American Constitution

Introduction

According to the Second Amendment of United States Constitution "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." The Fourteenth Amendment provides: "No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

Synopsis

No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States;

nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

It is sad to know that the highlighted parts of the amendment have been continuously ravaged by the US Supreme Court for several decades. The US Supreme court has had its own interpretations of the second amendment. There have been several landmark cases which have highlighted the interpretations of the Supreme Court.

According to Clayton Cramer's report "the racist roots of gun control" a lot of gun control laws were due to historical injustices. Despite publishing this report crayer hasn't seen much progress either in court or in the eyes of the public. People feel that the state gun control laws were introduced due to racist intentions. This can be attributed to an example below.

The first case of second amendment interpretation in the Supreme Court was the United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U. S. 542 (1876). The Supreme Court declared that the right for people to keep arms with them existed prior to the US constitution. Furthermore they believed that such a right was not granted by the constitution and nor could that right be dependent on the constitution for its existence. The lawsuit charged klansmen of preventing African Americans from fully exercising their civil rights which included the right to bear arms. The plaintiff believed that bearing arms for lawful purposes was their civil right. The court also ruled that the rights granted by the second amendment could not be infringed by Congress and neither could the federal government punish any violation of the right by a private citizen.

There was another case in the US Supreme court Presser v. Illinois, 116 U. S. 252 (1886). This case endorsed the ruling in the Curikshank case. However it ruled that the federal government could take action against individuals who bear arms. The plaintiff Presser felt that the Second Amendment could only be applied through the Fourteenth Amendment. Therefore he felt a state did not have the right to forbid individuals to keep and bear arms or to forbid bodies of men who paraded around and associated themselves as military personnel. The court ruled that the law did not prevent individuals from keeping arms but disallowed military activities by armed men who were not in the employ of the state. Therefore the court did not feel the need to check if the state law violated the second amendment as applied to the states by the fourteenth amendment. The court ruled that since he wasn't a member of the state militia or United States military he did not have the right to parade around with arms.

There was another famous lawsuit which got a lot of publicity. The Lewis v. United States, 445 U. S. 95 (1980) was another famous lawsuit regarding the interpretation of the second amendment. Lewis felt that the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968 law were in violation of the second amendment. This law prevented convicted felons from possessing firearms. However the court observed that since convicted felons weren't allowed a large number of their fundamental rights such as voting, holding office or serving on a jury. Therefore they felt that the firearm arm law did not violate the constitution as it was not based upon the constitution nor did they violate liberties set by the constitution.

Impact on people

The second amendment has had a lot of impact on the American public. It has divided them. There are some who actually doubt the value of the amendment. Some people are for gun control as they believe it to be the cause of rising crime. People believed that the second amendment isn't worth the fundamental rights. They believe that it has caused