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Published Friday, July 11, 2008 | 2 a.m.
Updated Friday, July 11, 2008 | 10:06 a.m.
Reader poll
Everyone loves guns in Nevada. Ducks Unlimited, the National Rifle Association, Republicans, the American Civil Liberties Union, the ...
Wait. The ACLU?
The Nevada ACLU has declared its support for an individual’s right to bear arms, apparently making it the first state affiliate in the nation to buck the national organization’s position on the Second Amendment.
The state board of directors reached the decision this month after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Second Amendment protects the rights of individuals to own handguns.
“The Nevada ACLU respects the individual’s right to bear arms subject to constitutionally permissible regulations,” a statement on the organization’s Web site said. “The ACLU of Nevada will defend this right as it defends other constitutional rights.”
“This was the consensus,” said Allen Lichtenstein, general counsel for ACLU of Nevada. “There really wasn’t a lot of dissent.”
But the state affiliate’s position puts it at odds with the national organization.
The New York City-based ACLU disagrees with the Supreme Court ruling, saying in a statement that it interprets the Second Amendment as a collective right to own guns and not an individual one.
“In our view, neither the possession of guns nor the regulation of guns raises a civil liberties issue,” according to the position on its Web page.
It’s that position that has long infuriated gun rights advocates.
Larry Rhodes, president of the Stillwater Firearms Association, a Northern Nevada advocacy group, said the state ACLU’s position “is a wonderful thing.”
“I’m thrilled the Nevada ACLU, which seems to support the other nine Bill of Rights, has decided to do this,” Rhodes said.
John Cahill, chairman of the Nevada Outdoor Democrats, said he had not been a member of the ACLU because of its position.
“I resented their position on the Second Amendment,” Cahill said. “I’d be happy to be a card-carrying member of the Nevada ACLU.”
The phrase “card-carrying member of the ACLU” has long been used by conservatives as a liberal curse, perhaps most famously against Democratic presidential candidate Michael Dukakis.
Gary Peck, executive director of the ACLU of Nevada, said the decision was not political, nor a slap at the national organization. He said the ACLU of Nevada often defends both conservative and liberal groups when, in its view, a constitutional right is being violated.
“This was a legal, constitutional decision for us,” he said. “Right now, it’s an issue percolating in the ACLU universe. It should be no surprise that an issue that has sparked a lot of issues and debate outside the ACLU has sparked debate inside the ACLU.”
The national ACLU, in a statement by a spokeswoman, said, “ACLU affiliates are free to take positions that differ from those of the national office.”
The spokeswoman said she was unaware of any other ACLU affiliate that had taken a differing position on the Second Amendment.
Peck said the state has a history of opposing government involvement in people’s lives.
“Nevada has a long, proud tradition of libertarian skepticism of government overreach,” Peck said. “An individual’s right to bear arms, not surprisingly, is in the Nevada constitution.”
Even when gun control was a major national issue during the 1990s, Nevada’s strong gun culture knew no party lines.
State Sen. John Lee, a North Las Vegas Democrat, has sponsored a number of bills on people’s right to carry guns.
He pointed to the gun park being built north of Las Vegas, the first phase of which will cost $64 million.
“We’re a hunting state,” Lee said. “Here in Nevada, we’re a real pragmatic group of Democrats.” (Democratic state Sen. Dina Titus, during her run for governor in 2006, liked to point out that she owned a gun.)
Attempts to find a Nevada group or affiliate in favor of stricter gun control were unsuccessful.
Bob Fulkerson, the executive director of the Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada, said he did not know of any such organizations in the state.
The gun control issue “has never really come up,” he said. “It’s ironic because we are one of the leaders in handgun-related deaths.”
Ladd Everitt, spokesman for the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, said he recognizes different parts of cultures have different experiences with guns.
“Certain areas of the country have very strong traditions and take great pride in them,” he said. “I think the real shame is we could have better firearm laws without preventing law-abiding citizens from owning guns.”
Peck said he anticipates Nevadans will come to his group to protect their gun rights.
“I have no doubt people will be making inquiries on their rights,” he said. “I have no doubt we’ll be stepping to the plate on Second Amendment rights, if they come under assault by governments. In this state, of course, I don’t see any big rush by lawmakers.”
(Editor's Note: This story has been corrected. The original version had a headline that incorrectly stated the organization’s position on gun control. The ACLU of Nevada supports gun control within constitutional limits. The state affiliate has recognized an individual’s right to bear arms, a break from the national organization’s position.)
