A Quote by Peter Bergen
The Second Amendment is, of course, very much part of the American fabric. But the intent of the founders was that the amendment protected the rights of citizens to bear arms in a militia for their collective self-defense.
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The First Amendment is crucial. Of course it is. So are all the others. And the Second Amendment is the one that guarantees that people can bear arms to protect themselves.
By calling attention to 'a well regulated militia,' 'the security of the nation,' and the right of each citizen 'to keep and bear arms,' our founding fathers recognized the essentially civilian nature of our economy... The Second Amendment still remains an important declaration of our basic civilian-military relationships in which every citizen must be ready to participate in the defense of his country. For that reason I believe the Second Amendment will always be important.
The Second Amendment has a preamble about the need for a militia. Because there is a need for a militia to be at the ready, therefore the right to keep and bear arms must be secured.
Just as the First and Fourth Amendment secure individual rights of speech and security respectively, the Second Amendment protects an individual right to keep and bear arms. This view of the text comports with the all but unanimous understanding of the Founding Fathers.
The National Rifle Association is always arguing that the Second Amendment determines the right to bear arms. But I think it really is the people's right to bear arms in a militia. The NRA thinks it protects their right to have Teflon-coated bullets. But that's not the original understanding.
When I joined the Supreme Court in 1975, both state and federal judges accepted the Court's unanimous decision in United States v. Miller as having established that the Second Amendment's protection of the right to bear arms was possessed only by members of the militia and applied only to weapons used by the militia.
Both Alton Sterling and Philando Castile had guns on them, which is part of their Second Amendment right. It is a part of a culture that is largely protected by special-interest groups like the N.R.A., but the right to bear arms, it seems, only exists for white people.
You could say that the paparazzi and the tabloids are sort of the 'assault weapons' of the First Amendment. They're ugly, a lot of people don't like them, but they're protected by the First Amendment - just as 'assault weapons' are protected by the Second Amendment.
Where I stand at is on the Second Amendment where the right to bear arms is not just for hunting and fishing and things like that. But it's the right of the American people to have a means of defense against a tyrannical government. So, sometimes you got to have that back-up plan.
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. - Second Amendment to the Constitution An armed society is a polite society.
The First Amendment applies to rogues and scoundrels. You don't lose your First Amendment rights because of a sleazy personality, or even for having committed a crime. Felons in jail are protected by the First Amendment.
We have this tradition of the Second Amendment and people's rights to self-defense and a certain suspicion that the government can't be trusted.
If a corporation can express opinions and be protected in doing so by the First Amendment, then there's no reason logically one wouldn't think they could undertake to enjoy the other rights protected under the First Amendment.
...The Bill of Rights is a literal and absolute document. The First Amendment doesn't say you have a right to speak out unless the government has a 'compelling interest' in censoring the Internet. The Second Amendment doesn't say you have the right to keep and bear arms until some madman plants a bomb. The Fourth Amendment doesn't say you have the right to be secure from search and seizure unless some FBI agent thinks you fit the profile of a terrorist. The government has no right to interfere with any of these freedoms under any circumstances.
The most cogent principle that can be drawn from traditional limitations on the right to keep and bear arms is that dangerous persons likely to use firearms for illicit purposes were not understood to be protected by the Second Amendment.
In my view, if the Court had properly interpreted the Second 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.
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