The Right to Bear Arms

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hugh Lafollette
Keyword(s):  
Gun Control ◽  
Control Measures ◽  
Moral Issue ◽  
Gun Ownership ◽  
Second Amendment ◽  
Self Defense ◽  
The Us ◽  
Us Constitution ◽  
The Right ◽  
Proper Interpretation

I summarize the most prominent arguments for a right to bear arms; then I evaluate them. Many ordinary citizens claim that this right is fundamental. They often cite the Second Amendment to the US Constitution to support their contention. I briefly discuss the Supreme Court’s ruling on the proper interpretation of this amendment. I show that even though it is thought to support pro-gun advocates, it is expressly compatible with a wide variety of gun control measures. It is also tangential to the moral issue. I then explore two philosophical arguments that the right to bear arms is fundamental I focus on the more common and most promising argument: private gun ownership is a vital means of self-defense. I evaluate these arguments. None are wholly convincing.

Constitutional Limitations

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Scott Burris ◽  
Micah L. Berman ◽  
Matthew Penn, and ◽  
Tara Ramanathan Holiday
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Religious Practice ◽  
Gun Control ◽  
Control Measures ◽  
Commercial Speech ◽  
Second Amendment ◽  
Law And Politics ◽  
The Us ◽  
Health Laws ◽  
The Impact

This chapter reviews the impact of the First and Second Amendments to the US Constitution on the exercise of the police power for public health. The chapter reviews how the courts have applied the First Amendment’s Free Speech Clause to regulate commercial speech and identifies the standards courts use to assess whether public health laws unconstitutionally burden religious practice. Finally, the chapter explains the limitations imposed on gun control measures by the Second Amendment and the interplay of law and politics in the regulation of firearms.

US Supreme Court hears carefully chosen gun case

2021 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Interest Groups ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Second Amendment ◽  
The People ◽  
The Us ◽  
Us Supreme Court ◽  
Us Constitution ◽  
The Right ◽  
State Restrictions

Significance The case, which concerns the power of a state to prohibit the carrying of concealed handguns, involves the Second Amendment to the US Constitution, which protects “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms”. The outcome may see the Court restrict state regulatory power in unprecedented ways. Impacts This case could continue a trend begun in 2008 that has broadened the scope and applicability of the Second Amendment protections. The Court could adopt an ends-and-means evaluation that would permit greater variability for state restrictions on guns. Other interest groups will pursue well-chosen cases before the newly conservative court.

Scripturalizing and the Second Amendment

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rosamond C. Rodman
Keyword(s):  
White Women ◽  
White Children ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Second Amendment ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Status ◽  
Us Constitution ◽  
Half Decade

Expanding beyond the text of the Bible, this chapter explores instead a piece of political scripture, namely the Second Amendment of the US Constitution. Over the last half-decade, the Second Amendment has come to enjoy the status of a kind of scripture-within-scripture. Vaulted to a much more prominent status than it had held in the first 150 years or so of its existence, and having undergone a remarkable shift in what most Americans think it means, the Second Amendment provides an opportunity to examine the linguistic, racial, and gendered modes by which these changes were effected, paying particular attention to the ways in which white children and white women were conscripted into the role of the masculine, frontier-defending US citizen.

Handguns: Risks versus Benefits

PEDIATRICS ◽  
1986 ◽  
Vol 77 (5) ◽  
pp. 781-782
Author(s):  
KATHERINE K. CHRISTOFFEL ◽  
TOM CHRISTOFFEL
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
New York ◽  
New York Times ◽  
The United States ◽  
Gun Control ◽  
Second Amendment ◽  
High Prevalence ◽  
The Us ◽  
Us Supreme Court ◽  
P 16

THE ISSUE There are an estimated 40 to 50 million handguns in the United States, with approximately 2 million more being manufactured annually1 (The New York Times, July 9, 1985, p 16). The high prevalence of handgun injury in the United States is unique in all the world and is increasing. Children are among the growing legions of US citizens harmed by the handgun epidemic.2 The effort to control handguns is focussed on developing laws to control their manufacture, importation, purchase, possession, and use. Opponents of these legal approaches claim that gun control endangers constitutional freedoms. When asked, the US Supreme court has consistently rejected that position in favor of the view that the Second Amendment protects a collective, not a personal, right to bear arms.3,4

Where to limit the freedom of speech? Analysis in the context of the First Amendment to the US Constitution and the fighting words doctrine

2021 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 239-256
Author(s):  
Karolina Palka
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
First Amendment ◽  
Free Speech ◽  
Freedom Of Speech ◽  
The United States ◽  
National Socialist ◽  
The Us ◽  
Us Constitution ◽  
Socialist Party Of America ◽  
The Right

This article is about the limits of the right to free speech. The first section provides a brief introduction to this topic, primarily in the context of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The second section describes the case of Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, which was fundamental to the topic of this paper because the United States Supreme Court created the so-called "fighting words" doctrine based on it. In the next two sections, two court cases are presented that perfectly demonstrate the limits of the right to free speech in the United States: Snyder v. Phelps and Village of Skokie v. National Socialist Party of America. The fifth part shows the right to freedom of speech in the context of Polish civil, criminal, and constitutional law, as well as acts of international law binding on Poland. The last part is a short summary.