Despicable.
The ACLU joins the NRA as the advocates of cowards, sneak thieves and psycopaths. I challenge Mr. Peck to identify where in the 2nd Amendment or any Federalist Paper is found the right to bear arms for "self protection."
You will soon be receiving the bloody shoes of the victims from across the nation.
The illegal guns that flood Cleveland and Detroit and Chicago come from your redneck gun shows and gun shops. I understand now why Nevadans need 8 or 10 guns: people this offensively stupid must have thousands of enemies. Add to that throng the families of the kids that get killed every day just because you need those pistols to feel like men. You're pathetic weaklings.
It's sad that when it comes to guns, what happens in Vegas bleeds throughout the rest of the country.
The comment by "esquared" is so remarkably typical of the looney left. Pure emotion and seething. "You will soon be receiving the bloody shoes of the victims from across the nation", whatever the hell that means. The founders wished to enable "self-protection" from a rogue government, made up of people who would rob us of our rights...rights to free speech and to keep our own money, for example. The left has been actively separating us from our money and working to intimidate those who disagree with it into silence for quite some time. No doubt, just coincidence.
The response by OLDPUPPYMAX is spot on. The nonsensical blathering in the 1st comment caused me to spill my coffee trying in earnest to page down for the rest of the commentary. I love fiction but that piece is just goofy.
I challenge that commenter "esquared" to try reading the publications mentioned and bring self up to speed before commenting further on this topic.
You both have obviously not read the Constitution. Were they kidding about the "well regulated militia" business?
Since when do we get to pick and choose those parts of an Amendment we agree with and disregard the rest?
In a former life, Mr. Peck probably jumped on the Dred Scott bandwagon also.
Just keep you little pistols in your puny little state and we'll all live better lives.
Self defense is a right all species on this planet have claimed for all time. It was and is unimaginable that someone would claim the state should have the power to restrict or have the need to enumerate this preexisting right.
The rest of esquared's comment is pure bigotry and should be regarded as "hate speech".
The Nevada ACLU has done the right thing. The right to keep and bear arms is a specific enumerated right (Justice Scalia's words) and for a Civil Liberties organization to ignore that would be hypocritical. The national ACLU office is having that vigorously pointed out to them on their blog (http://blog.aclu.org/2008/07/01/heller-d...). Check it out.
Joe Huffman
http://blog.joehuffman.org/
So esquared, you're a constitutional law expert. Apparently the fact that the entire Bill of Rights articulates individual, not collective, rights doesn't carry much weight. Apparently neither does the fact that within the past ten years the prevailing legal opinion has swung steadily towards the "individual right" position. I guess that you didn't notice that the liberal icon and constitutional law expert Harvard's Law Professor Lawrence Tribe stated that he now believed it to be an individual right. You must know more than the 70+ percent of the American people that state in poll after poll that they believe it to be an individual right too.
I'm as liberal as they come (by Nevada standards, anyway), and I agree absolutely with the Nevada ACLU's call here.
The Bill of Rights is not like a buffet. You don't simply skip over the amendments you don't like. The integrity of the Bill of Rights and our constitution demands the entire document be honored. If we feel free to discard, ignore or weaken the 2nd Amendment, we weaken the 1st... and the 3rd through the 10th.
And the "ends justify the means" argument of perceived increases in public safety doesn't fly with me. You could just as easily argue that draconian restrictions on other areas of the Bill of Rights (such as the right to assembly or the ban against cruel and unusual punishment) would result in increased public safety. That is a dangerous road.
There is an avenue provided by the constitution to dispose of the 2nd Amendment, should the American people feel it is appropriate to end the right of individuals to bear arms -- amend the Constitution.
Until that point, the 2nd Amendment is the law of the land, and it should be honored.
READ THE DECISION. Scalia painstakingly walks us through the historical, cultural and legal underpinnings of this individual right.
I guess us bitter gun carrying God fearing folks just do not have the brain power to understand the Constitution.
Perphaps, Obama will educate us.
> Esquared:"In a former life, Mr. Peck probably jumped on the Dred Scott bandwagon also."
.
.
Bigot.
All gun control laws passed from the end of the civil war up to the 1960's were about forcibly disarming blacks or other minorities. These laws were all selectively and exclusively enforced on them alone, until recently.
"There is an avenue provided by the constitution to dispose of the 2nd Amendment, should the American people feel it is appropriate to end the right of individuals to bear arms -- amend the Constitution."
