Second Amendment

The Second Amendment

Research and Writing Assignment

Courtney Lyles

PPOG 500 / Professor Robertson

September 6, 2015

In 1791, the United States Congress proposed twelve amendments to the United States Constitution, however, only ten of those amendments were passed and became the Bill of Rights. The Second Amendment to the United States Constitution reads: “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.” During recent times, there has been much debate over the interpretation of the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution. One side argues that the amendment protects the individual right of the American citizen to own and carry a gun for self-defense, taking it out of historical context so it represents the meaning they want. The other side argues the amendment is null and void because it does not apply to our society today. However, in order to truly understand what the Second Amendment means, one must interpret the actual text and the historical background for its adoption.

The Second Amendment stems from the English background, including conflict between the colonists and the British military during the Revolution. In Revolutionary and post-Revolutionary America the right to bear arms was best understood through the observance of state constitutions. Article XVII of the Massachusetts Constitution of 1780, drafted by John Adams, declares:

The people have a right to keep and to bear arms for the common defence. And as, in time of peace, armies are dangerous to liberty, they ought not to be maintained without the consent of the legislature; and the military shall always be held in an exact subordination to the civil authority and shall be governed by it.

Under this state constitution, the right to bear arms belongs to the people as a whole, rather than the individual, as it is “for the common defence”. It was clear that the Founders,...