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arguments about the pros and cons of stricter gun laws.
Conservative
(Statistics, Hyperbole

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what gun control is defined as and how it should be gone about and handled.
Conservative
(Statistics, Expert Opinion)

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What kinds of guns should be available for sale to the public? Who should be allowed to buy them? Where can they be carried? When is it legal to shoot one? And does restricting guns make America safer?

These questions form the core of the debate over gun control, one of the most divisive issues in American life.

This debate has been raging since the 1960s, when gun rights blossomed as a national political issue. It has culminated in multi-million dollar lobbying campaigns, Congressional standoffs and large public demonstrations.

The root of the debate is a single sentence in the U.S. Constitution, where the Second Amendment says: "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 interpretation of that line separates those who believe in more regulation of firearms and those who see any such legislation as an infringement on their individual liberties.

HOW OLD IS GUN CONTROL?

As old as the United States.

In the early days of the republic, black people ─ free and slaves ─ were barred from owning guns, as were Native Americans and people who did not pledge loyalty to the new country. A 1792 law required all eligible white men to buy a gun and enroll in a citizen militia, but those guns were also registered under state laws, according to UCLA Law professor Adam Winkler.

Prohibitions against black people owning guns continued until the late 1800s, with the passage of new civil rights laws. The first modern gun-control laws, which targeted machine guns, sawed-off shotguns and required federal licensing of gun dealers, were passed in the 1930s with Prohibition-era gangsters in mind. The next wave came in the late 1960s, in response to the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr. and U.S. Sen. Robert Kennedy, and calls by the Black Panthers and other black radicals for African-Americans to arm themselves. That led to the rise of the National Rifle Association as a political force, with the Second Amendment as its core principal.

Major federal gun control legislation was passed in 1986, when the future sale of machine guns was prohibited, as was the creation of a national firearms database. A background check system was established in the 1990s, as was the so-called "assault weapons ban," which covered certain semiautomatic rifles and expired in 2004.

Gun-rights hardliners' dream victory came in a 2008 ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court, which decreed that the Second Amendment protected an individual's right to possess a firearm for self-defense.

State-level laws, meanwhile, remain patchwork, with many expanding gun rights and others restricting them.

HOW MANY PEOPLE HAVE GUNS TODAY?

It's impossible to say for sure because there is no national registry of guns or gun owners.

One estimate comes from the General Social Survey, which says about a third of American households ─ and 22 percent of individual adults ─ reported having a firearm in 2014. A more recent Pew Research Center survey estimated that in 2017, 42 percent of U.S. adults lived in a household with a gun and 30 percent owned a gun themselves.

It's equally difficult to determine how many guns are in the United States. A 2012 Congressional Research Service report put the number at nearly 300 million. But gun sales have also exploded since then, driven by "panic buying" over fears of more gun control.

WHO SUPPORTS GUN CONTROL?

Gallup polling indicates a growing desire for more gun control; 60 percent say gun laws should be stricter, 5 percent say they should be less strict and 33 percent saying laws should remain as is. A February 2018 Quinnipiac University survey found 66 percent of respondents saying they supported stricter gun laws and 31 percent saying they didn't.

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What is gun control? The history, the arguments, the numbers

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What is gun control and the controversy around it? The root of the gun control debate stems from a single sentence in the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

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Their interpretation of the second amendment and how people have been going about it in the wrong.
Liberal
(Name-calling, Hyperbole)

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It was always meant to protect an individual right

Stop me if you've heard this one before. In 1791, the Founding Fathers placed into the U.S. Constitution a set of ten amendments that we refer to collectively as the "Bill of Rights." Among them was an innocuous measure designed to protect state militias against federal overreach. Until the 1970s, nobody believed that this meant anything important, or that it was relevant to modern American society. But then, inspired by profit and perfidy, the dastardly National Rifle Association recast the provision's words and, , brainwashed the American public into believing that they possessed an individual right to own firearms.

Simply put, the above charge, which is popular in the press and in some quarters of the academy, is not true. In fact, it's . Certainly, the last few decades have brought with them a sea change in both the jurisprudence and the academic literature that undergird the Second Amendment. And certainly, there has been a move away from the mid-20th-century consensus that the Second Amendment was either meaningless - in 1975, the American Bar Association proclaimed bizarrely that "it is doubtful that the Founding Fathers had any intent in mind with regard to the meaning of this Amendment" - or wholly without teeth as a protector of individual rights. And yet, contrary to popular claims, these transformations did not represent a novel revolution in meaning or interpretation but rather a much-needed restoration of what for most of American history was supremely, even mundanely, obvious: that "the right of the people to keep and bear arms" means "the right of the people to keep and bear arms "

Commenting in 2007 on Parker v. District of Columbia - in which the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit held that the Second Amendment protected an individual right - the New York Times ' Adam Liptak explained that we had reached a turning point in the dispute. "Only a few decades ago," wrote Liptak, this "decision would have been unimaginable." Indeed, he confirmed, "there used to be an almost complete scholarly and judicial consensus that the Second Amendment protects only a collective right of the states to maintain militias. That consensus no longer exists." And yet, as Liptak went on plainly to record, that was not because the bogeymen had successfully peddled a lie before a parade of activist judges, but because the consensus of the mid 20th century had finally been exposed as a mistake.

In fact, Liptak explained, a good deal of the spadework that led us to , , and the rest was done on the - by "leading liberal law professors" such as Sanford Levinson, Laurence Tribe, and Akhil Reed Amar, all of whom came gradually "to embrace the view that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to own guns." Bit by bit, and in concert with the crucial work of figures such as Don Kates, Joyce Lee Malcom, Stephen Halbrook, and Glenn Reynolds, many of America's "liberal" academics came to understand that, far from being an aberration, the "Standard Model" of the Second Amendment, as this view is known, was just that: standard. Moreover, as Liptak noted, they came to believe that "the earlier consensus reflected received wisdom and political preferences rather than a serious consideration of the amendment's text, history and place in the structure of the Constitution." Or, as Levinson had put it in 1989 in his influential Yale Law Journal article "The Embarrassing Second Amendment," "the best explanation for the absence of the Second Amendment from the legal consciousness of the elite bar, including that component found in the legal academy, is derived from a mixture of sheer opposition to the idea of private ownership of guns and the perhaps subconscious fear that altogether plausible, perhaps even 'winning,' interpretations of the Second Amendment would present real hurdles to those of us supporting prohibitory regulation."

What a difference a decade can make.

The militia, as has been elsewhere explained, consists of those persons who, under the law, are liable to the performance of military duty, and are officered and enrolled for service when called upon. But the law may make provision for the enrolment of all who are fit to perform military duty, or of a small number only, or it may wholly omit to make any provision at all; and if the right were limited to those enrolled, the purpose of this guaranty might be defeated altogether by the action or neglect to act of the government it was meant to hold in check. The meaning of the provision undoubtedly is, that the people, from whom the militia must be taken, shall have the right to keep and bear arms, and they need no permission or regulation of law for the purpose.

Given changing sensibilities; the evolving meaning of words; the decline of a shared republican worldview that regarded government as an auxiliary, not all-conquering, domestic force; and a healthy helping of cynical gamesmanship from the gun-control movement and its allies in the press, one can comprehend how we went from a widespread understanding that Americans enjoyed the right to keep and bear arms to breathless online headlines insisting that the "gun lobby" has "rewritten the Second Amendment!" "Arms," "state," "militia," "well-regulated" - these terms have all changed in the popular imagination in the years since 1791, as have what we would now refer to as America's "gun politics." For many unfamiliar with the history, the mistake is a forgivable one.

For those who familiar, however, it is most decidedly not. Indeed, to be cognizant of the history is to arrive at one clear and unmistakable conclusion: that the "collective right" theory is just . As a 1982 Senate report on the meaning of the Second Amendment concluded bluntly, it is "inescapable that the history, concept, and wording of the second amendment to the Constitution of the United States, as well as its interpretation by every major commentator and court in the first half-century after its ratification, indicates that what is protected is an individual right of a private citizen to own and carry firearms in a peaceful manner."

