Repeal the Second Amendment

In the same way, the courts ought to see the trend of concealed carry licensing, policies that have moved from no-issue to shall-issue or constitutional carry over the last several decades.

Donald Trump, who has alternately supported and opposed various gun control measures, announced Wednesday he was meeting with the National Rifle Association to discuss limiting access to firearms to people on the federal terrorist watch list.

What makes the debate so important is that the basic meaning of the amendment is still being figured out.

The Second Amendment states: “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”. But the justices have not ruled on the constitutionality of a variety of regulations. One appeals court upheld laws against carrying concealed guns in two California counties. It allows only those with permits to do so and is stingy in giving them out.

“You have to show cause, and your cause isn’t just to protect yourself and your family”, Prieto said.

Scalia himself -in December 2015 – joined a dissent written by Justice Clarence Thomas when the court declined to take up a case concerning an assault weapons law in a Chicago suburb.

For examples, supporters of the current NRA view of the Second Amendment often cite Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story, whom in his influential 1833 commentary on the U.S. Constitution described the “right to bear arms” as “the palladium of the liberties of a republic”. The majority replied that it wasn’t considering the open-carry right.

The decision by an 11-member panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals means counties in California may require individuals to prove they have “good cause” such as a threat to their safety before they are issued a concealed weapons permit. “It is imperative that we elect a president who will appoint Supreme Court justices who respect the Second Amendment and law-abiding citizens’ right to self-defence”. “A right to bear arms thus implies a right to carry a loaded gun outside the home”.

“Since the Supreme Court decision in Heller, virtually all lower courts have recognized that states and local governments have the authority and arguably the responsibility to enact reasonable laws to keep unsafe guns out of the hands of risky people”, said Lowy. Twenty first graders and six educators died that day, which prompted lawmakers in Hartford to expand its limits on certain types of firearms.

In 2008, the court listed various restrictions it considered permissible: “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”.

It should come as no surprise to anyone by now that every liberal politician’s knee-jerk reaction to any shooting is to call for more stringent gun control laws, whether it’s terrorism or a Saturday night drive-by, as if jihadis and gangsters will obey a new law. But the right to “bear arms” doesn’t sound as though you are entitled just to sleep with a pistol on your nightstand. The American Revolution was still fresh in their minds, and they knew what it would mean if average Americans were left defenseless.

When James Madison and his colleagues wrote the Second Amendment, “arms” were single-shot, muzzle-loading rifles and muskets, “militias” were real, and murderers with guns couldn’t dream of achieving national infamy on television and social media.

That’s more or less what the D.C. district court did in May when it struck down the city’s concealed-carry ban.

As a general, practical rule, it may not matter much how the Supreme Court finally rules on this question.

The ruling performs a dodge, though, by saying that since the plaintiffs didn’t raise the question of open carry being banned, that can’t be used as an argument for removing discretion from law enforcement on the issuance of concealed carry licenses.

But it matters in principle, and in some states – like IL and California – it matters in practice.