Even if the 2nd amendment were "disposed of"; it still would not empower the government to infringe on the right to bear arms, unless an amendment was specifically created in addition to allow it to do so.
Remember; the powers NOT SPECIFICALLY DESIGNATED to the federal government by the Constitution are owned by the states or the people.
The 2nd amendment did not *GIVE* "the people" the innate right to "keep and bear arms". What the second amendment did was specifically state that that pre-existing right could not be infringed by the government.
Nothing more; nothing less.
One could remove the entire Bill of Rights from the Constitution, and that still would not take those rights away. It would also not authorize the government to limit or otherwise infringe on them. Indeed, some of the debates between the original writers and supporters of the Constitution made that very plain. They originally DID NOT WANT to enumerate individual rights into the Constitution; not because they did not believe in them, or that "the people" had them, but simply to ensure that the government would have no pretext to claim ANY oversight over them.
Unfortunately, the more 'paranoid' of the folks back then felt differently.
Seeing the arguments today over our rights, and what constitutes "reasonable restrictions" in them, I begin to believe the original writers may have been even wiser than the years have proved them to be.
> Esquared:"In a former life, Mr. Peck probably jumped on the Dred Scott bandwagon also."
.
Whatever its other faults, and they are many, Dred Scott v. Sandford (1856) is one the few instances we have of the prevailing interpretation of the Second Amendment before the Civil War, declaring that any citizen had the right "to keep and carry arms wherever they went."
Perhaps actual facts can temper your apparent uninformed bigotry.
jfnance32,
"Perhaps Obama will educate us."
Okie dokie... just pulled this from his website:
>>>
PROTECTING GUN RIGHTS
As a former constitutional law professor, Barack Obama believes the Second Amendment creates an individual right, and he greatly respects the constitutional rights of Americans to bear arms.
> Esquared: "Just keep you little pistols in your puny little state and we'll all live better lives."
For your further education, I'd like to point out that roughly 80% of the states now have "shall-issue" concealed carry, or better.
By "better", I mean that neither Alaska nor Vermont require any sort of permit or license to carry concealed.
Only two states (IL & WI) completely prohibit concealed carry, and they're now allowing retired law enforcement officers to carry, in accordance with federal law.
So, no matter where you go in the US, there's likely to be someone legally carrying a 'pistol' within earshot. 7;-]
"So, no matter where you go in the US, there's likely to be someone legally carrying a 'pistol' within earshot. 7;-]"
While I think the founding fathers are turning over in their graves at the current state of gun rights/regulation in the U.S., since Twitchy said it, I have to ask:
Is that a good thing?
Since most "shall-issue" states require training before issuing a concealed carry permit, and many of the problems we have with guns are due to a lack of education and training, and many of the rest seem to be due to the fact that, in many areas, only lawbreakers carry guns, I'd have to say that having more trained law-abiding citizens carrying guns is likely to be a very good thing.
> That_Anonymous_Guy:"Okie dokie... just pulled this from his [ Obama's ] website:
>Protecting Gun Rights:
>As a" -SLAP
An effing hitler-grade big lie.
"Okie dokie... just pulled this from his website:
>>>
PROTECTING GUN RIGHTS
As a former constitutional law professor, Barack Obama believes the Second Amendment creates an individual right, and he greatly respects the constitutional rights of Americans to bear arms."
Kool Aid drinking alert...Kool Aid drinking alert.
How does Obama stand on the gun bans in DC and Chicago?
He has chosen not to give a stand.
I wonder why?
Kbarrett,
"An effing hitler-grade big lie."
I'm having some difficulty determining what qualifies as a "Hitler-grade" lie.
Is it something like, say, "Barack Obama is a Muslim"?
Or more like, "Iraq has chemical and biological weapons, and is on the verge of acquiring nuclear capability"?
Or is it more subtle, like, "John McCain can cut dramatically cut taxes and balance the budget by 2013."
I am new at this "Hitler-grade" lying thing and would appreciate any assistance a more experienced person could provide to me.
I love being a giant liberal, a card carrying member of the ACLU and a gun owner. At least the Nevada ACLU is protecting our rights as Americans to keep and bear arms.
Maybe the national organization will read the rest of the Bill of Rights.
Where guns are illegal, only criminals will have guns.
- or -
Only the law abiding will obey gun laws.
Either way you look at it, how terribly difficult is that to understand?
The Nevada ACLU has taken a step in the right direction. Now we will wait and see if they put actions behind their words. We'll see if they fight to support those who's right to keep and bear arms is being infringed. I've often wondered how the national organization could claim to support human rights while in effect denying the existence of the Second Amendment.
