrated military forces run by the state and to be jealous of their arms. They accordingly obtained an assurance from William and Mary, in the Declaration of Rights (which was codified as the English Bill of Rights), that Protestants would never be disarmed: 'That the subjects which are Protestants may have arms for their defense suitable to their conditions and as allowed by law." (1689). This right has long been understood to be the predecessor to our Second Amendment. ... By the time of the founding, the right to have arms had become fundamental for English subjects.'"

Early legislation after the enactment of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights (1791) confirms the correctness of the Heller holding. The Militia Act of May 8, 1795 defines militia as consisting of "each and every free able-bodied white male citizen of the respective states, resident therein, who is or shall be of the age of eighteen years, and under the age of forty-five years."

But the act then goes on to require each member of the militia to provide their own weaponry. "That every citizen so enrolled ... shall ... provide himself with a good musket or firelock, a sufficient bayonet and belt, two spare flints, and a knapsack, a pouch with a box therein to contain not less than twenty-four cartridges, suited to the bore of his musket or firelock, each cartridge to contain a proper quantity of powder and ball: or with a good rifle, knapsack, shot-pouch and powder-horn, twenty balls suited to the bore of his rifle, and a quarter of a pound of powder; and shall appear, so armed."
Absent a pre-existent individual right to keep and bear arms, it would make no sense whatsoever to require them to "appear, so armed."

While today it may seem unlikely that America will ever face governmental tyranny, at the time the Second Amendment was adopted, "It was understood across the political spectrum that the right helped to secure the ideal of a citizen militia, which might be necessary to oppose an oppressive military force if the constitutional order broke down."

And then, of course, there are areas in Chicago and Washington D. C. where the gang-bangers don't care who they kill, and where the police seem incapable of providing an iota of protection. There, the right to bear arms in defense of self and family makes every bit as much since as it did on the frontier of colonial America.

Indeed with drug violence pouring across our porous southern border, the right to keep and bear arms may be fast becoming even more important in our time than it was in 1791.


Posted Online:  Feb. 17, 2013, 6:00 am - Quad-Cities Online
by John Donald O'Shea

Copyright 2012
John Donald O'Shea

Where Do our Rights Come from? God, Declaration, Constitution

"A free people (claim) their rights as derived from the laws of nature, and not as the gift of their chief magistrate." -- Thomas Jefferson: Rights of British America, 1774. ME 1:209, Papers 1:134

Are rights God-given, or gifts from government? In his 2013 inaugural address, President Obama expressed his view:

"What makes us exceptional ... (American) -- is our allegiance to an idea, articulated in a declaration made more than two centuries ago: 'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.' Today we continue a never-ending journey, to bridge the meaning of those words with the realities of our time... Being true to our founding documents does not ... mean we will all define liberty in exactly the same way, or follow the same precise path to happiness. Progress ... require us to act in our time."

The president concedes that all men have inalienable God-given rights. But he believes that progress requires redefinition of those terms.

For President Obama, what Jefferson and the men who approved the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution meant by life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness is not good enough in 2013. He gives examples of what they should mean "in our time."

-- For President Obama, liberty means income redistribution: "(W)e ... understand that our country cannot succeed when a shrinking few do very well and a growing many barely make it."

-- For Mr. Obama, pursuit of happiness means "that every citizen deserves a basic measure of security and dignity" -- including health insurance, unemployment insurance, disaster assistance, Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.

-- For President Obama, liberty and the pursuit of happiness requires income equality of men and women: "For our journey is not complete until our wives, our mothers, and daughters can earn a living equal to their efforts."

-- Rights in Mr. Obama's America include gay marriage: "Our journey is not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law — ... the love we commit to one another must be equal as well."

-- And, of course, the progressive pursuit of happiness must be available to "hopeful immigrants who still see America as a land of opportunity."

I don't quarrel with the idea that government has the power to provide for national health care, Medicare, Social Security or to order immigration, etc. But I do quarrel with Mr. Obama's attempt to redefine life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. I want these terms and the words of the Constitution interpreted at least as generously as the men who wrote them intended.

I see grave danger in President Obama or Congress redefining those terms in a more progressive way. If our fundamental documents are defined and construed consistently with the experience and intent of the men who wrote them, I feel secure. The Declaration and the Constitution were not based in logic, or in 21st century notions of what is politically popular or correct.

They were written to protect Americans from the abuses perpetrated by the British crown. They wrote a Bill of Rights to guarantee the liberties they deemed essential, and to deny to the government -- the temporary majority -- the power to abbreviate or redefine those rights whenever it deemed change necessary or reasonable.

The problem is simply this: If modern governments (the temporary majority) can redefine rights to expand rights, it can just as easily redefine rights to contract rights -- or even redefine them out of existence. And that is exactly what it is trying to do.

The American people have right to have their laws enacted by Congress, and approved by the executive. President Obama, smarting from which he perceives to be bad faith on the part of congressional Republicans, chooses instead to make his own laws -- by Executive Order.

The president makes appointments without Senate consent, claiming it is "in recess," (redefining "recess") in the face of an explicit Senate order that it is not "in recess."

When immigration laws enacted by Congress would require the president to deport persons who have sneaked into our country, rather than faithfully executing duly enacted laws pursuant to his oath, the president uses his pardon power to ignore the laws.

This same administration that now holds itself out as definer of the new rights, is also redefining religious activity ("the free exercise of religion") to exclude religious charities, colleges and other non-core religious activities. It requires them to provide abortion-inducing drugs, redefining it is a matter of public health and not religious freedom.

Not content with contracting First Amendment rights, the administration seeks to redefine the Second Amendment Right to bear arms to limit that right.

Thomas Jefferson believed rights came from God and wrote precisely that in Declaration of Independence. Our founders were not comfortable with the notion that our "unalienable rights" were endowed by the king, president, Congress or any other government.

Experience had taught them that the same king or government that could give rights, could just as quickly take rights away.

To make sure that didn't happen in America, the founders and the people of America appended the Bill of Rights to our Constitution.

The advantage, of course, in being given our rights by God, as opposed to government, is obvious.

If God gave them, it is beyond the power of human government to nullify God's grant.


Posted Online: Feb. 06, 2013, 2:44 pm - Quad-Cities Online
by John Donald O'Shea

Copyright 2012
John Donald O'Shea