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Gun Control - We All Have a Right to Bear Arms Essay

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We All Have a Right to Bear Arms

The preamble of the United States Constitution clearly states its objective: to establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity

The bill of rights is the set of amendments to the constitution intended to secure these objectives for the individual citizens of the United States. The second amendment states:

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.

This amendment was written in the wake of the revolutionary war, when the ability to raise arms …show more content…

The meaning of the second amendment depends on the definition of two words: Militia and Regulated.

Some feel that the national guard fulfills the constitutional requirement for a militia. The guard is a highly organized arm of the military that can be deployed to any part of the world and for any purpose the commanders of the armed forces see fit. A militia however is defined by the Webster dictionary as a group of citizens called out only in emergencies. The supreme court presented its definition of militia in US vs. Miller (1939):

The signification attributed to the term Militia appear from the debates in the convention, the history and legislation of colonies and states, and the writings of approved commentators. These show plainly enough that the Militia comprised all males physically capable of acting in concert for the common defense...

This ruling upheld 10 USC Sec. 311. This law defined all able bodied male citizens between the age of 17 and 45 as part of the militia. The national guard is clearly part of the militia, but the militia is a much greater force than the Guard alone. This view is the one supported by theNRA .

Those who oppose this interpretation of militia, such as the ACLU , claim that if the second amendment allows the ownership to a gun it must also allow ownership of a tank or a nuclear bomb. This point was also addressed in the

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