Surely, anyone, privately, can understand the right to live, and the right to be secure in one's home, etc..
Without the use of arms, the weaker among us, and those who may suffer from discrimination, are vulnerable to the strong or to the many. The gun is a great equalizer, and it is a great civilizing influence in a free society. The national ACLU had best get up to speed on this critical issue or it's going to become more of a laughing stock than an influence.
I am sick and tired of people in gang-controlled, utterly corrupt cities like DC and Chicago, et al, preaching to the rest of us. One would think that looking at a law-abiding, peaceful and productive city or state, you would see a model for success and try to emulate it, rather than blaming us for your problems and trying to get US to adopt YOUR miserably failing (and anti-Constitutional) social experiments. Get a freaking clue, already!
Argumentum ad Hominem (abusive and circumstantial): the fallacy of attacking the character or circumstances of an individual who is advancing a statement or an argument instead of trying to disprove the truth of the statement or the soundness of the argument. Often the argument is characterized simply as a personal attack.
Does any of the above seem to bear semblance to esquared's invective to anyone other than myself?
I just had to face down four (4) jerks in a traffic situation in N. Salt Lake City, UT. I squared off with them armed with nothing more than a rubber mallet in front of a few hundred witnesses, including my wife of 30 years rather than suffer their abuse anymore. The fools thought that just because I am somewhat older (I am 62)that I was not going to stand up to them. The snot-noses ranged from the mid-teens to the
early twenties. Two were wearing head rags and tried to play junior-wannabe-gangbanger. If I had been in a more isolated situation, I would have much preferred a handgun to the rubber mallet as the driver kept reaching for the console lid where I could see he had a 380 caliber automatic. I told him in no uncertain terms that that action would get his face caved in by 40 ounces of hard rubber. I was fortunate enough to face them to where they had to consider what video or camera phone record(s) might be made. When they were by the Utah State Police a few miles down the road it was discovered that the gun was stolen, had been used in a gang related shooting, and of course none of them had a permit. THEY were the cowards esquared, and your lack of ability to make a cogent point without use of ad hominem attacks is noted and is pathetic. Now, call me a coward.
Hey esquared, i take it you dont owna gun and have a carrying permit do you? come walk around my neighborhood and see how fast you get shot by kids who are 18 and below. they dont just get guns at gun shows, you can get a gun anywhere really, if you are already related with gangs and have people you can buy guns, same goes for weed and all other drugs, wouldnt matter if someone regulated weed, people still use it. so why regulate guns now? so you can not carry one to protect yourself? that goes without saying the countless rates of legal gun owners killing people and shooting others compared to that of the gangs and illegal gun owners. they are the ones that do around 80% of the crimes that involve guns, so duh lets make the over 270 million people in the united states suffer because of a bad million. that way the million can make the other 269 million their bitches and just walk in and kill them since they have no guns. and really if you want to get in to it, if they made gun laws to strict, people who already own guns can still carry them, its not like theres a guy on every street who scans u for having a gun, so regulating gun sales still doesnt make sense, so seriously just stop being stupid.regulating gun sales makes as much sense as any of your stupid analogies that have nothing to do with the topic at hand, i am 19 years old and yes i just proved everything you said wrong, might want to consider upgrading your IQ a bit LOLS
The problem here is language and understanding.
The 2nd, as is all the amendments to the constitution which are considered to be the Bill of Rights, is written in a foriegn language. It's 18th century english. The term well regulated as used then meant well diciplined well oredered and well trained in the use of personal arms. YES we should be WELL regulated. If you aren't then please don't carry a gun.
It is a right reserved for the Militia. WE are the militia all abled bodied private citizens are the militia and original Homeland Security. No need to sign up and you don't get a membership package. There are dues at this time but when levied it may require the ultimate price be paid for the sake of the country. We do this to secure "the free state" We do not secure rights of the states is the BoR it is rights of the people. The term free state was frequently refered to at the time and meant YOUR free state of body mind and property. NOT the 13 original colonies or states.
We do this all with out infringment from an overeaching goverment and we don't ask for permission. The BoR is our voice the voice of the people telling the Gov. what our rights are exclusively and they do not change with the whims of certain people or groups. They do not change with modernization. I notice we still speak freely over internet tv radio and yet none of those medias existed at the time this document was written therefore I'm not bound to my flintlock. Our cars have become part of the residence under the 4th giving protection. Yes the modern M16 AK47 and Glock are protected just as much.