That word, "inescapable," is a good one, for it is simply impossible to review the post-Revolution era and come away with the impression that the Second Amendment protects some convoluted state-led right. Even if we ignore that the word "people" is used in the self-evidently individual protections that surround the Second Amendment - and even if we ignore that James Madison proposed to insert the "right to bear arms" next to the other individual rights listed in Article I, Section 9, and not next to the militia clause in Article I, Section 8, clause 16 - a brief audit of contemporary interpretations tells us all we need to know.

It may seem remarkable to modern sensibilities, but it was not at all unusual in the 19th century to read politicians and scholars openly worrying that the people might be left unable to remove their government should the course of human events run sour. In Letters from the Federal Farmer 53, Richard Henry Lee proposes that "to preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them." You will notice, I assume, that Lee's purpose in hoping that "the whole body of people always possess arms" is "to preserve liberty" rather than, say, to "defend the country" or to "prevent domestic insurrection." That matters a great deal, demonstrating as it does that we are talking here about something other than a proto-National Guard.

Indeed, so obvious was it to the people of the United States that the right came glued to liberty and citizenship that it was referenced by sides during the explosive fight over slavery and its aftermath. In his abhorrent majority opinion in , Justice Roger B. Taney simply assumed that citizens were able to carry firearms and then used that dreadful prospect as a reason why blacks must never be afforded citizenship. Should Dred Scott prevail, Taney wrote, blacks would be "entitled to the privileges and immunities of citizens," which would "give them the full liberty of speech in public and in private upon all subjects upon which its own citizens might speak; to hold public meetings upon political affairs, and to keep and carry arms wherever they went."

After the Civil War, the Republicans amended the Constitution to ensure that another Dred Scott decision would be impossible. Introducing his proposed 14th Amendment to Congress, John Bingham explained that he hoped to guarantee to freed blacks the "privileges and immunities" of which Taney had spoken, which, he recorded, were "chiefly defined in the first eight amendments to the constitution." Jacob Howard, a key sponsor of Bingham's proposal, told the Senate explicitly that this included the "right to keep and bear arms." Somewhere, Lysander Spooner must have smiled.

For a while, such reasoning prevailed. But as with all great untruths, it was eventually done in by the weight of its contradictions and the scale of its delusions. The aberration in American history was not but what immediately preceded and passed for academic scholarship and judicial rigor in the middle of the 20th century. It was clear in the 18th century what the Second Amendment meant. It was clear in the 19th century, too. It was clear before ratification, at the time of ratification, and after ratification. It was clear before the Civil War, and during the drafting of the 14th Amendment, and to the postbellum segregationists who undermined it whenever they could. It was clear when almost every state added its own protections of the right to keep and bear arms and, in so doing, made a mockery of the idea that the right they were emulating had been born of a desire to limit federal power. There has been precisely one plot to recast the Second Amendment and, in the words of Thomas Jefferson, to "make it a blank paper by construction," and that was the plot that flowered briefly in the middle of the 20th century. We must resolve to make sure that it never does so again.

Charles C. W. Cooke - Charles C. W. Cooke is the editor ofNational Review Online. @charlescwcooke

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The Truth about the Second Amendment | National Review

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It was always meant to protect an individual right Stop me if you've heard this one before. In 1791, the Founding Fathers placed into the U.S. Constitution a set of ten amendments that we refer to collectively as the "Bill of Rights." Among them was an innocuous measure designed to protect state militias against federal overreach.

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how the 2nd Amendment works, what it means, and how it's meant to be interpreted.
Conservative
(Anecdotes, Testimonials)

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At the center of the gun control debate, few things are as hotly disputed in the United States as the Constitution's Second Amendment.

The Second Amendment provides U.S. citizens the right to bear arms. Ratified in December 1791, the amendment says:

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.

James Madison originally proposed the Second Amendment shortly after the Constitution was officially ratified as a way to provide more power to state militias, which today are considered the National Guard. It was deemed a compromise between Federalists - those who supported the Constitution as it was ratified - and the anti-Federalists - those who supported states having more power. Having just used guns and other arms to ward off the English, the amendment was originally created to give citizens the opportunity to fight back against a tyrannical federal government.

The U.S. Constitution guarantees the inalienable rights of citizens.

Credit: Onur Ersin Shutterstock

Since its ratification, Americans have been arguing over the amendment's meaning and interpretation. One side interprets the amendment to mean it provides for collective rights, while the opposing view is that it provides individual rights.

Those who take the collective side think the amendment gives each state the right to maintain and train formal militia units that can provide protection against an oppressive federal government. They argue the "well regulated militia" clause clearly means the right to bear arms should only be given to these organized groups. They believe this allows for only those in the official militia to carry guns legally, and say the federal government cannot abolish state militias.

Those with the opposite viewpoint believe the amendment gives every citizen the right to own guns, free of federal regulations, to protect themselves in the face of danger. The individualists believe the amendment's militia clause was never meant to restrict each citizen's rights to bear arms.

Both interpretations have helped shape the country's ongoing gun control debate. Those supporting an individual's right to own a gun, such as the National Rifle Association, argue that the Second Amendment should give all citizens, not just members of a militia, the right to own a gun. Those supporting stricter gun control, like the Brady Campaign, believe the Second Amendment isn't a blank check for anyone to own a gun. They feel that restrictions on firearms, such as who can have them, under what conditions, where they can be taken, and what types of firearms are available, are necessary.

While the right to bear arms is regularly debated in the court of public opinion, it is the Supreme Court whose opinion matters most. Yet despite an ongoing public battle over gun ownership rights, until recent years the Supreme Court had said very little on the issue.

The Supreme Court Building in Washington, D.C.

Credit: Steve Heap/Shutterstock

One of the first rulings came in 1876 in U.S. v. Cruikshank. The case involved members of the Ku Klux Klan not allowing black citizens the right to standard freedoms, such as the right to assembly and the right to bear arms. As part of the ruling, the court said the right of each individual to bear arms was not granted under the Constitution. Ten years later, the court affirmed the ruling in Presser v. Illinois when it said that the Second Amendment only limited the federal government from prohibiting gun ownership, not the states.

The Supreme Court took up the issue again in 1894 in Miller v. Texas. In this case, Dallas' Franklin Miller sued the state of Texas, arguing that despite state laws saying otherwise, he should have been able to carry a concealed weapon under Second Amendment protection. The court disagreed, saying the Second Amendment does not apply to state laws, like Texas' restrictions on carrying dangerous weapons.

All three of the cases heard before 1900 cemented the court's opinion that the Bill of Rights, and specifically the Second Amendment, does not prohibit states from setting their own rules on gun ownership.

Until recently, the Supreme Court hadn't ruled on the Second Amendment since U.S. v. Miller in 1939. In that case, Jack Miller and Frank Layton were arrested for carrying an unregistered sawed-off shotgun across state lines, which had been prohibited since the National Firearms Act was enacted five years earlier. Miller argued that the National Firearms Act violated their rights under the Second Amendment. The Supreme Court disagreed, however, saying "in the absence of any evidence tending to show that possession or use of a 'shotgun having a barrel of less than eighteen inches in length' at this time has some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia, we cannot say that the Second Amendment guarantees the right to keep and bear such an instrument."

It would be nearly 70 years before the court took up the issue again, this time in the District of Columbia v. Heller in 2008. The case centered on Dick Heller, a licensed special police office in Washington, D.C., who challenged the nation's capital's handgun ban. For the first time, the Supreme Court ruled that despite state laws, individuals who were not part of a state militia did have the right to bear arms. As part of its ruling, the court wrote, "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 within the home."

The court would rule on the issue again two years later as part of McDonald v. City of Chicago, which challenged the city's ban on private handgun ownership. In a similar 5-to-4 ruling, the court affirmed its decision in the Heller case, saying the Second Amendment "applies equally to the federal government and the states."

