On the D.C. Firearms Ban

November 21, 2007

In the news yesterday was the Supreme Court’s announcement that it will finally revisit (early next year) the beleaguered Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The question this time around is over the constitutionality of the District of Columbia’s “regulation” which was struck down last year, after thirty years of oppressing those who live in the District. The “regulation” in question:

[P]rohibits residents from registering and possessing handguns in almost all circumstances. The District also requires that rifles and other long guns kept in the home be unloaded and disassembled or outfitted with trigger locks.

Setting aside the fact that prohibition only works on law-abiding citizens, it has been nearly 70 years since any substantive rulings on the Second Amendment; the previous llandmark (Miller) conveniently avoids the issue by concluding that a sawed-off shotgun is somehow not a firearm as referred to (”to keep and bear arms“) in the Amendment, because it wouldn’t be used in a militia. The ruling in Miller also neglects to address the polarizing question — whether the Amendment was designed to protect individual rights, or some sort of hocus-pocus like collective rights.

Current American jurisprudence maintains the “collective” right, which is queer, as there is nowhere else in the Constitution to which such a “collective” right is alluded: When the framers said “the people,” they meant the people, severally. Furthermore, they made it quite clear that States and Governments are not possessed of rights, but rather powers.
So, to those who suggest that the Amendment in question is meant to safeguard the several States’ ability to keep a militia: it is quite clear that the States do not have a “right” to raise a militia, although they may very well have the “power” to raise one. There are, quite simply, no such things as “States’ Rights.”

Perhaps more importantly, we must not forget that the Constitution is a document designed specifically to enumerate and limit the powers of the Government, setting strict limitations on the powers of the Federal Governments and reserving all other powers to the several States. The Bill of Rights by design is an addendum to that limiting document designed to remove all doubt over certain potential government intrusions. And if it is unconstitutional for the Federal Government, it is equally a violation for a State (or the County, or the Township, or the District of Columbia) to infringe upon the right as conceded: e.g., The Constitution does not say that the Government may abridge the freedom of speech, therefore it cannot do so without violating said Constitution. But just to be on the safe side, they added a sentence or two (the First Amendment) in order to make this painfully and irrevocably clear. Ditto for the Second Amendment, and so on and so forth.

There exist no such things as “States’ Rights.” There are no collective rights, period, and therefore there is no collective right to own or keep guns. Only individuals have and can exercise rights. But my rants on Constitutionalism aside, the frightening proposition is that a Supreme Court may hold the “collective” rights version of the Amendment, which could throw open the floodgates for a slew of gun-control measures to be passed throughout the country. I’m scared.

The purpose of the second amendment is to insure the rights of the citizens remain inviolate — all of their rights. Without the means to defend those rights and expel threats and trespasses against them, they are hardly rights, at all.