Judicial Review

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Schillig
Keyword(s):  
Judicial Review ◽  
Due Process ◽  
Fundamental Rights ◽  
Bank Resolution ◽  
The Us ◽  
Charter Of Fundamental Rights ◽  
Us Constitution ◽  
Takings Clause ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Eu

The exercise of extensive powers by authorities during the recovery and resolution process may interfere with constitutionally protected fundamental rights of stakeholder in a multitude of ways. Particularly relevant are the right to conduct a business and the right to property under the EU Charter of fundamental rights, as well as the takings clause under the US constitution. A balance needs to be struck between the aims and objectives of bank resolution and the rights of investors and the requirements of due process. This is normally achieved through expedited and limited judicial review. This chapter assesses whether and to what extent the respective procedures are in line with constitutional and fundamental rights requirements.

A cross-sectional examination of US gun ownership and support for gun control measures: Sociodemographic, geographic, and political associations explored

2019 ◽  
Vol 123 ◽  
pp. 179-184 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emeka Oraka ◽  
Sharanya Thummalapally ◽  
Lynne Anderson ◽  
Tiffany Burgess ◽  
Felicia Seibert ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Gun Control ◽  
Control Measures ◽  
Gun Ownership ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Political Associations

scholarly journals The Politics of Gun Control in the United States

2019 ◽  
pp. 46-59
Author(s):  
Vibeke Sofie Sandager Rønnedal
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Gun Control ◽  
Past Century ◽  
The Past ◽  
Second Amendment ◽  
The People ◽  
American Society ◽  
The Right ◽  
Standing Army

The discussion of the right to keep and bear arms has been a growing issue in American society during the past two decades. This article examines the origin of the right and whether it is still relevant in contemporary American society. It is found that the Second Amendment was written for two main reasons: to protect the people of the frontier from wildlife and foreign as well as native enemies, and to ensure the citizen militia being armed and ready to fight for a country with a deep-rooted mistrust of a standing army and a strongly centralized government. As neither of these reasons have applied to American society for at least the past century, it is concluded that American society has changed immensely since the Second Amendment was ratified in 1791, and that the original purpose of the right to keep and bear arms thus has been outdated long ago.

Hip Hop as Martial Art

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Griffith Rollefson
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Hip Hop ◽  
Rap Music ◽  
Physical Violence ◽  
Freedom Of Speech ◽  
Kung Fu ◽  
Martial Art ◽  
The Us ◽  
Us Constitution ◽  
The Right

This chapter examines how hip hop exemplifies the instrumentalization of verbal arsenals, lyrical kung fu, and other rhetorical gestures to “words as weapons.” Indeed, this weaponization of knowledge may be thought of as the very premise of hip hop—of rap music as martial art. While this theorization will help explain hip hop’s enduring polycultural commitment to martial arts, the aim here is a more foundational one—to account for the ways that the trope of physical violence functions in hip hop discourses and performative practices. The chapter employs a political economy framework to argue that this translation from the discursive to the material is a counterhegemonic response to the conflation of the First and Second Amendments of the US Constitution: “the freedom of speech” and “the right to bear arms.” The chapter concludes by explaining why hip hop has proven an unlikely force for nonviolence in the Black Lives Matter moment.

Fixers and Framers: Reconsidering the Sources and Meaning of the American Founding

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-13
Author(s):  
Max M. Edling
Keyword(s):  
Freedom Of Religion ◽  
Search And Seizure ◽  
Bill Of Rights ◽  
American Founding ◽  
Checks And Balances ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Us ◽  
Single Entry ◽  
Us Constitution ◽  
The Right

In Unruly Americans and the Origins of the Constitution, Woody Holton recounts how he introduces his students to the framing of the US Constitution by playing a game. Dividing the blackboard into three sections, he invites his students to shout out their favorite clauses of the Constitution. Holton enters the clauses in the columns and asks his students to label them. Clauses like freedom of religion and speech, freedom from illegal search and seizure, and the right to bear arms end up in the third column, which the students soon recognize as the Bill of Rights. In the first column are clauses taken over from the Articles of Confederation. The second column, which typically ends up with the single entry of “checks and balances,” is the Constitution without amendments. Students struggle to label the first and second columns correctly. When they finally do, they are struck by the fact that the most popular clauses of the Constitution are not in the original document.

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