Ex-SCOTUS Judge Stevens suggests modification of 2nd ammendment

[PeaShooter]

John Paul Stevens thinks that the 2nd ammendment should be changed from

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.

to

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms when serving in the militia shall not be infringed.


Gun Control and the Constitution: Should We Amend the Second Amendment? - Businessweek

What an arrogant douche bag.

 

[Vince49]

BLOOMBERG Business Week

 

[rockhopper46038]

If this is what he thinks the 2nd Amendment means, then it brings into question every opinion he has ever issued, and all rulings he participated in. It is a clear misunderstanding of the document and the intent. If he's just saying that he would like to change the meaning to something else, then he's just another idiot with an opinion.

 

[Sgtusmc]

Seems like that would bring rise to more people actually joining a militia which they already try to write off as a bunch of wackos.

 

[ghuns]

If this is what he thinks the 2nd Amendment means...

No, he knows exactly what it means, which is why he would like to see it changed.

He is also far from being an idiot. An arrogant, evil, douchebag, sure. A senile old man, maybe. But not an idiot.

 

[HoughMade]

Well, to get what he wants, he needs to change the Constitution. However, as pointed out in Heller, that is ridiculous. Why would anyone ever disarm a member of the official state militia (ignoring the fact that all of us adult Hoosiers are members). In any event, get ready for some long quotes, but Justice Alito puts the lie to the "only militias" argument in Heller. Interpreting the Second Amendment in Heller, Justice Alito wrote:

a. "Right of the People." The first salient feature of the operative clause is that it codifies a "right of the people."...

...n all six other provisions of the Constitution that mention "the people," the term unambiguously refers to all members of the political community, not an unspecified subset...

..This contrasts markedly with the phrase "the militia" in the prefatory clause. As we will describe below, the "militia" in colonial America consisted of a subset of "the people"--those who were male, able bodied, and within a certain age range. Reading the Second Amendment as protecting only the right to "keep and bear Arms" in an organized militia therefore fits poorly with the operative clause's description of the holder of that right as "the people."

We start therefore with a strong presumption that the Second Amendment right is exercised individually and belongs to all Americans.

b. "Keep and Bear Arms." We move now from the holder of the right--"the people"--to the substance of the right: "to keep and bear Arms."

Before addressing the verbs "keep" and "bear," we interpret their object: "Arms."... The 18th-century meaning is no different from the meaning today. The 1773 edition of Samuel Johnson's dictionary defined "arms" as "[w]eapons of offence, or armour of defence."... Timothy Cunningham's important 1771 legal dictionary defined "arms" as "any thing that a man wears for his defence, or takes into his hands, or useth in wrath to cast at or strike another.”...

...Some have made the argument, bordering on the frivolous, that only those arms in existence in the 18th century are protected by the Second Amendment. We do not interpret constitutional rights that way. Just as the First Amendment protects modern forms of communications,..., and the Fourth Amendment applies to modern forms of search,..., the Second Amendment extends, prima facie, to all instruments that constitute bearable arms, even those that were not in existence at the time of the founding.

We turn to the phrases "keep arms" and "bear arms." Johnson defined "keep" as, most relevantly, "[t]o retain; not to lose," and "[t]o have in custody." Johnson 1095. Webster defined it as "[t]o hold; to retain in one's power or possession." No party has apprised us of an idiomatic meaning of "keep Arms." Thus, the most natural reading of "keep Arms" in the Second Amendment is to "have weapons."

The phrase "keep arms" was not prevalent in the written documents of the founding period that we have found, but there are a few examples, all of which favor viewing the right to "keep Arms" as an individual right unconnected with militia service. William Blackstone, for example, wrote that Catholics convicted of not attending service in the Church of England suffered certain penalties, one of which was that they were not permitted to "keep arms in their houses."... Petitioners point to militia laws of the founding period that required militia members to "keep" arms in connection with militia service, and they conclude from this that the phrase "keep Arms" has a militia-related connotation... This is rather like saying that, since there are many statutes that authorize aggrieved employees to "file complaints" with federal agencies, the phrase "file complaints" has an employment-related connotation. "Keep arms" was simply a common way of referring to possessing arms, for militiamen and everyone else.

At the time of the founding, as now, to "bear" meant to "carry." See Johnson 161; Webster; T. Sheridan, A Complete Dictionary of the English Language (1796); 2 Oxford English Dictionary 20 (2d ed. 1989) (hereinafter Oxford). When used with "arms," however, the term has a meaning that refers to carrying for a particular purpose--confrontation... We think that Justice Ginsburg accurately captured the natural meaning of "bear arms." Although the phrase implies that the carrying of the weapon is for the purpose of "offensive or defensive action," it in no way connotes participation in a structured military organization.

From our review of founding-era sources, we conclude that this natural meaning was also the meaning that "bear arms" had in the 18th century. In numerous instances, "bear arms" was unambiguously used to refer to the carrying of weapons outside of an organized militia....

c. Meaning of the Operative Clause. Putting all of these textual elements together, we find that they guarantee the individual right to possess and carry weapons in case of confrontation. This meaning is strongly confirmed by the historical background of the Second Amendment. We look to this because it has always been widely understood that the Second Amendment, like the First and Fourth Amendments, codified a pre-existing right. The very text of the Second Amendment implicitly recognizes the pre-existence of the right and declares only that it "shall not be infringed."...