In 2016, the Supreme Court again ruled on a right-to-bear-arms case, Caetano v. Massachusetts. The case involved a woman who was in possession of a stun gun for self-defense against an abusive ex-boyfriend. Because stun guns were illegal under Massachusetts law, the woman was arrested and convicted for possessing the weapon. The case made its way to the Supreme Court, which ruled that stun guns and, indeed "all instruments that constitute bearable arms," are protected under the Second Amendment.

In 2017, the Supreme Court declined to hear Peruta v. California, a gun-rights case centering around concealed carry, or the right to carry a concealed handgun in public. California requires that applicants for a concealed carry license show "good cause," such as a specific threat to a person's safety. A Vietnam veteran named Edward Peruta challenged this requirement as a curtailment of his Second Amendment rights. While Heller was a case about keeping firearms in the home for self-protection, Peruta v. California was about whether that right extends to the public sphere. Justice Clarence Thomas and new justice Neil Gorsuch dissented from the refusal to review the case, indicating that the Supreme Court's newest justice may be particularly conservative on gun rights.

Meanwhile, the battle over gun rights continues at the state level. A 2016 working paper from Harvard Business School researchers found that a mass shooting leads to a 15 percent increase in the number of firearm-related bills introduced into the state legislature that year. The more fatalities, the larger the increase in firearm bills. But the bills aren't always what you might expect: When Republicans hold power in the state legislature after a mass shooting, the number of laws enacted to loosen gun restrictions goes up 75 percent. Democrat-controlled legislatures, on the other hand, did not enact a higher rate of regulation-tightening laws immediately after mass shootings than before.

"This is consistent with survey evidence suggesting that even when a majority supports a gun-control proposal, those opposed to increased gun control are more likely to take actions like writing a letter or donating money to support their side," the researchers wrote.

Despite the recent rulings, the debate on gun control continues. Incidents like those in Aurora, CO and Sandy Hook in Newtown, CT only serve as motivation for both sides to have their opinions heard and considered.

Related:

Editor's Note: This reference article was first published on Jan. 22, 2013. It was updated with new cases and information on June 26, 2017.

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The Second Amendment & the Right to Bear Arms

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At the center of the gun control debate, few things are as hotly disputed in the United States as the Constitution's Second Amendment. The Second Amendment provides U.S. citizens the right to bear arms. Ratified in December 1791, the amendment says: 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.

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How to change the second 2nd Amendment and how it was written
Liberal
(Statistics, Hyperbole)

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"A fraud on the American public." That's how former Chief Justice Warren Burger described the idea that the Second Amendment gives an unfettered individual right to a gun. When he spoke these words to PBS in 1990, the rock-ribbed conservative appointed by Richard Nixon was expressing the longtime consensus of historians and judges across the political spectrum.

Twenty-five years later, Burger's view seems as quaint as a powdered wig. Not only is an individual right to a firearm widely accepted, but increasingly states are also passing laws to legalize carrying weapons on streets, in parks, in bars-even in churches.

Story Continued Below

Many are startled to learn that the U.S. Supreme Court didn't rule that the Second Amendment guarantees an individual's right to own a gun until 2008, when District of Columbia v. Heller struck down the capital's law effectively banning handguns in the home. In fact, every other time the court had ruled previously, it had ruled otherwise. Why such a head-snapping turnaround? Don't look for answers in dusty law books or the arcane reaches of theory.

So how does legal change happen in America? We've seen some remarkably successful drives in recent years-think of the push for marriage equality, or to undo campaign finance laws. Law students might be taught that the court is moved by powerhouse legal arguments or subtle shifts in doctrine. The National Rifle Association's long crusade to bring its interpretation of the Constitution into the mainstream teaches a different lesson: Constitutional change is the product of public argument and political maneuvering. The pro-gun movement may have started with scholarship, but then it targeted public opinion and shifted the organs of government. By the time the issue reached the Supreme Court, the desired new doctrine fell like a ripe apple from a tree.

***

The Second Amendment consists of just one sentence: "A well regulated militia, being necessary for the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed." Today, scholars debate its bizarre comma placement, trying to make sense of the various clauses, and politicians routinely declare themselves to be its "strong supporters." But in the grand sweep of American history, this sentence has never been among the most prominent constitutional provisions. In fact, for two centuries it was largely ignored.

The amendment grew out of the political tumult surrounding the drafting of the Constitution, which was done in secret by a group of mostly young men, many of whom had served together in the Continental Army. Having seen the chaos and mob violence that followed the Revolution, these "Federalists" feared the consequences of a weak central authority. They produced a charter that shifted power-at the time in the hands of the states-to a new national government.

"Anti-Federalists" opposed this new Constitution. The foes worried, among other things, that the new government would establish a "standing army" of professional soldiers and would disarm the 13 state militias, made up of part-time citizen-soldiers and revered as bulwarks against tyranny. These militias were the product of a world of civic duty and governmental compulsion utterly alien to us today. Every white man age 16 to 60 was enrolled. He was actually required to own-and bring-a musket or other military weapon.

On June 8, 1789, James Madison-an ardent Federalist who had won election to Congress only after agreeing to push for changes to the newly ratified Constitution-proposed 17 amendments on topics ranging from the size of congressional districts to legislative pay to the right to religious freedom. One addressed the "well regulated militia" and the right "to keep and bear arms." We don't really know what he meant by it. At the time, Americans expected to be able to own guns, a legacy of English common law and rights. But the overwhelming use of the phrase "bear arms" in those days referred to military activities.

There is not a single word about an individual's right to a gun for self-defense or recreation in Madison's notes from the Constitutional Convention. Nor was it mentioned, with a few scattered exceptions, in the records of the ratification debates in the states. Nor did the U.S. House of Representatives discuss the topic as it marked up the Bill of Rights. In fact, the original version passed by the House included a conscientious objector provision. "A well regulated militia," it explained, "composed of the body of the people, being the best security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed, but no one religiously scrupulous of bearing arms, shall be compelled to render military service in person."

Though state militias eventually dissolved, for two centuries we had guns (plenty!) and we had gun laws in towns and states, governing everything from where gunpowder could be stored to who could carry a weapon-and courts overwhelmingly upheld these restrictions. Gun rights and gun control were seen as going hand in hand. Four times between 1876 and 1939, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to rule that the Second Amendment protected individual gun ownership outside the context of a militia. As the Tennessee Supreme Court put it in 1840, "A man in the pursuit of deer, elk, and buffaloes might carry his rifle every day for forty years, and yet it would never be said of him that he had borne arms; much less could it be said that a private citizen bears arms because he has a dirk or pistol concealed under his clothes, or a spear in a cane."

***

Cue the National Rifle Association. We all know of the organization's considerable power over the ballot box and legislation. Bill Clinton groused in 1994 after the Democrats lost their congressional majority, "The NRA is the reason the Republicans control the House." Just last year, it managed to foster a successful filibuster of even a modest background-check proposal in the U.S. Senate, despite 90 percent public approval of the measure.

What is less known-and perhaps more significant-is its rising sway over constitutional law.

The NRA was founded by a group of Union officers after the Civil War who, perturbed by their troops' poor marksmanship, wanted a way to sponsor shooting training and competitions. The group testified in support of the first federal gun law in 1934, which cracked down on the machine guns beloved by Bonnie and Clyde and other bank robbers. When a lawmaker asked whether the proposal violated the Constitution, the NRA witness responded, "I have not given it any study from that point of view." The group lobbied quietly against the most stringent regulations, but its principal focus was hunting and sportsmanship: bagging deer, not blocking laws. In the late 1950s, it opened a new headquarters to house its hundreds of employees. Metal letters on the facade spelled out its purpose: firearms safety education, marksmanship training, shooting for recreation.

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How the NRA Rewrote the Second Amendment

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"A fraud on the American public." That's how former Chief Justice Warren Burger described the idea that the Second Amendment gives an unfettered individual right to a gun. When he spoke these words to PBS in 1990, the rock-ribbed conservative appointed by Richard Nixon was expressing the longtime consensus of historians and judges across the political spectrum.

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how to fix the 2nd Amendment
Conservative
Statistics, Anecdotes

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John Paul Stevens served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court from 1975 to 2010. This essay is excerpted from his new book, "Six Amendments: How and Why We Should Change the Constitution."

