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Anytime, anywhere. It's all about power and having the 2nd Amendment and right to bear arms allows for not only an even playing field but also helps to keep bad people in check. Most recently as of January , Virginia state was attempting to infringe on the 2nd Amendment by passing a gun law legislation.
Thankfully, thousands of pro 2A supporters showed up to the Richmond, Virginia capital with firearms on hand to protest this potential legislation which was an attack on our 2nd Amendment rights. We won that day but the state has still tried to pass other laws that still do restrict certain 2A liberties and rights, such as limits on handgun purchases per month. This will be an ongoing battle but it is comforting to see the silent majority come out in support of what is likely our most important right.
There are plenty of examples throughout history and occurrences in other countries and yet we find ourselves on the cusp of a fight for our own rights and our own lives. In the midst of a pandemic people all across the United States are recognizing this and acting on it. Gun and ammo sales in are soaring higher than ever. This is the government attempting to slide your rights right out from under you. That will not and cannot happen.
Justice Thomas rejected those precedents in favor of reliance on the Privileges or Immunities Clause, but all five members of the majority concluded that the Fourteenth Amendment protects against state infringement of the same individual right that is protected from federal infringement by the Second Amendment.
Notwithstanding the lengthy opinions in Heller and McDonald , they technically ruled only that government may not ban the possession of handguns by civilians in their homes. Gun control is as much a part of the Second Amendment as the right to keep and bear arms. As the Supreme Court correctly noted in District of Columbia v. Heller , the militia of the founding era was the body of ordinary citizens capable of taking up arms to defend the nation.
While the Founders sought to protect the citizenry from being disarmed entirely, they did not wish to prevent government from adopting reasonable regulations of guns and gun owners. Although Americans today often think that gun control is a modern invention, the Founding era had laws regulating the armed citizenry.
There were laws designed to ensure an effective militia, such as laws requiring armed citizens to appear at mandatory musters where their guns would be inspected.
Governments also compiled registries of civilian-owned guns appropriate for militia service, sometimes conducting door-to-door surveys. The Founders had broad bans on gun possession by people deemed untrustworthy, including slaves and loyalists. The Founders even had laws requiring people to have guns appropriate for militia service.
The wide range of Founding-era laws suggests that the Founders understood gun rights quite differently from many people today. The right to keep and bear arms was not a libertarian license for anyone to have any kind of ordinary firearm, anywhere they wanted. Nor did the Second Amendment protect a right to revolt against a tyrannical government. The Second Amendment was about ensuring public safety, and nothing in its language was thought to prevent what would be seen today as quite burdensome forms of regulation.
The Founding-era laws indicate why the First Amendment is not a good analogy to the Second. While there have always been laws restricting perjury and fraud by the spoken word, such speech was not thought to be part of the freedom of speech. The principle that reasonable regulations are consistent with the Second Amendment has been affirmed throughout American history. For years, this was the settled law of the land—until Heller.
Heller , however, rejected the principle of reasonableness only in name, not in practice. The decision insisted that many types of gun control laws are presumptively lawful, including bans on possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, bans on concealed carry, bans on dangerous and unusual weapons, restrictions on guns in sensitive places like schools and government buildings, and commercial sale restrictions. Nearly all gun control laws today fit within these exceptions. In the years since Heller , the federal courts have upheld the overwhelming majority of gun control laws challenged under the Second Amendment.
Bans on assault weapons have been consistently upheld, as have restrictions on gun magazines that hold more than a minimum number of rounds of ammunition. Bans on guns in national parks, post offices, bars, and college campuses also survived. Another reason guns are necessary is for protection. Open Document. Essay Sample Check Writing Quality. On December 15, , the Bill of Rights was ratified effective by Congress.
These first ten amendments to the Constitution of the United States of America promised the states certain rights and freedoms which could not be infringed by the government. After all, the founding fathers knew from experience that men in their weakness were often tempted by power.
They had become all too familiar with this when under the control of King George in England. Therefore, in order to protect the future people of their beautiful country, they promised certain liberties which could not be taken away.
Every single one of these freedoms is important for the United States of America. However, the second amendment is especially important to our nation because it allows the people to protect their freedom and defend themselves and the common good against an overreaching government. One reason we must have the second amendment is to protect the freedom for which our country fought so hard to win.
We might as well ask why man is the way that he is, imperfect. We all wonder about this sad truth, but the fact remains that man is fallen. These rights are self-evident, obvious to human reason, but because humans are fallen, we are sometimes blinded to these apparent truths and we err in our rationality. King George was blind to these unalienable rights, as were Na In conclusion, the second amendment is very important for the United States of America in order to protect our freedom and the common good.
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