Remember you need to
- make at least one “Initial Post” of at least 250 words by the “Initial Post” deadline shown in the detailed course schedule, and
- at least two responses to classmates of at least 200 words each by the “Response Posts” deadline shown in the detailed course schedule. More responses are fine, as long as at least two of them are a minimum of 200 words each.
Need answer to this question?
Order an original paper Now!
We’re giving you a 15% discount on your first Order.
Discount Code: SKILNEW15
Use the above discount code during checkout
There is one deadline for your initial post and a second, later, deadline for your Response Posts.
Also remember I use “Feedback Codes” to provide basic feedback about problems that could cause you to lose credit. To see codes I use, look at the Feedback Codes link in the Table of Contents for the class.
GUNS
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.
That is the full text of the 2nd amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
If anyone tells you they KNOW! definitively what it means, they are wrong, unless they’re quoting from the most recent Supreme Court decision.
Some people say it means that the government has no constitutional authority to limit a citizen’s right to own semi-automatic handguns or an AR-15, or even a Barrett M82 50 caliber rifle. Others, however, say it means that anyone in a “well-regulated militia,” like the National Guard, has the right to bear arms.
Many historians think evidence points to the conclusion that the 2nd Amendment was ratified *not* to guarantee an individual right to be continually armed, but because there was widespread opposition to a standing army, so state militias were necessary and should not be disarmed. Or, probably more commonly, constitutional historians accept that the right is an individual right, but is conditioned upon the assumption of participation in a militia, and since militias, as contemplated in the Founding Era, no longer exist, the individual right to keep and bear arms consequently no longer exists.
One example may be found in a brief submitted to the Supreme Court (page 36) in 2008:
“…the authors of the Second Amendment would be flabbergasted to learn that in endorsing the republican principle of a well-regulated militia, they were also precluding restrictions on such potentially dangerous property as firearms, which governments had always regulated when there was “real danger of public injury from individuals.”
Other people have other interpretations of the 2nd amendment. So when your great uncle Norman (I hope no one actually has a great uncle Norman!) tells you the 2nd amendment gives him a constitutionally guaranteed right to have that AR-15, or even a machine gun, the truth is…. maybe, maybe not.
As it happens, the 9th Circuit Federal Court of Appeals held in an opinion issued on June 9, 2016, that the Second Amendment does not ensure an individual right to bear arms in public. At that link you can download the opinion and also listen to, or even watch video of, the oral argument that led to it.
The Supreme Court held in District of Columbia v. Heller (2008) that the Constitution protects and individual right to own a handgun in the home for self-protection. In contrast, this 9th Circuit opinion (Peruta v. County of San Diego) bears on weapons outside the home. Here is one of many news stories about the Peruta decision. And here is the case page for the Heller decision.
Then in 2022 the court’s decided in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. v. Bruen (2022), which invalidated New York’s strict gun regulations requiring that a person have “proper cause” or “need” to carry a gun for self-protection outside the home before they could legally do so. Precisely what the 2nd Amendment means remains ambiguous, and courts are having difficulty deciding just what the decision means in practice.
What do you think? Should there be stricter limits on gun ownership and carrying?
Whatever your opinion of gun ownership, carrying and regulation, you should remember that, as documented by the Gun Violence Archive, there were 43,008 gun violence deaths in 2023. That includes 24,090 suicides (and yes, they “count,” if only because firearms are the most lethal method of suicide. It’s not true that “they’ll just find another way.)