Following the massacre of grammar-school children in Newtown, Conn., in December 2012, high-powered weapons have been used to kill innocent victims in more senseless public incidents. Those killings, however, are only a fragment of the total harm caused by the misuse of firearms. Each year, more than 30,000 people die in the United States in firearm-related incidents. Many of those deaths involve handguns.

The adoption of rules that will lessen the number of those incidents should be a matter of primary concern to both federal and state legislators. Legislatures are in a far better position than judges to assess the wisdom of such rules and to evaluate the costs and benefits that rule changes can be expected to produce. It is those legislators, rather than federal judges, who should make the decisions that will determine what kinds of firearms should be available to private citizens, and when and how they may be used. Constitutional provisions that curtail the legislative power to govern in this area unquestionably do more harm than good.

The first 10 amendments to the Constitution placed limits on the powers of the new federal government. Concern that a national standing army might pose a threat to the security of the separate states led to the adoption of the Second Amendment, which provides that "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."

For more than 200 years following the adoption of that amendment, federal judges uniformly understood that the right protected by that text was limited in two ways: First, it applied only to keeping and bearing arms for military purposes, and second, while it limited the power of the federal government, it did not impose any limit whatsoever on the power of states or local governments to regulate the ownership or use of firearms. Thus, in United States v. Miller, decided in 1939, the court unanimously held that Congress could prohibit the possession of a sawed-off shotgun because that sort of weapon had no reasonable relation to the preservation or efficiency of a "well regulated Militia."

When I joined the court in 1975, that holding was generally understood as limiting the scope of the Second Amendment to uses of arms that were related to military activities. During the years when Warren Burger was chief justice, from 1969 to 1986, no judge or justice expressed any doubt about the limited coverage of the amendment, and I cannot recall any judge suggesting that the amendment might place any limit on state authority to do anything.

Organizations such as the National Rifle Association disagreed with that position and mounted a vigorous campaign claiming that federal regulation of the use of firearms severely curtailed Americans' Second Amendment rights. Five years after his retirement, during a 1991 appearance on "The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour," Burger himself remarked that the Second Amendment "has been the subject of one of the greatest pieces of fraud, I repeat the word 'fraud,' on the American public by special interest groups that I have ever seen in my lifetime."

In recent years two profoundly important changes in the law have occurred. In 2008, by a vote of 5 to 4, the Supreme Court decided in District of Columbia v. Heller that the Second Amendment protects a civilian's right to keep a handgun in his home for purposes of self-defense. And in 2010, by another vote of 5 to 4, the court decided in McDonald v. Chicago that the due process clause of the 14th Amendment limits the power of the city of Chicago to outlaw the possession of handguns by private citizens. I dissented in both of those cases and remain convinced that both decisions misinterpreted the law and were profoundly unwise. Public policies concerning gun control should be decided by the voters' elected representatives, not by federal judges.

In my dissent in the McDonald case, I pointed out that the court's decision was unique in the extent to which the court had exacted a heavy toll "in terms of state sovereignty. . . . Even apart from the States' long history of firearms regulation and its location at the core of their police powers, this is a quintessential area in which federalism ought to be allowed to flourish without this Court's meddling. Whether or not we can assert a plausible constitutional basis for intervening, there are powerful reasons why we should not do so."

"Across the Nation, States and localities vary significantly in the patterns and problems of gun violence they face, as well as in the traditions and cultures of lawful gun use. . . . The city of Chicago, for example, faces a pressing challenge in combating criminal street gangs. Most rural areas do not."

In response to the massacre of grammar-school students at Sandy Hook Elementary School, some legislators have advocated stringent controls on the sale of assault weapons and more complete background checks on purchasers of firearms. It is important to note that nothing in either the Heller or the McDonald opinion poses any obstacle to the adoption of such preventive measures.

First, the court did not overrule Miller. Instead, it "read Miller to say only that the Second Amendment does not protect those weapons not typically possessed by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes, such as short-barreled shotguns." On the preceding page of its opinion, the court made it clear that even though machine guns were useful in warfare in 1939, they were not among the types of weapons protected by the Second Amendment because that protected class was limited to weapons in common use for lawful purposes such as self-defense. Even though a sawed-off shotgun or a machine gun might well be kept at home and be useful for self-defense, neither machine guns nor sawed-off shotguns satisfy the "common use" requirement.

Thus, even as generously construed in Heller, the Second Amendment provides no obstacle to regulations prohibiting the ownership or use of the sorts of weapons used in the tragic multiple killings in Virginia, Colorado and Arizona in recent years. The failure of Congress to take any action to minimize the risk of similar tragedies in the future cannot be blamed on the court's decision in Heller.

A second virtue of the opinion in Heller is that Justice Antonin Scalia went out of his way to limit the court's holding not only to a subset of weapons that might be used for self-defense but also to a subset of conduct that is protected. The specific holding of the case covers only the possession of handguns in the home for purposes of self-defense, while a later part of the opinion adds emphasis to the narrowness of that holding by describing uses that were not protected by the common law or state practice. Prohibitions on carrying concealed weapons, or on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, and laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings or imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms are specifically identified as permissible regulations.

Thus, Congress's failure to enact laws that would expand the use of background checks and limit the availability of automatic weapons cannot be justified by reference to the Second Amendment or to anything that the Supreme Court has said about that amendment. What the members of the five-justice majority said in those opinions is nevertheless profoundly important, because it curtails the government's power to regulate the use of handguns that contribute to the roughly 88 firearm-related deaths that occur every day.

There is an intriguing similarity between the court's sovereign immunity jurisprudence, which began with a misinterpretation of the 11th Amendment, and its more recent misinterpretation of the Second Amendment. The procedural amendment limiting federal courts' jurisdiction over private actions against states eventually blossomed into a substantive rule that treats the common-law doctrine of sovereign immunity as though it were part of the Constitution itself. Of course, in England common-law rules fashioned by judges may always be repealed or amended by Parliament. And when the United States became an independent nation, Congress and every state legislature had the power to accept, to reject or to modify common-law rules that prevailed prior to 1776, except, of course, any rule that might have been included in the Constitution.

The Second Amendment expressly endorsed the substantive common-law rule that protected the citizen's right (and duty) to keep and bear arms when serving in a state militia. In its decision in Heller, however, the majority interpreted the amendment as though its draftsmen were primarily motivated by an interest in protecting the common-law right of self-defense. But that common-law right is a procedural right that has always been available to the defendant in criminal proceedings in every state. The notion that the states were concerned about possible infringement of that right by the federal government is really quite absurd.

As a result of the rulings in Heller and McDonald, the Second Amendment, which was adopted to protect the states from federal interference with their power to ensure that their militias were "well regulated," has given federal judges the ultimate power to determine the validity of state regulations of both civilian and militia-related uses of arms. That anomalous result can be avoided by adding five words to the text of the Second Amendment to make it unambiguously conform to the original intent of its draftsmen. As so amended, it would read:

"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms when serving in the Militia shall not be infringed."

Emotional claims that the right to possess deadly weapons is so important that it is protected by the federal Constitution distort intelligent debate about the wisdom of particular aspects of proposed legislation designed to minimize the slaughter caused by the prevalence of guns in private hands. Those emotional arguments would be nullified by the adoption of my proposed amendment. The amendment certainly would not silence the powerful voice of the gun lobby; it would merely eliminate its ability to advance one mistaken argument.

It is true, of course, that the public's reaction to the massacre of schoolchildren, such as the Newtown killings, and the 2013 murder of government employees at the Navy Yard in Washington, may also introduce a strong emotional element into the debate. That aspect of the debate is, however, based entirely on facts rather than fiction. The law should encourage intelligent discussion of possible remedies for what every American can recognize as an ongoing national tragedy.

Copyright © 2014 by John Paul Stevens. Reprinted with permission of Little, Brown and Company. All rights reserved.

