Posted on 05/26/2008 7:41:56 AM PDT by TheatricalOne
Hello members of the free republic community. I am currently working on a project for my government 101 class and I am in the dark. I am to write an opinion on D.C V Heller, (in which I side with Heller) but I am inundated with a lack of materials that are not infringed by liberal gun phobia. I am the only one supporting Heller in my class and I am being debated left and right, any idea would be much appreciated so that I am better equipped to fight back. I strongly believe that every American should own a gun if he or she wants to. I also firmly believe that it is not the governments place to infringe on such matters, only merely to have its hand in maintaining safety and proper registration protocols. So far my platform is such... the right to bear arms is a protected right under the penumbra of the 2nd and 9th amendment. (This idea stemming from the right to privacy penumbra as founded in Griswold V Connecticut) also is trying to figure out how to properly re-interpret the second amendment to try to understand the framers intentions. The flow of information and ideas has been tedious and daunting for me so far and most of what I find I can’t use. So this is why I am turning to the reasonably minded people of free republic. If anyone here has a link or an idea pleas post it below and help me fight back against my entirely liberal class.
I have a few other links I can try to dig up if this is the kind of stuff you had in mind.
The one commonly referred to as Vice President Cheney's is very authoritative and the official title is something like 55 Members of the US Senate and the Senate President in support of the Respondent.
Links here:
http://www.scotuswiki.com/index.php?title=DC_v._Heller
Another excellent overall summary of the history of the 2nd Amendment is the Texas Appeals Court Decision in Emerson.
Keep us apprised of your progress!
Good luck!
The words “penumbra,” “registration,” and “safety protocols” do not appear in the Constitution.
The People simply did not allow govenment the power to infringe the right to keep and bear Arms.
The Second Amendment as Teaching Tool in Constitutional Law Classes
"Indunated" with a "lack" of materials?
I'm pro 2nd Amendment as well, but how does that make sense?
Look for an NRA member in your area who takes the NRA publication America's First Freedom. In it, you'll find an excellent article written by a lawyer who sat through DC v. Heller's oral arguments in the Supreme Court.
Next, visit amazon.com and search for "The 2nd Amendment Primer" or anything written by Stephen Halbrook or David Kopel. Kopel is the lawyer who sat through oral arguments.
These resources should help you.
As a tidbit - the DC ban is a de facto ban on the natural right of self defense. The DC attorney argued for reasonable restrictions, and was asked by one justice if the total ban were a reasonable restriction of the right.
I believe the right to self defense with a handgun is not protected.
The right to self defense with a rifle, shotgun, knife, baseball bat, nunchuck, rock, or bare fists, however, is protected in DC.
You don’t need a “penumbra” argument. The right to bear arms is *explicit* in the text.
The only question, as put forward by the opposition, is that this is not an individual right but a collective right of the militia itself under regulation by the state. That is, a right of the state.
If so, it’s the ONLY one of the Bill of Rights that is not an individual right. The Bill of Rights wasn’t written to recognize “rights” of the government. Quite the reverse. It was written to recognize rights of each citizen that government cannot take away. The 2nd amendment explicitly leaves the power of arms in the individual hands of the people.
Ever carried a rifle around town in D.C.?
Not a collective right. I believe the argument was that the right was individual but it was exercised collectively as part of a well regulated Militia.
We do have other rights like this -- the right to vote or the right to assemble.
http://www.guncite.com/emerson.html
And an example of the material you may find:
3. Historical Analysis
. . . . . "[T]here is a long tradition of widespread lawful gun ownership by private individuals in this country." Staples v. United States, 511 U.S. 600, 610 (1994). A historical examination of the right to bear arms, from English antecedents to the drafting of the Second Amendment, bears proof that the right to bear arms has consistently been, and should still be, construed as an individual right.
a. English History
. . . . . A review of English history explains the founders' intent in drafting the Second Amendment. As long ago as 690 A.D., Englishmen were required to possess arms and to serve in the military. David T. Hardy, Armed Citizens, Citizen Armies: Toward a Jurisprudence of the Second Amendment, 9 HARV. J.L. & PUB. POL'Y 559, 562 (1986) (citing 1 JOHN J. BAGLEY & PETER B. ROWLEY, A DOCUMENTARY HISTORY OF ENGLAND 1066-1540, at 152 (1965)). This obligation continued for centuries, requiring nobility, and later commoners, to keep arms and participate in the militia. Id. at 563-65. The obligation to keep arms was not simply to provide military service in the king's army; English citizens were also required to provide local police services, such as pursuing criminals and guarding their villages. CLAYTON E. CRAMER, FOR THE DEFENSE OF THEMSELVES AND THE STATE: THE ORIGINAL INTENT AND JUDICIAL INTERPRETATION OF THE RIGHT TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS 24-25 (1994); JOYCE LEE MALCOLM, TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS: THE ORIGINS OF AN ANGLO-AMERICAN RIGHT 2 (1994).
. . . . . By the middle of the seventeenth century, however, the sovereign jeopardized the individual right to bear arms. Charles II, and later James II, began to disarm many of their Protestant subjects. Hardy, supra, at 574-79. James II was an unpopular king whose policies stirred great resentment among both the political and religious communities of England.
David E. Murley, Private Enforcement of the Social Contract: Deshaney and the Second Amendment Right to Own Firearms, 36 DUQ. L. REV. 15, 19 (1997). Eventually, James II fled England during what was later termed the Glorious Revolution. Hardy, supra, at 579. In the aftermath of the Glorious Revolution, Parliament passed the English Bill of Rights in 1689, codifying the individual right to bear arms. Id. at 580. The Bill of Rights provided that "the subjects which are Protestant may have arms for their defense suitable to their conditions and as allowed by law." Id. at 581.
b.
The Colonial Right To Bear Arms
. . . . . The American colonists exercised their right to bear arms under the English Bill of Rights. Indeed, the English government's success in luring Englishmen to America was due in part to pledges that the immigrants and their children would continue to possess "all the rights of natural subjects, as if born and abiding in England." MALCOLM, supra, at 138. As in England, the colonial militia played primarily a defensive role, with armies of volunteers organized whenever a campaign was necessary. Id. at 139. Statutes in effect bore evidence of an individual right to bear arms during colonial times. For example, a 1640 Virginia statute required "all masters of families" to furnish themselves and "all those of their families which shall be capable of arms . . . with arms both offensive and defensive." Id. (citing THE OLD DOMINION IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY: A DOCUMENTARY
First,let’s work on your “spelling”.P l a u g E i n g”!
Is DC v Heller about carry? I thought it was about self defense in the home.
As has been pointed out, "penumbra" is like a semi-shadow. It's been defined by Webster as a right that exists by implication. (They mean abortion rights are implied by privacy rights.) Gun rights are spelled out in the simplest possible language. There's nothing shadowy about it.
Listen, speak simply. Write clearly. Wafting about on an pseudo-intellectual cloud takes more energy than it's worth and you'll end up not making sense. You can't be inundated by a lack of material. Just say "I can't find the material I need."
So individuals to not have the right to vote? Nonsense.
And sorry, but aside from the logical artifact that an assembly is by definition a group, the right belongs to the individuals to participate, not the group as an entity. Without the former, the latter cannot exist.
I understand your argument, but it’s a logical fallacy. Without the power of arms in the hands of the people there is no militia. The militia is the people. It is NOT a government agency. That is a standing army, and that is exactly what the founders thought to avoid. The militia does not exist in times when it is not needed. But the power of arms still remains in the hands of the people, to enable the reforming of the militia when they deemed necessary.
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