Please read the 2nd Amendment primer by Les Adams. He actually didn't believe the NRA GOA and gun owners. So he researched it wrote the book and changed his mind.
I think that the Nevada ACLU has definately done the right thing! And for those of you that have posted against their decision, you need to understand that this decision is so that YOU AND I can own a gun, NOT the bad guys
Criminals don't walk into gun stores to buy guns - they can't because of the checks that they must go through: if they tried, the State would deny their purchase. Same goes for gun show purchases - all transactions must go through a background check.
Gun bans only have one effect on criminals: it tells them that there's less of a chance that their next victim will be armed.
I've got to move to Nevada!
I second gunrunner1911's suggestion that one read the "Second Amendment Primer" by Les Adams. It is a thoroughly researched work, albeit one that is now slightly out-of-date since the recent Supreme Court decision regarding the D.C. gun ban had not been made when the book was published. As gunrunner1911 points out, Adams started his inquiry as a skeptic of the individual right to keep and bear arms, yet finally realized that, as any honest and informed person who takes the time to study the matter must conclude, the historical, legal, and cultural background of the issue points decidedly and without qualification to an individual and not a collective or state's rights interpretation of the Second Amendment (or of any other amendment in the Bill of Rights).
Having said this, I would like to add a further point, since gunrunner1911 has brought up the language of the Constitution itself in his or her last post. While I do not quite agree that the document is rendered in a "foreign language," I would like to point out that Madison and the other Founding Fathers were well trained not only in matters of state, but also in other disciplines of the classical European tradition, grammar being among these. They knew what they were writing and they meant what they said. The so-called "qualifying clause" of the Second Amendment--"A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state"--often highlighted by those hostile to the individual rights interpretation of the said amendment, is, in fact, what English grammarians would call a nominative absolute clause. That is, a clause containing a present-participial form of the verb "to be" (i.e., "being") whose function is not necessarily to create or limit a subsequent dependent clause, but to act adverbially as an element that merely states the circumstances in which another given independent statement is true. In other words, the latter half of the amendment--"the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed"--is a simple, free-standing clause, while the former portion of the amendment--"A well-regulated militia, *being* necessary to the security of a free state"--serves only to highlight the fact that the basic and inborn individual right to self preservation, identified in the latter portion of the amendment and recognized by all rational men and by nature herself since the beginning of time, is even more precious in light of the fact that governments throughout history have abused, do abuse, and will continue to abuse those beneath them who have not recourse to that ultimate expression of individual self-determination, symbolized in a free republic by the armed citizen, to resist encroachment. More simply put, the statement that "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed" remains unassailable as a stand-alone declaration of truth, regardless of whether or not the sentence is joined with the adverbial clause previously discussed.
While I recognize and understand the concerns that people like esquared have over matters of safety in a gun-owning society, I have little tolerance for his or her recourse to puerile insults and his or her general inability to engage others in a reasoned debate without devolving into childish name calling and close-mindedness (I do not mean to suggest that I am a conservative, regardless of what my handle might imply, but it is quite tiresome to see how liberals, who repeatedly pride themselves on progressive thought, are often so good at being selectively open-minded). Sir or madam esquared, while the ownership of firearms in a free society is not without its own set of particular issues both troublesome and problematic, the fact remains that the inborn right, merely acknowledged in and certainly not created by the Second Amendment, to defend oneself against all manifestations of physical violence (be this in the form of criminal assault or--much worse, yet thankfully more remote for most of us living in the western world of the twenty-first century--in the form of abusive government) is one that the Founding Fathers honored very seriously on an individual level. Regardless of the problems caused by those who exploit the rights we all enjoy, we cannot disregard the fundamental importance of said rights. You cannot punish the majority for the infractions of the minority. If you wish to eradicate from the Constitution the acknowledgment and protection of the right in question, you endanger thereby all of the other innate civil rights protected by the same document. You cannot, esquared, sacrifice one freedom for the sake of imagined security without the risk of losing all the other freedoms that remain behind. Do not allow yourself to be so close-minded; educate yourself further on the issue; take on some personal responsibility and discipline, and, if you have never done so, learn firsthand what it is like to shoot and own a firearm and do not simply believe what you see on TV or in the movies; accept the fact that educated and progressive-minded individuals throughout history (and into the present) have enjoyed and held sacred the right of free people to own weapons for their own defense and that of their homes and families against those who would do them harm without regard for the law. In short, not all gun owners are the uneducated and ignorant cowards you would like, in your apparently simple, hate-filled, and uninformed world, to believe that they are. Most of our state and local police officers throughout the country (not to mention military personnel) are private gun owners and support an individual right to keep are bear arms; are they too the craven weaklings you would like to label the rest of us? Are you, in your own mind, superior to them as well? And at what point do agents of the state become superior to the citizens themselves? I seem to have missed the point at which you explained that part of your curious assumptions.