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The five extra words that can fix the Second Amendment

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John Paul Stevens served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court from 1975 to 2010. This essay is excerpted from his new book, "Six Amendments: How and Why We Should Change the Constitution." Following the massacre of grammar-school children in Newtown, Conn., in December 2012, high-powered weapons have been used to kill innocent victims in more senseless public incidents.

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grand island goes on record protesting second amendment changes and regulations.
(plain folks, statistics).
Conservative

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The Grand Island Town Board on Tuesday took a stand against any new gun control measures that they say would further infringe on the rights of gun owners.

The Town Board approved a resolution that opposes the registration of long guns, social media and search engine history background checks for prospective gun buyers and the required purchase of liability insurance for gun owners. Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and Democratic legislators have said they support new gun control measures, but no bills have come to the floor yet.

The Grand Island resolution, which is largely ceremonial, calls for increasing penalties for gun-related crimes and addressing the intersection of mental health issues and gun violence.

The Town Board in March 2013 approved a resolution in opposition to the SAFE Act, the state's strict gun control measure that passed two months earlier.

Forum on SAFE Act draws backers - and a few critics - of gun rights

Tuesday's vote was 5-0, with Democratic Supervisor Nathan McMurray joining the three Republicans and one Independent on the board.

McMurray unsuccessfully attempted to introduce his own pro-Second Amendment resolution before voting for the resolution introduced by Republican board member Mike Madigan. McMurray's resolution emphasized the grave threat posed by gun violence and the town's support for laws that protect the rights of "lawful" gun owners while keeping the public safe.

The Wyoming County Board of Supervisors earlier this month approved its own pro-Second Amendment resolution.

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Grand Island goes on record supporting 2nd Amendment, opposing gun control measures

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The Grand Island Town Board on Tuesday took a stand against any new gun control measures that they say would further infringe on the rights of gun owners. The Town Board approved a resolution that opposes the registration of long guns, social media and search engine history background checks for prospective gun buyers and the required purchase of liability insurance for gun owners.

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Washington mulls 2nd amendment law, trying to slow down it's support and give anti 2nd Amendment people a boost.
(bandwagon)
Conservative

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In this small town, near the Canadian border, Police Chief Loren Culp has become a celebrity after announcing he would not enforce a new sweeping gun control law passed by state voters in November.

"I felt it was such a blatant disregard for constitutional rights that I felt like I had no choice but to stand up for the people that I served, and that's the citizens of Republic," Culp said.

Initiative 1639 touches on many areas of gun control. It bars 18 to 20 year olds from buying semi-automatic rifles and makes it a potential felony if your gun ends up in the wrong hands. The law also creates enhanced universal background checks, mandates firearms training before buying a semi-automatic weapon and defines an assault rifle as "any rifle which utilizes a portion of the energy of the firing cartridge to extract the fired cartridge case and chamber the next round, and which requires a separate pull of the trigger to fire each cartridge."

Voters across Washington state approved the measure 59-41. But in Ferry County, which includes Republic, nearly three out of four voters opposed it. Republic Mayor Elbert Koontz is among them.

"Everybody in Republic has a gun," said Koontz. "We don't have a giant crime rate because nobody in their right mind would come to a house where people have guns and know how to use them."

Chief Culp went even further than saying he would not enforce Initiative 1639, he also drafted an ordinance that would make Republic a gun rights sanctuary city. It would bar city employees from enforcing any gun law that infringes on the Second Amendment right to bear arms. When Culp announced his proposal to a recent city council meeting, most of the 250 residents attending gave him a standing ovation. It was a massive turnout, considering the city's population is about 1,000 people.

But in Seattle, the reaction was very different.

"We are a society built on the rule of law," said Renee Hopkins, CEO of Alliance for Gun Responsibility, which led the campaign for I-1639. "If we have leaders that are responsible for ensuring the laws are enforced, picking and choosing which laws they get to enforce, we have a huge problem."
FRANK MINITER: KAVANAUGH BRINGS CLEAR REASONING TO SECOND AMENDMENT DECISIONS
The 2nd Amendment Foundation, based in Bellevue, Wash. with 600,000 members nationwide, has joined the National Rifle Association in suing the state of Washington, seeking to overturn the new gun control measure. Its leader sees poetic justice in the political right getting into the sanctuary business, which up until now has been reserved for illegal immigrants.

"I guess it's a little unprecedented," said Alan Gottlieb, President of the 2nd Amendment Foundation. "We're moving into some unchartered territory in terms of defense of rights. In politics, there's always pushback. When you try to take people's rights away from them, they rebel. And that's what you see in Republic, Wash."

The gun rights sanctuary city ordinance will be discussed at the next city council meeting. Councilmember Rachel Siracuse isn't sure which way she'll vote. She is concerned that passing the ordinance might cost Republic much-needed state funding, or lead to a costly lawsuit.
DANA LOESCH: PELOSI, DEMS 'HAVE A HARD FIGHT AHEAD' ON GUN CONTROL
"I want to support our Second Amendment rights with all that I am, but yet I also want to protect our little city," said Siracuse.

The city council could vote on the measure before the new state gun law goes into effect January 1, 2019. The state's attorney general, Democrat Bob Ferguson, is a gun control supporter. His office said he would review the ordinance if it passes.

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Sanctuary city for gun rights? Washington state city mulls law to protect 2nd Amendment

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In this small town, near the Canadian border, Police Chief Loren Culp has become a celebrity after announcing he would not enforce a new sweeping gun control law passed by state voters in November.

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Wearing a diaper bag featuring a pro-Second Amendment sticker while surrounded by her three young daughters, Kimberly Idlett wanted to affirm to the public that she wasn't a potential criminal because of a desire to carry a firearm at Gathering Place.

The Oklahoma City native was one of a few dozen people standing in the rain outside Gathering Place on Saturday morning as part of a planned demonstration to show support for gun rights and protest the park's policy of banning open and concealed carry of firearms on its premises.

"I'm not a criminal," Idlett said. "There is nothing to be worried about. I have had a background check.

"There is nothing to be afraid of because we only want to protect ourselves."

The rally was held a month after three Oklahoma Second Amendment Association members were turned away from Gathering Place during the park's official opening on Sept. 8. They were spotted that day by park security and Tulsa police officers, who made them leave the property.

Don Spencer, president of the organization, maintained Saturday that Gathering Place, River Parks Authority and the city can't legally restrict residents from carrying firearms in public spaces, according to Oklahoma state law.

"(They) are going to come into compliance with state law one way or the other," said Spencer, who was prompted to act after reading the Gathering Place policy prohibiting firearms before the park even opened. "We ask them to do it so we don't have to force them to."

Title 21, Section 1277, of Oklahoma Statutes has an exception allowing for the carry of legally licensed concealed or unconcealed handguns on "any property designated by a city, town, county or state governmental authority as a park, recreational area or fairgrounds."

In response to the rally, Gathering Place issued a statement explaining that "parks routinely prohibit firearms and the courts have routinely upheld such prohibitions."

"The community responded with their thoughts, including an emphatic response that firearms at the park are not conducive to creating this welcoming environment," the statement said. "We have, however, made it clear that our policy is lawful and that any entry into Gathering Place with firearms, whether concealed or unconcealed, will constitute an actionable trespass," the statement said. "We thank all our visitors for their understanding and compliance with the enforcement of these regulations."

State Sen. Nathan Dahm, R-Broken Arrow, attended the rally Saturday and encouraged revision of the policy.

He said allowing guns in the park could prevent violence, especially something like a potential mass shooting.

"We've seen mass shootings take place in gun-free zones," said Dahm. "By banning guns, all you would do is stop law-abiding citizens from having firearms in that public space. Criminals don't follow a simple sign that says no guns allowed. In fact, criminals often look for those gun-free zones to try to perpetrate attacks."

Leeann Crosby, a counter-protester positioned across the street from the rally, said guns in the vicinity of children - concealed or not - only presented a public concern.

"We want to keep our community safe because bringing guns into the neighborhood isn't going to keep us safe," said Crosby. "That's not something we need in a family-oriented place. We want families to come here and feel safe and enjoy their time."