Between the Restoration and the Glorious Revolution, the Stuart Kings Charles II and James II succeeded in using select militias loyal to them to suppress political dissidents, in part by disarming their opponents... Under the auspices of the 1671 Game Act, for example, the Catholic Charles II had ordered general disarmaments of regions home to his Protestant enemies. See Malcolm 103-106. These experiences caused Englishmen to be extremely wary of concentrated military forces run by the state and to be jealous of their arms. They accordingly obtained an assurance from William and Mary, in the Declaration of Rights (which was codified as the English Bill of Rights), that Protestants would never be disarmed: "That the Subjects which are Protestants, may have Arms for their Defence suitable to their Conditions, and as allowed by Law." 1 W. & M., ch. 2, § 7, in 3 Eng. Stat. at Large 441. This right has long been understood to be the predecessor to our Second Amendment... It was clearly an individual right, having nothing whatever to do with service in a militia. ...t was secured to them as individuals, according to "libertarian political principles," not as members of a fighting force...

By the time of the founding, the right to have arms had become fundamental for English subjects... Alden v. Maine, 527 U.S. 706, 715, 119 S. Ct. 2240, 144 L. Ed. 2d 636 (1999), cited the arms provision of the Bill of Rights as one of the fundamental rights of Englishmen... His description of it cannot possibly be thought to tie it to militia or military service. It was, he said, "the natural right of resistance and self-preservation," id., at 139, and "the right of having and using arms for self-preservation and defence,"...

And, of course, what the Stuarts had tried to do to their political enemies, George III had tried to do to the colonists. In the tumultuous decades of the 1760's and 1770's, the Crown began to disarm the inhabitants of the most rebellious areas. That provoked polemical reactions by Americans invoking their rights as Englishmen to keep arms... They understood the right to enable individuals to defend themselves...

There seems to us no doubt, on the basis of both text and history, that the Second Amendment conferred an individual right to keep and bear arms...

 

[87iroc]

Everyone has a right to their opinion. I think we shouldn't stop there. All of the first 10 could be easily modified per the latest leanings of the ruling party.

 

[JeremiahJohnson]

Alright, then spell out what the militia meant for that time:

"A well regulated citizenry, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, while a citizen of the United States of America, shall not be infringed."

I'll go along with that.

 

[HoughMade]

Alright, then spell out what the militia meant for that time:

"A well regulated citizenry, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, while a citizen of the United States of America, shall not be infringed."

I'll go along with that.

Yep. That's essentially what Justice Alito wrote in Heller.

 

[KG1]

It seems to me that the implication of his wanting to change the wording around constitutes that he thinks the way it is worded now gives preferential deference to the individual peoples right instead of a collective militia. He wants it to be the other way around.

 

[rvb]

Maybe we should modify the 1st in a similar fashion... free speech so long as you are part of a state govt sponsored media outlet? seems just as reasonable.

-rvb

 

[Scutter01]

Seems like that would bring rise to more people actually joining a militia which they already try to write off as a bunch of wackos.

You should read Indiana's state constitution, specifically Article 12.

 

[Rookie]

Well, to get what he wants, he needs to change the Constitution. However, as pointed out in Heller, that is ridiculous. Why would anyone ever disarm a member of the official state militia (ignoring the fact that all of us adult Hoosiers are members). In any event, get ready for some long quotes, but Justice Alito puts the lie to the "only militias" argument in Heller. Interpreting the Second Amendment in Heller, Justice Alito wrote:

How do you think he would be able to justify NFA, gun free zones, etc?

 

[Kirk Freeman]

It's getting all legal symposiumey up in this piece:

IND. CONST. Art. XII, §1.

Section 1. A militia shall be provided and shall consist of all persons over the
age of seventeen (17) years, except those persons who may be exempted by the
laws of the United States or of this state. The militia may be divided into
active and inactive classes and consist of such military organizations as may be
provided by law.

 

[HoughMade]

I only claim to be a buck sergeant in the "Sedentary Militia", but my wife says I should have my own Battalion.

 

[Kirk Freeman]

It is telling, the antis get an argument slapped down (no one does slap downs like Justice Alito) and they come right back with the same argument despite the drubbing they received.

Enough of the collective rights nonsense a la Tot. You lost, get used to it.

 

[HoughMade]

How do you think he would be able to justify NFA, gun free zones, etc?

There is language later in Heller that the right, like all rights, has limitations....but I didn't want to turn this thread into yet another debate on that topic.

 

[ghuns]

a la Tot

Dude, they come for my bacon and cheese wrapped tots, and it is ON.

 

[daddyusmaximus]

I only claim to be a buck sergeant in the "Sedentary Militia", but my wife says I should have my own Battalion.

Staff Sergeant, 2nd armchair division, Fort Livingroom Indiana, reporting for duty.

 

[armedindy]

ive heard some agrue that we all ARE, CURRENTLY serving in the militia....so we'd be ok right