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    Gun Rights: Interpreting the Constitution
    Gun Rights: Interpreting the Constitution
    Gun Rights: Interpreting the Constitution
    Ebook105 pages1 hour

    Gun Rights: Interpreting the Constitution

    By Philip Wolny

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    About this ebook

    The gun rights issue has been among the most contentious debates since the founding of the United States. This instructive volume offers close but comprehensible readings of the Second Amendment set against the backdrop of fluctuating social and political contexts. Additionally, it documents the evolution of arguments for and against "the right to bear arms." Readers will understand why this provocative issue has continued to rage in the courts and among politicians through the years and may do so for years to come.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRosen Publishing
    Release dateJul 15, 2014
    ISBN9781477775172
    Gun Rights: Interpreting the Constitution

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      good info for gun owners and others. should help with ownership.

    Book preview

    Gun Rights - Philip Wolny

    life.

    CHAPTER ONE

    GUNS IN REVOLUTIONARY-ERA AMERICA

    The struggle over gun rights and gun control began even before the nation’s founding. From the earliest colonists battling Native Americans for territory in the New World to white Southerners preventing freed slaves from obtaining firearms in the nineteenth century, and from increasingly easy access to modern firearms for hunting, personal security, and self-defense to tragic gun violence, it has been a divisive issue, a debate as explosive as firearms themselves.n

    Since the Newtown massacre, news outlets estimate that as many as 16,500 Americans have lost their lives to guns, including suicides. This is more people than American service people who perished during the nine years of the Iraq War. Thousands die every year as the result of hunting accidents, accidental shootings, and gun violence associated with crimes, disputes, and domestic incidents. Gun control advocates demand that their lawmakers address this steep toll exacted by gun violence and mishaps.

    A DIFFERENT TIME

    When Americans fought to free themselves of British rule in the late eighteenth century, issues surrounding firearms were very different. Americans had rebelled against the British for many economic, cultural, and political reasons.

    The thirteen colonies that would unite in rebellion to form a new nation had relatively small populations and were ruled by the British Crown. Each colony had its own laws. The role of arms in daily life was a given. Colonists struggled over territory and resources with the Native Americans who had populated the New World when Europeans first arrived and required firearms for protection. Colonists routinely hunted for daily sustenance. Communities were isolated, and the long distances over which any news, warnings, or armed troops had to travel made colonists vulnerable to attack. Being armed in order to defend the community or colony from attack was a civic duty expected of all male colonists, like voting or paying taxes. Disputes with neighbors or enemies were always possible, and central authorities could rarely respond in time to protect someone or respond to conflicts. Personal gun ownership seemed a necessity in these circumstances.

    This 1867 painting by George Henry Boughton, Pilgrims Going to Church, shows armed churchgoers.

    Denying a universal right to bear arms would have been viewed as outlandish and irresponsible. Of course, slaves, freed slaves, and Native Americans living among the colonists were often denied this right just the same. Still, the right to bear arms was very closely held by Americans long before they were Americans and long before the citizens of the new nation ratified the Constitution.

    COLONIAL-ERA MILITIAS

    Just before the American Revolution, there was no national or professional military force. Each colony was instead protected by local militias—often ragtag groups of citizen and volunteer soldiers. Even after General George Washington and the Continental Congress established a federal fighting force to wage war against British forces and the four main branches of the military—the army, navy, air force, and marines—evolved over the next two centuries, local militias continued to exist. In recent times, groups called militias have been closely associated with antigovernment and racist agendas.

    This nineteenth-century Junius Brutus Stearns painting shows a mounted George Washington (right), a colonial captain during the French and Indian War.

    Hundreds of years ago, threats came from all sides, and being unarmed was out of the question. Besides fighting with Native Americans, colonists faced local armed warfare that was part of larger global conflicts, like the French and Indian War (the North American theater of the European Seven Years’ War between France and England) and competition among European powers for control of the Americas and its resources.

    REBELLIONS: THE ENEMY WITHIN

    Early U.S. history was rocky when it came to guns and militias. Two rebellions within a decade threatened the stability of the new nation. The first occurred in Massachusetts in 1786. Revolutionary veteran Captain Daniel Shays led a group of farmers who were deep in debt. Under the laws of the Articles of Confederation, their land was subject to seizure in order to pay off the debts. The revolt, later dubbed Shays’ Rebellion, was crushed only a year before the Constitution was ratified.

    Another armed rebellion occurred in 1794 (a few years after the ratification of the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights) among farmers opposed to new taxes. Farmers west of the Appalachian Mountains typically made whiskey from their leftover grain and corn and then used that whiskey as a more portable and convenient medium of exchange (a good used to barter for and obtain other goods). The federal government began to impose a new tax on this whiskey in order

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