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Gun-rights supporters hold rally at Gathering Place to protest park's firearm restriction policy (copy) (copy)

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Wearing a diaper bag featuring a pro-Second Amendment sticker while surrounded by her three young daughters, Kimberly Idlett wanted to affirm to the public that she wasn't a potential criminal because of a desire to carry a firearm at Gathering Place.

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Students plan 16 minute walkout to back Second Amendment
(Slogan, Bandwagon)
Conservative

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Students at schools across the nation plan to walk out of their classrooms Wednesday to show their support for the Second Amendment.

The national event, called "Stand for the Second," was started by New Mexico high schooler Will Riley. Students say they will walk out of classes for 16 minutes. Organizers say they expect students in more than 40 states to take part.

The event comes just over a month after students around the country staged a walkout aimed at stopping gun violence and honoring the students killed at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., in February.

Riley, 18, a senior at Carlsbad High School, told the Carlsbad Current-Argus last month that media reports on the student gun protests prompted him to organize "Stand for the Second."

"I'm watching the news and I see they're saying, 'Well we have to do something about this. We have to enact some sort of gun control legislation because this is what the kids are asking for.' And I'm thinking, 'I'm not asking for that,' " Riley said. "I look at my friends and I think 'They're not asking for that.'

"I wanted to give a voice to all of the people who feel that they're being misrepresented by the media."

Zach Bell, 18, a senior at Grand Ledge High School near Lansing, Mich., is one of those planning to walk out. He said the event is an opportunity for students to voice support for the Second Amendment.

"It is a vital part of our Bill of Rights," Bell said. "I believe it's important. Without it we wouldn't be the country that we are today."

Bell said he expects at least a few dozen students to join him Wednesday. Participants will gather near the flag pole on the school's front lawn, he said.

Grand Ledge Public Schools Superintendent Brian Metcalf said school officials will lend the same support to Bell that they gave to the approximately 50 students who participated in the March walkout.

"Students have a First Amendment right to express their views," Metcalf said Tuesday. "We want them to develop their own voice. I think you've got to give them some leeway for expressing those thoughts."
Ashley White reports for the Tallahassee Democrat. Contributing: Rachel Greco, Lansing (Mich.) State Journal and DeJanay Booth, Carlsbad (N.M.) Current-Argus More: More: Trump at Mar-a-Lago as thousands march in D.C. White House applauds 'courageous young Americans' Wisconsin high schooler sues principal who banned T-shirts depicting guns

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'Stand for the Second': Students across USA plan 16-minute walkout to back Second Amendment

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The pro-Second Amendment walkout comes just over a month after students around the country staged a walkout aimed at stopping gun violence and honoring the students killed at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., in February. New Mexico high schooler Will Riley planned the event.

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Is it possible to repeal the Second Amendment?
(False Statistics) Liberal

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If the problem continues, contact the site owner.

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"Not a snowflakes chance in hell" of repealing the Second Amendment
(Name calling, Loaded words)
Conservative

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there's not a 'snowflake's chance in hell' of repealing the second amendment - cnnpolitics

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There's not a 'snowflake's chance in hell' of repealing the Second Amendment

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How could those high school kids have marched en masse and not achieved any meaningful reform?

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It would be hard to repeal the second Amendment
(Loaded Words, Hyperbole, Pathos)
Liberal

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Repeal The Second Amendment? That’s Not So Simple. Here’s What It Would Take

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The Founding Fathers were willing to be edited, it seems, but they did not want it to be easy. So they made the amending process a steep uphill climb, requiring a clear national consensus to succeed.

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The 2nd Amendment isn't the problem
(Bandwagon,

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8th grader banned from wearing pro-gun shirts sues

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(Newser) - An eighth-grade student has filed a federal lawsuit accusing his northern Nevada school district of violating his First Amendment rights by telling him his pro-gun T-shirt violates the district's dress code. The suit filed in US District Court in Reno alleges the Washoe County School District policy prohibiting depictions of "anything that promotes weapons" is unconstitutional, the AP reports. It says the discriminatory nature of the policy is underscored by the fact the school district allowed students to participate in recent protests in support of gun control. The boy has been disciplined twice for wearing pro-gun clothing-once last November and once on March 12, the Reno Gazette Journal reports.

One shirt had a logo for a local gun store, Sparks Black Rifle, with silhouettes of a rifle and a handgun. The other didn't depict any weapons but promoted the Firearms Policy Coalition-a gun rights advocacy group-with the words, "Don't Tread on Me," the lawsuit says.The lawsuit was filed by Reno lawyer David O'Mara on behalf of the youth and his parents. The suit says the Depoali Middle School student has a First Amendment right to speak out in favor of the Second Amendment right to bear arms. "The shirt did not promote or advocate any illegal activity; it contained no violent or offensive imagery; nothing on it was obscene... It was pure political speech," the suit states.

(Read more Nevada stories.)

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8th-Grader Banned From Wearing Pro-Gun Shirts Sues

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(Newser) - An eighth-grade student has filed a federal lawsuit accusing his northern Nevada school district of violating his First Amendment rights by telling him his pro-gun T-shirt violates the district's dress code. The suit filed in US District Court in Reno alleges the Washoe County School District policy prohibiting depictions of "anything that promotes weapons" is unconstitutional, the AP reports.

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Oliver North looks to recruit millions to NRA

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Former Lt. Col. Oliver North speaks at the NRA-ILA Leadership Forum on May 4, 2018, in Dallas. | Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Incoming National Rifle Association President Oliver North said Sunday that he wants to expand the powerful group's membership by millions as it looks to fend off gun control efforts amid an outbreak of fatal school shootings.

North outlined his plans in a "Fox News Sunday" interview after 10 people were killed Friday in a shooting at Santa Fe High School near Houston. The massacre has again prompted calls for Congress to take action.

Story Continued Below

North, best known for his role in the Iran-Contra scandal during the 1980s, said Sunday that he is looking at ways to more than double the NRA's membership of 6 million - an expansion aimed at boosting the group's political clout.

"My goal is a million more members," he said. "Then I'm going to go out and ask every NRA member to recruit one more. That will put 14 million activists on the street - not the types [billionaire philanthropist] George Soros is fielding, not the types that showed up down there in Dallas to protest our right to gather. But those who are going to vote for people who support the Second Amendment."

In discussing Friday's mass shooting, North reiterated the NRA position that guns are not to blame.

"We're trying like the dickens to treat the symptom without treating the disease. And the disease in this case isn't the Second Amendment," the former Marine lieutenant colonel said.

"The disease is youngsters who are steeped in a culture of violence. They've been drugged, in many cases. Nearly all of these perpetrators are male. And they're young teenagers, in most cases. They've come through a culture where violence is commonplace - all you need to do is turn on a TV, go to a movie."

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Oliver North looks to recruit millions to NRA

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Incoming National Rifle Association President Oliver North said Sunday that he wants to expand the powerful group's membership by millions as it looks to fend off gun control efforts amid an outbreak of fatal school shootings. North outlined his plans in a "Fox News Sunday" interview after 10 people were killed Friday in a shooting at Santa Fe High School near Houston.

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Supreme Court is intentionally silent on gun issues

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When the Supreme Court in 2008 overturned a tough Washington, D.C. gun-control law, it handed down a landmark ruling that effectively guaranteed individual Americans the right to own firearms - and seemed to stake out the high court's position on the Second Amendment, among the most fiercely debated rights enshrined in the Constitution.

Wayne LaPierre, president of the National Rifle Association, gave the court an enthusiastic high-five in an NRA editorial: "Our founding fathers wrote and intended the Second Amendment to be an individual right. The Supreme Court has now acknowledged it."

Yet since it decided that Dick Anthony Heller, a security guard living in a tough Washington neighborhood, could have a gun at home, the high court has become noticeably gun-shy.

As the nation grappled, again, with whether to regulate firearms following a mass shooting at a Florida high school, the justices last month took a hard pass on hearing Sylvester v. Becerra, a case challenging California's 10-day waiting period before gun purchases - and a law high on the NRA's target list.

The court would have put the case on its docket if only four of the nine justices voted yes. That means a lower court ruling upholding the law stands - and Justice Clarence Thomas, whose ideological range is anchored in the far right, was not happy.

