I sent this reply:
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I must take issue with some of the points you make in your article:
#1) "The second amendment, far from referring to 'a right to bear arms,' as it is so often quoted, reads: 'A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the rights of the people to keep
and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.' The reference is obvious to the militia, the National Guard of the days the founding fathers were composing this document by which we live."
There was no organized National Guard at the time the Constitution was written. In that era, all able-bodied men of adult age were considered to be members of the militia. It was a citizen militia, not organized by the government. Every citizen was expected to bring his own firearms, thus the
government was not allowed to restrict citizen's access to such firearms.
#2) "The Supreme Court first addressed the issue to the right to bear arms in the United States v. Cruikshank. In that case, Ku Klux Klan members were charged with infringing the constitutional rights of black citizens to bear arms. The Supreme Court ruled that the right of the people to keep and bear arms 'is not a right granted by the Constitution.'"
The relevant portion of the ruling you mention is "6. The right to bear arms is not granted by the Constitution; neither is it in any manner dependent upon that instrument for its existence. The second amendment means no more than that it shall not be infringed by Congress, and has no other effect than to restrict the powers of the national government."
You left off the last portion of the sentence, where they say "neither is it in any manner dependent upon that instrument for its existance". None of the rights listed in the Bill of Rights was "granted" by the
government. The Bill of Rights was added because a number of the states would not ratify the Constitution without an explicit list of inalienable rights that the federal government could not ever infringe!
"The Supreme Court reaffirmed Cruikshank's rule in Pressner v. Illinois. " What the ruling said was that this particuar law did not impact an individual's right to keep and bear arms, but that it does allow the state to regulate the manner in which those firearms are paraded in public.
In fact, part of the ruling states: "It is undoubtedly true that all citizens capable of bearing arms constitute the reserved military force or reserve militia of the United States as well as of the states, and, in view of
this prerogative of the general government, as well as of its general powers, the states cannot, even laying the constitutional provision in question out of view, prohibit the people from keeping and bearing
arms, so as to deprive the United States of their rightful resource for maintaining the public security, and disable the people from performing their duty to the general government. " So, not only does the ruling
not reaffirm Cruikshank's rule, it supports my previous contention that the federal government has no right to infringe gun owner's rights!
#3) As to Miller vs. United States (1939). First off, you have the wrong link, it should be
http://caselaw.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=307&invol=174.
But, that's beside the point.
In that case, they ruled "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." Because they were not shown any evidence that a shotgun had a defined military purpose, they said that the possession of the shotgun was not protected under the Second Amendment. (Unfortunately, they were misinformed, since the US military had been using shotguns since the turn of the century). In no way did they state that the Second Amendment did not apply to an individual's right to keep and bear arms.
You go on to site other cases, but I don't have the time to read all of them. Apparantly you didn't either. I hope my arguments will encourage you to check your facts before putting your opinions in print and your foot in your mouth.
Thanks,
Richard Brucher
Atlanta GA
