Debate Magazine

Reports of the Demise of The Civic Right Interpretation of the Second Amendment Are Wrong.

Posted on the 18 September 2013 by Mikeb302000
Justice William O. Douglas was on the court at the time of US v. Miller, which is noted at the end of that decision.  This is his explanation of that decision from his dissent in Adams v. Williams, 407 U.S 143, 150 -51 (1972):
Reports of the demise of The Civic Right interpretation of the Second Amendment are wrong.
He also said in the same opinion that:
"There is under our decisions no reason why stiff state laws governing the purchase and possession of pistols may not be enacted. There is no reason why pistols may not be barred from anyone with a police record. There is no reason why a State may not require a purchaser of a pistol to pass a psychiatric test. There is no reason why all pistols should not be barred to everyone except the police."

This is from John Hockenberry's interview with Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg:
"My view of the 2nd Amendment is one based on history. The 2nd Amendment has a preamble about the need for a militia. Because there was a need to be at the ready, the right to keep and bear arms must be secured. Historically, the new government had no money to pay for an army, so they relied on the state militias, and the states required men to have certain weapons, and they specified in the law, what weapons these people had to keep in their home, so that when they were called to do service as militiamen, they would have them. That was the entire purpose of the 2nd Amendment. But when we no longer need people to keep muskets in their home, then the 2nd Amendment has no function. And my answer would be, yes, the 2nd Amendment is outdated in the sense that its function has become obsolete. And in my view if the court had properly interpreted the 2nd Amendment, the court would have said that Amendment was very important when the nation was new, it gave a qualified right to keep and bear arms, but it was for one purpose only - and that was the purpose of having militiamen who were able to fight to preserve the nation."
From my own research, I have found these to be an accurate description of the law.  I should also add that Justice Stevens followed the Civic Right interpretation in his dissent to DC  v. Heller.
While you may question my legal qualifications, I know of other legal scholars with impeccable qualifications who do follow the civic right interpretation.
My question to you: why should I change my opinion about the civic right interpretation based upon the unsupported, or incorrectly based, opinions of people on the internet whose qualifications I do not know?

And even if you want to pull the rewritten Second Amendment from Heller-McDonald, there is no excuse for not enacting some form of gun control:
Like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited. From Blackstone through the 19th-century cases, commentators and courts routinely explained that the right was not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose. See, e.g., Sheldon, in 5 Blume 346; Rawle 123; Pomeroy 152–153; Abbott 333. For example, the majority of the 19th-century courts to consider the question held that prohibitions on carrying concealed weapons were lawful under the Second Amendment or state analogues. See, e.g., State v. Chandler, 5 La. Ann., at 489–490; Nunn v. State, 1 Ga., at 251; see generally 2 Kent *340, n. 2; The American Students’ Blackstone 84, n. 11 (G. Chase ed. 1884). Although we do not undertake an exhaustive historical analysis today of the full scope of the Second Amendment, 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. Heller at 54-5
Which has as a footnote (26):
We identify these presumptively lawful regulatory measures only as examples; our list does not purport to be exhaustive.
Better yet:
But the enshrinement of constitutional rights necessarily takes certain policy choices off the table. These include the absolute prohibition of handguns held and used for self-defense in the home. Heller at 64
From McDonald:
It is important to keep in mind that Heller, while striking down a law that prohibited the possession of handguns in the home, recognized that the right to keep and bear arms is not “a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose.” 554 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 54). We made it clear in Heller that our holding did not cast doubt on such longstanding regulatory measures as “prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill,” “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.” Id., at ___–___ (slip op., at 54–55). We repeat those assurances here. Despite municipal respondents’ doomsday proclamations, incorporation does not imperil every law regulating firearms. McDonald at 39-40


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