"We have not heard argument in a Second Amendment case for nearly eight years," Thomas complained in a scathing dissent to the decision rejecting the Becerra case.

"Meanwhile," he continued, "in this Term alone, we have granted review in at least five cases involving the First Amendment and four cases involving the Fourth Amendment," which Thomas declared are among the justices' "favored rights."

The right to "keep and bear arms," Thomas drily wrote, "is apparently this Court's constitutional orphan."

Adam Waldman, a law professor in California and a Second Amendment expert, says Thomas' stance "reflects widespread unhappiness [with the Supreme Court] among the strongest gun rights advocates."

Gun rights advocates were "buoyed" by the Heller decision, Waldman says, and "they genuinely expected [the court] would overturn a wide variety of gun control laws. "It hasn't worked out that way."

That has led some to assume that the Roberts court has become a silent but influential partner on the side of gun-control advocates, taking action by deciding not to act. But Waldman says the court has walked more of a middle path, weighing in sparingly on the issue and allowing the states and the lower federal courts to define the Second Amendment.

Gun owners and the NRA, he adds, have had "some successes. But there is still widespread dissatisfaction among gun rights advocates," Waldman says.

That's largely because the court has opted out of ruling on gun-rights issues, ranging from trigger locks to age restrictions for purchases.The court never weighed in on the federal assault-weapons ban, which lapsed in 2004. In 2017, they also declined to lower California's high bar for receiving a concealed-weapons license.

All of the restrictions had been approved by lower courts.

Yet "there are a number of very important open questions on the scope of the 2nd Amendment that the Supreme Court has refused to answer," Waldman says. "Does the right to carry a gun extend outside the home? Do you have the right to own a military assault rifle? Do you have a right to a high-capacity magazine?"

"There's a lot of questions that the Supreme Court has left the lower courts to answer," he says.

That could be because the late Justice Antonin Scalia, an anchor of the court's conservative bloc, laid down a marker in the Heller case.

Writing for the majority, Scalia declared that, like most rights, "the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited," and legal precedent "routinely" shows "that the right was not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose."

He went on: Although the ruling doesn't cover "the full scope" of the Second Amendment's history, "nothing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms."

But Thomas argues that the hands-off approach is emboldening the lower courts to give the Second Amendment second-class treatment and not "the respect due an enumerated constitutional right." The effect, he says is an erosion of the court's own authority.

"If a lower court treated another right so cavalierly, I have little doubt that this Court would intervene," Thomas wrote. "Our continued refusal to hear Second Amendment cases only enables this kind of defiance."

Nevertheless, the national debate over handguns could itself be the reason the court has been reluctant to act.

"The interesting question is why the Supreme Court has been unable to muster the four votes needed to review one of the many lower court rulings," Lawrence Friedman, a constitutional law professor at New England Law in Boston, wrote in The Hill late last week.

"There are two possible explanations," he wrote, including the possibility that Thomas is right and the high court looks down on the right to own weapons. But "the second is that neither of the justices most likely to agree to review one of the lower court decisions - Chief Justice John Roberts or Justice Anthony Kennedy, both in the Heller majority - currently has an interest in further developing the court's Second Amendment jurisprudence."

In other words, "this is simply not the right time for the Supreme Court to step into debates about the Second Amendment's scope," Friedman wrote. And that could be a subtle message, he adds, for gun control proponents.

"While Justice Thomas views that waiting period as a potential constitutional problem, Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Kennedy likely appreciate that a majority of Americans, and many of their elected representatives, support its potential to prevent another gun-related tragedy."

Joseph P. Williams, Staff Writer

Joseph P. Williams is a news editor with U.S. News & World Report. E-mail him at JWilliams@usne... Read more Joseph P. Williams is a news editor with U.S. News & World Report. E-mail him at JWilliams@usnews.com.

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When the Supreme Court in 2008 overturned a tough Washington, D.C. gun-control law, it handed down a landmark ruling that effectively guaranteed individual Americans the right to own firearms - and seemed to stake out the high court's position on the Second Amendment, among the most fiercely debated rights enshrined in the Constitution.

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Democrats want to disarm Republicans

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The plan to ban the sale and possession of certain kinds of firearms proposed by Virginia governor Ralph Northam (D.) could affect millions of gun owners, an industry group said on Friday.

The National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF), which represents gun manufacturers and dealers, said the vague description of the legislation released by Northam on Jan. 4 would apply to most firearms currently on sale in the commonwealth.

"The legislative proposals being discussed would put most firearms beyond the reach of law-abiding Virginians who choose the firearms of their choice to protect themselves, hunt, and practice recreational target shooting," said Lawrence G. Keane, the group's general counsel. "That could potentially impact the availability of tens of millions of firearms."

While short on details, Northam's announcement said part of the proposed gun-control package would ban the "sale, purchase, possession, and transport" of undefined "assault firearms" including "any firearm that is equipped with a magazine that holds more than 10 rounds of ammunition." Since the vast majority of semiautomatic handguns and rifles in the state are sold standard with magazines capable of holding 10 or more rounds, it appears the proposed ban would affect most firearms on sale in Virginia. Additionally, the announcement of the ban did not include mention of any grandfathering to allow what NSSF estimated would be millions of Virginians who already own such firearms to legally keep them.
Click for more from The Washington Free Beacon.

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Virginia governor's gun crackdown proposal could affect millions of residents

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The plan to ban the sale and possession of certain kinds of firearms proposed by Virginia governor Ralph Northam (D.) could affect millions of gun owners, an industry group said on Friday. The National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF), which represents gun manufacturers and dealers, said the vague description of the legislation released by Northam on Jan.

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Conservative judges worry that the second amendment has become a second class right

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Conservative judges worry that the Second Amendment has become "a second-class right."

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Credit Credit Damon Winter/The New York Times

A specter is haunting the Supreme Court - disrespect for the Second Amendment. Perhaps you haven't realized that the Supreme Court's disinclination to expand on its landmark 2008 decision creating an individual right to gun ownership means that the justices are treating the Second Amendment as a "second-class right." A "watered-down right." A "disfavored right."

If you are unaware of these outlandish claims, then you haven't tuned into the rising chorus of judicial voices demanding more from the Supreme Court than gun fanciers already won in that intensely disputed 5-to-4 decision a decade ago, District of Columbia v. Heller.

Why is this happening, and why now? To understand why the "second-class right" meme is suddenly penetrating the judicial conversation, we have to begin with Justice Clarence Thomas. He is not the first member of the current Supreme Court to use the phrase; Justice Samuel Alito Jr. used it in his 2010 opinion that extended the analysis of the Heller decision, which had applied only to Washington, D.C., as a federal enclave, to the states. The court was being asked, Justice Alito wrote in McDonald v. City of Chicago, "to treat the right recognized in Heller as a second-class right," which he said the court would not do.

But it is Justice Thomas who has taken up the phrase as a weapon, using it in a series of opinions over the past four years to accuse his colleagues of failing in their duty to keep pushing back against limitations on gun ownership and use. The opinions were all dissents from the court's decisions not to hear particular gun-rights appeals.

In 2015, for example, he wrote that the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit had been wrong to uphold an Illinois city's ban on assault weapons, and that by refusing to hear the appeal, his colleagues had failed to "prevent the Seventh Circuit from relegating the Second Amendment to a second-class right."

Last year, objecting to the court's decision not to hear a challenge to California's 10-day waiting period for gun purchases, Justice Thomas mused that "I suspect that four members of this court would vote to review a 10-day waiting period for abortions." He declared, "The right to keep and bear arms is apparently this court's constitutional orphan."

In another opinion, this time joined by Justice Neil Gorsuch, Justice Thomas said it was "indefensible" and "untenable" for the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit to have upheld California's ban on carrying concealed weapons. By turning down the appeal, he wrote, the justices were enabling "the treatment of the Second Amendment as a disfavored right." And in a remarkable concluding paragraph to his eight-page opinion, he added:

"For those of us who work in marbled halls, guarded constantly by a vigilant and dedicated police force, the guarantees of the Second Amendment might seem antiquated and superfluous. But the Framers made a clear choice: They reserved to all Americans the right to bear arms for self-defense. I do not think we should stand by idly while a state denies its citizens that right, particularly when their very lives may depend on it."