A bit of self-editing for the end of the last post:
"Most of our state and local police officers throughout the country (not to mention military personnel) are private gun owners and support an individual right to keep *and* bear arms; are they too the craven weaklings you would like to label the rest of us?"
While the NV affiliate's position is monumental, I think many of the comments posted thus far are... well... optimistic, I guess. The ACLU is not going to become the next NRA, GOA, SAF, CCRKBA, SAS, CRPA, or any other pro-gun organization. The NV ACLU has merely stated that they support the individual right... SUBJECT TO CONSTITUTIONALLY PERMISSABLE RESTRICTIONS. It's double-talk. They are not opposing background checks. They are not opposing one-handgun-a-month restrictions. They are not opposing 10-day waiting periods. They are not opposing "safe storage" laws, nor even restrictions on the TYPE of firearms you can own. Heck, they're not even saying they oppose gun registration (although they should, since the SCOTUS has already ruled that you can't register a right). All their statement says is that they recognize and support the individual right to keep and bear arms; so you may be stuck with nothing more than a single-shot .22 rifle with a 28" barrel and microstamp-capable chamber, that takes six months before you finally get possession, and must be stored in a locked container, with the bolt removed and stored in a second locked container, except when on government-owned land specifically designated as a public shooting area, using condor-friendly lead-free serialized ammunition, purchased in quantities not to exceed 1 box per month maximum... but by golly they recognize your right to own that rifle (if you're not on the list of prohibited individuals, of course). Welcome to California.
Until they state otherwise, or even more surprisingly SHOW otherwise, that's how I interpret the NV ACLU's position. Nothing more, nothing less. I welcome the ACLU to prove me wrong, however, and will gladly eat my words for a new ally!!! It doesn't make up for the fact that they should have been defending the 2nd all along, and it shouldn't have taken Heller for them to finally jump on board, but better late than never.
Dear Reader,
As you consider the action of the Nevada ACLU, and the range of comments about it, think, please, whaqt the writers of our constitution considered the militia. It referenced every adult man with his own arms and ammunition.
Three times in this century, I am aware of the militia being called on. In December of 1941 the governors of both Hawaii and California called on citizens to arm themselve and guard the beaches in fear of an imminent invasion. In Michigan, in my youth, a notorious robber whose MO was to kill the night clerk at a gas station and then empty the till was stopped when the sheriff called upon a large group of citizens known for their marksmanship, veterans and hunters, each accompanied by a peace officer. Every gas station open at night was covered, and the murderous robber was stopped in one day.
We are the militia, and I for one, am proud enough of that to keep my marksmanship up to date. We all should.
That's what I think. What about you?
"I challenge Mr. Peck to identify where in the 2nd Amendment or any Federalist Paper is found the right to bear arms for "self protection."
He doesn't have to.
Remember "specific guarantees in the Bill of Rights have penumbras, formed by emanations"? The right to bear arms for self defense is right next to the right to privacy and abortion.
Imagine if the national ACLU had said they disagree w Roe v Wade and there were no civil liberty issues in the regulation of abortion?
That quote is from Griswold V CT, which recognized the right to privacy that Roe v Wade used to protect the right to abortion. Wouldn't want to confuse anyone.
Our Founding Fathers knew power would corrupt. They placed the 2nd admendment in the Bill of Rights to protect the people from a corrupt government. Look at Hitler, he promised the people the government would protect them, he collected their guns, then marched 6 million people to their deaths. It could happen here. A week ago, a 80 year old femlae got her gun and held a 20 year old burglar at gun point until the police arrived. I am a retired peopce offcier with 30 yers and I know guns protect people.
One only needs to go back to the Clinton administration to remember "Ruby Ridge" where a mother was shot by an ATF sniper while holding her baby and "Waco" and where the Branch Dividians were killed by government forces to see why "We the People" need to be protected from a government "out of control". Those were very sad days in our history.
And besides, when you look at the entire Bill of Rights you will notice that the 1st 10 amendments are for the rights of the people, and not the government.