While we study the making of the Constitution and the creation of the Bill of Rights (BOR), I wanted to spend some time examining an application of this infomation in the real world.  The debate over the right to bear arms has been a contentious one ever since mass shootings began to increase in frequency beginning in the late 1990s.  There were a few major gun regulations passed in the 1990s – The Brady Bill in 1993 (a mandatory waiting period for buyers of hand guns along with background checks) and an assault weapons ban in 1994 (which expired in 2004), but nothing major has been passed since.  Probably within the past six years or so, the debate over gun control, gun-owners’ rights, and the causes for the numbers of mass shootings have been hotly argued.

Here is the text of the 2nd Amendment:

“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.”

In 1995, the Supreme Court decided a pivotal case, U.S. v. Lopez.  Alfonso Lopez was a senior who took a concealed gun into his high school.  The state charges against him were dropped, and he was tried on federal charges of violating the Gun Free School Zones Act.  His lawyers challenged his guilty verdict because schools are normally controlled by state and local governments, not the federal government.   The conservative majority of the Court found that Congress cannot make gun laws using its Commerce Clause powers, fearing the spread of unregulated federal power.

For most of American history, the 2nd Amendment had been interpreted by the Supreme Court that gun ownership had been allowed as long as the owner was part of a local or state militia (as established in U.S. v. Miller, 1939).  In 2008, the Supreme Court disconnected gun ownership’s link to a local or state militia in the case, D.C. v. Heller.  In the District of Columbia, the district had passed a law that required hand gun owners to either lock their hand guns in a safe or keep them unloaded and disassembled in a person’s home.  In Heller, the Supreme Court felt that laws that prevented guns being owned by the mentally ill, carried in schools and churches, and laws on the sale of firearms were all allowed.  However, D.C. v. Heller “held that the Amendment guarantees an individual right to possess a firearm in the home for self-defense, and struck down the handgun possession ban as well as the safe storage law (which had no exception for self-defense).”   Essentially, an individual’s right to gun ownership has nothing to do w/ a person’s membership in a militia (an outdated notion by 2008).

Within the past 2 months, sparked by the two mass shootings on a Saturday in August, there has been a great tumult over the availability of assault weapons for the general public.  Democratic presidential candidate, Beto O’Rourke, has even gone so far as to say that if he were elected president, he would institute a mandatory buy-back of AK-47s and AR-15s, common assault weapons owned by some Americans.

Here is the history of the 2nd Amendment, done by the History Channel:

Here is a video on gun control from the liberal perspective:

And here is a video on gun control from the conservative perspective:

Your job:

1. First, provide your initial views on gun control.
2. Watch the 3 videos, take notes on each of their arguments and assertions, and then make your own determination.
3. Has your view changed now knowing the history of the 2nd Amendment and hearing from both sides of the gun debate?  Why or why not?

Minimum 400 words total.  Due by class on Friday, October 4.