By calling attention to Justice Thomas's Second Amendment crusade, I want to make four points.

First, he's simply wrong. The court decided Heller to vindicate what the majority described as a "core" Second Amendment right - the right of an individual to keep a handgun at home for self-defense. That's all. Whatever else the Second Amendment enables people to do with their guns was left open. As Justice Antonin Scalia observed in his majority opinion, "It is not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose."

Maybe Justice Scalia included that and a few other disclaimers in order to stay within the comfort zone of a member of his narrowest of majorities, probably Justice Anthony M. Kennedy. Or maybe he was just kicking the can down the road. In any event, it's certainly not the case that justices who decline to overturn a 10-day waiting period can be accurately labeled hypocrites who are content to hide in their marble palace while leaving the populace unprotected.

Nor is the Second Amendment absolutism that Justice Thomas is calling for reflected in the way the Supreme Court interprets most other constitutional guarantees. Judge Bruce Selya of the Court of Appeals for the First Circuit made this point in a majority opinion in November rejecting a challenge to a provision of the Massachusetts gun licensing statute. "Even though the Second Amendment right is fundamental," Judge Selya, an appointee of President Ronald Reagan, wrote in his opinion for a unanimous panel, "the plaintiffs have offered us no valid reason to treat it more deferentially than other important constitutional rights." That decision, Gould v. Morgan, will shortly be appealed to the Supreme Court.

My second point is to underscore the role Justice Thomas plays in creating this rhetorical tidal wave. He is a Federalist Society icon and a hero to many young conservative lawyers, including the 10 former Thomas law clerks whom President Trump has already appointed to federal judgeships. (A dozen other former Thomas clerks hold important nonjudicial positions in the administration.) They and their colleagues among the new Trump judges, many of whom clerked for other conservative justices, are the ones who are making the "second-class right" mantra a standard feature of any Second Amendment dissent - in other words, not only that a particular majority opinion is incorrect, but that it is part of a dangerous trend that the Supreme Court, by implication if not explicitly, needs to address right now.

For example, the full 15-member Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit recently refused to reconsider a decision by a three-judge panel to uphold the longstanding federal ban on interstate sales of handguns. Dissenting from that refusal, Judge James C. Ho, a former Thomas clerk who joined the Fifth Circuit last year, cited Justice Thomas's opinions in observing, "Yet the Second Amendment continues to be treated as a 'second-class' right."

His dissent included a subtle dig at Chief Justice John Roberts, who notably has not joined Justice Thomas's Second Amendment choir. The government rationale for the ban on interstate handgun sales is that while federally licensed firearm dealers can be expected to know the laws of their own state, they may not be familiar with laws of other states and so may not know whether an out-of-state purchaser is legally entitled to own a gun.

That is not sufficient justification for the ban, Judge Ho wrote; if dealers could learn their own state's laws, they could learn other states' laws as well. "Put simply, the way to require compliance with state handgun laws is to require compliance with state handgun laws," he wrote in a riff on the chief justice's much-discussed line in a 2007 school integration case: "The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race."

Judge Ho's Fifth Circuit colleague Don R. Willett, another new member of the court, observed in his own dissenting opinion in the same case, "The Second Amendment is neither second class, nor second rate, nor second tier." An appeal in that case, Mance v. Whitaker, is now pending at the Supreme Court, and the justices will decide this month or next whether to accept it.

Another new judge, Stephanos Bibas, dissented last month from a decision by a panel of the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit that upheld a New Jersey law limiting a firearm magazine to 10 rounds of ammunition. He said the state had failed to provide sufficient evidence that "specifically links large magazines to mass-shooting deaths." Acknowledging that five other federal circuit courts have also upheld limits on magazine sizes, Judge Bibas observed that while judges were understandably concerned about gun violence, "they err in subjecting the Second Amendment to different, watered-down rules and demanding little if any proof."

"The Second Amendment is an equal part of the Bill of Rights," Judge Bibas wrote. "We may not water it down and balance it away based on our own sense of wise policy." That case is likely to be appealed to the Supreme Court. The New Jersey affiliate of the National Rifle Association, which brought the case, is first seeking review by the full Third Circuit.

The 49-year-old Judge Bibas, a former law professor, won plaudits for his dissenting opinion. "It is easy to see why President Trump chose to appoint him," said an article on the website ammoland.com that appeared under the headline: "Third Circuit: Second Amendment Is a Second Rate Right." John O. McGinnis, a well-known conservative professor at Northwestern University Law School, writing on the Law and Liberty website, called Judge Bibas's dissent "the judicial equivalent of a perfect game, a first-round knockout, or a checkmate within 10 moves." He added, "It will not be the last opinion of the Trump appellate judges that will shake the judiciary from its dogmatic slumber."

My third point is this: Professor McGinniss may well be right, at least when it comes to the Second Amendment. The substitution of Brett Kavanaugh for Justice Kennedy may do the trick. On his former court, the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, Justice Kavanaugh took an aggressive gun-rights position, dissenting in 2011 from a decision that upheld the district's ban on certain assault rifles.

Calling the majority's analytical approach to the case "especially inappropriate," then-Judge Kavanaugh wrote: "A ban on a class of arms is not an 'incidental' regulation. It is equivalent to a ban on a category of speech." As a matter of constitutional doctrine, I understand his argument: that a right deemed by the Supreme Court to be fundamental, whether under the First Amendment or the Second, is entitled to the highest level of judicial protection. Nonetheless, to analogize possession of assault rifles to the right to free speech is a provocative move.

The two conservative judges who made up the majority on the three-judge panel, Douglas Ginsburg and Karen LeCraft Henderson, were sufficiently provoked by Judge Kavanaugh's 52-page dissent that they added to their own opinion an unusual six-page "appendix" for the specific purpose of contesting his arguments. "The dissent mischaracterizes the question before us," Judge Ginsburg wrote for himself and Judge Henderson. "We simply do not read Heller as foreclosing every ban on every possible sub-class of handguns or, for that matter, a ban on a sub-class of rifles."

Justice Thomas himself has cited Judge Kavanaugh's dissenting opinion favorably. It would hardly be surprising for Justice Kavanaugh to return the favor and join the crusade.

And that brings me to my final point. The Supreme Court's appetite for expanding the Second Amendment, if such an appetite develops, will be wildly out of sync with the mood of the country. As The Times reported last month, based on data compiled by a gun-control advocacy group, public support for gun-control measures is surging. State legislatures passed 69 gun-control measures in 2018, more than three times the number in the previous year. More than half the states enacted at least one, while 90 percent of bills the National Rifle Association backed at the state level were defeated.

Even the Trump administration has caught the trend, with its announcement last month of a ban on bump stocks, the cheap attachments that turn ordinary rifles into something close to machine guns and that the Las Vegas killer used to commit mass murder a year ago. The ban, to take effect in March, has already drawn at least two lawsuits. Perhaps these lawsuits will be a step too far even for the Second Amendment newbies on the federal bench. Or maybe not.

Does it matter if the public and the Supreme Court are running in opposite directions? It's good news to anyone who would like to accelerate the collapse of public confidence in the one organ of government that at the moment seems to stand between us and disaster. For the rest of us, it's one more thing to worry about as the new year begins.
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Linda Greenhouse, the winner of the 1998 Pulitzer Prize, writes on alternate Thursdays about the Supreme Court and the law. She reported on the Supreme Court for The Times from 1978 to 2008, and is the author of several books.

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Opinion | A Call to Arms at the Supreme Court

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Conservative judges worry that the Second Amendment has become "a second-class right." A specter is haunting the Supreme Court - disrespect for the Second Amendment. Perhaps you haven't realized that the Supreme Court's disinclination to expand on its landmark 2008 decision creating an individual right to gun ownership means that the justices are treating the Second Amendment as a "second-class right."