Second Amendment to the United States Constitution - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Second Amendment to the United States Constitution

Overview

The Second Amendment (Amendment II) to the United States Constitution

United States Constitution

The Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the United States of America. It is the framework for the organization of the United States government and for the relationship of the federal government with the states, citizens, and all people within the United States.The first three...

is the part of the United States Bill of Rights

United States Bill of Rights

The Bill of Rights is the collective name for the first ten amendments to the United States Constitution. These limitations serve to protect the natural rights of liberty and property. They guarantee a number of personal freedoms, limit the government's power in judicial and other proceedings, and...

that protects the right of the people to keep and bear arms. It was adopted on December 15, 1791, along with the rest of the Bill of Rights.

In 2008 and 2010, the Supreme Court

Supreme Court of the United States

The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest court in the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all state and federal courts, and original jurisdiction over a small range of cases...

issued two Second Amendment decisions. In District of Columbia v. Heller

District of Columbia v. Heller

District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 , was a landmark case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution protects an individual's right to possess a firearm for traditionally lawful purposes in federal enclaves, such as...

(2008), the Court ruled that the Second Amendment protects an individual's right to possess a firearm, unconnected to service in a militia and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home.

Quotations

No freeman shall ever be debarred the use of arms.

Proposed Virginia Constitution, June, 1776.

The Constitution of most of our states (and of the United States) assert that all power is inherent in the people; that they may exercise it by themselves;... that it is their right and duty to be at all times armed and that they are entitled to freedom of person, freedom of religion, freedom of property, and freedom of press.

Letter to Major John Cartwright (June 5 1824).

Here every private person is authorized to arm himself, and on the strength of this authority, I do not deny the inhabitants had a right to arm themselves at that time, for their defense, not for offence.

As defense attorney for the British soldiers on trial for the Boston Massacre. Reported in L. Kinvin Wroth and Hiller B. Zobel, ed., Legal Papers of John Adams (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1965), 3:248.

To see that the people be continually trained up in the exercise of arms, and the militia lodged only in the people's hands.

Marchamont Nedhams|Marchamont Nedhams, reported in Adams', 'A Defense of the Constitutions of the Government of the United States of America 3:471 (1788); Adams wrote there that "[T]he rule in general is excellent".

[W]hen the resolution of enslaving America was formed in Great Britain, the British Parliament was advised by an artful man, who was governor of Pennsylvania, to disarm the people; that it was the best and most effectual way to enslave them; but that they should not do it openly, but weaken them, and let them sink gradually. . . .

At Virginia's U.S. Constitution ratification convention (June 14, 1788), reported in Elliot, Debates of the Several State Conventions 3:380.

I ask, who are the militia? They consist now of the whole people, except a few public officers. But I cannot say who will be the militia of the future day. If that paper on the table gets no alteration, the militia of the future day may not consist of all classes, high and low, and rich and poor. . . .

Virginia's U.S. Constitution ratification convention (June 16, 1788), reported in Elliot, Debates of the Several State Conventions 3:425.

That the People have a right to keep and bear Arms; that a well regulated Militia, composed of the Body of the People, trained to arms, is the proper, natural, and safe Defence of a free state.

Within Mason's declaration of "the essential and unalienable Rights of the People", later adopted by the Virginia ratification convention (1788).

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