THE SECOND AMENDMENT

                                    (CONSTITUTION OF THE U.S.)

               

               "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 218 years, judges concluded that the amendment authorised states to form 

militia, what we now call national guard. Then in 2008, the U.S Supreme Court upended

two centuries of precedent. In the case of District of Columbia vs. Heller, the majority

opinion written by Antonin Scalia declared that constitution (the second amendment) 

confers a right to own a gun for self defense in the home,---the Supreme Court found

there to be an individual right to gun ownership.


               Antonin Scalia believed that the only legitimate way to interpret the 

constitution is to follow the principle of "originalism", i.e., to stick to its orginal language

in letter and spirit, and not to be a "constructionalist" by way of adding any new meaning 

to its terms. Actually, judge Scalia seems to have broken his own rule. The second 

amendment clearly starts with a qualifying phrase, "A well regulated militia being 

necessary to the security of a free state---". It does not mention right of an individual to 

own a gun, but judge Scalia seems to have "constructed" such a right, and he totally 

ignores the above-mentioned qualifying phrase.


               Even if, now, you grant an individual right to own guns, it is not an absolute

right, free from any regulation. Even "Heller" judgement has agreed that there were limits

 to that right. Nowadays the National Rifle Association (NRA) has been so radical in

uphoding this individual gun right that it opposes most of the reasonable regulations on 

that right.


               The number of guns in the U.S. has continued to climb. Homicide rates in the

U.S. is 7 times that of the combined homicide rate of 22 other high income countries.


                                 (Partly  based on the book "The Second Amendment"

                                                   2014, by Michael Waldman.)



               

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