By Dr. Saul Cornell
Paul and Diane Guenther Chair in American History
Fordham University
By Nathan DeDino, J.D.
It is impossible to discuss gun policy in contemporary America without stumbling over the question of what the Second Amendment means. Few issues in American constitutional law are as bitterly divisive as the meaning of the right to keep and bear arms. Two opposing historical claims have dominated modern Second Amendment debate. Supporters of more robust gun regulation have generally cast the Amendment as a collective right According to this view, the meaning of the Amendment is shaped by the Preamble affirming the importance of a well regulated militia. Collective rights theorists argue that the Second Amendment makes it possible for the states to preserve their well regulated militias against the threat of disarmament by the federal government. Gun rights advocates have placed greater stress on the latter part of the Amendment, which asserts the right of the people to keep and bear arms. For supporters of this individual rights view, the right to bear arms is comparable to freedom of the press, and the Constitution provides the same level of protection for guns as it does for words. For the most ardent supporters of this view, the Constitution protects the right of individuals to have firearms for self-protection, hunting, or to wage revolution against the government itself.
120120-64-Gun-Control
Originally published by the Fordham Law Review 73:2 (2004, 487-528), republished by FLASH: The Fordham Law Archive of Scholarship and History, free and open access, republished for educational, non-commercial purposes.