John Whitehead's Commentary

"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."-- Second Amendment

For the past 30 years, residents of the District of Columbia have been threatened with conviction and imprisonment simply for having a gun in their homes.

In keeping with a District-wide law, all handguns were prohibited, unless they were registered before 1976. Even pistols registered prior to the ban could not be carried from room to room within a home without a license. Furthermore, licensed guns had to be kept locked up or disassembled.

Critics have long decried the District's gun ban as the most restrictive in the nation. But Shelly Parker and five other D.C. residents went a step beyond complaining to challenge the law in federal court, claiming that it barred the very protection the Second Amendment guarantees--the right to self defense.

Parker v. District of Columbia calls attention to the ongoing debate over the Second Amendment--namely, whose rights does it protect and how far does it go in protecting those rights?

In ruling against Parker, a federal district court insisted that the Second Amendment confers only a "collective right." This position is affirmed by gun control advocates like the ACLU, which insist that the Second Amendment is "intended mainly to protect the right of the states to maintain militias to assure their own freedom and security against the central government. Except for lawful police and military purposes, the possession of weapons by individuals is not constitutionally protected."

However, the historical view espoused by those such as Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and George Mason and most recently by the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals says that, in fact, the Second Amendment protects the right of individuals to bear arms. In writing for the court's 2-1 majority, Judge Laurence Silberman pointed out, "In determining whether the Second Amendment's guarantee is an individual one, or some sort of collective right, the most important word is the one the drafters chose to describe the holders of the right--'the people.'" Silberman went on to recognize that the Second Amendment does not confer a right but rather recognizes a natural right inherent in our humanity.

This affirmation of the people's right to keep and bear arms has also been supported by numerous constitutional experts like Harvard law school professor Laurence Tribe. According to Tribe, the Framers clearly believed that "people possessed a natural right to keep and bear arms."

History is on Tribe's side. With the despotism of a tyrannical king fresh in their minds, the Framers knew they had to provide a means for the people to defend themselves against a tyrannical government. They believed the right to keep and bear arms enabled a citizen to stand up to the government. If the government got out of hand, you could defend yourself--you could rebel. After all, that's what happened in 1776.

The Framers wanted to ensure that if the government had control of the military, as it does today--including the National Guard--citizens would have a means of protecting themselves. Thus, they specifically added the Second Amendment to the Constitution to ensure that individuals--ordinary Americans--had a means of protecting themselves not only against their own government but against intruders. Furthermore, early Americans relied on ordinary weapons for many things, often keeping them in their homes.

There is nothing more solidly embedded in the Constitution than the right to bear arms. As Congressman Ron Paul (R-Tex.) has said, "Can anyone seriously contend that the Founders, who had just expelled their British rulers mostly by use of light arms, did not want the individual farmer, blacksmith, or merchant to be armed? Those individuals would have been killed or imprisoned by the King's soldiers if they had relied on a federal armed force to protect them."

"Our Founders, having just expelled the British army, knew that the right to bear arms serves as the guardian of every other right," continued Paul. "This is the principle so often ignored by both sides in the gun control debate. Only armed citizens can resist tyrannical government."

Nevertheless, more than 200 years later, the Second Amendment has been laid siege to and gutted by gun control advocates and the forces of political correctness. While it must be conceded that the individual citizen could not hope to defend him or herself against local and federal law enforcement dressed in military gear, armed to the teeth with armored vehicles and weapons of mass destruction, shouldn't Americans at least be able to protect themselves, their families and their homes against criminals?

As George Mason declared, "To disarm the people is the best and most effectual way to enslave them." While Congress can, of course, reasonably regulate certain types of weapons such as assault rifles, banning law-abiding citizens from having handguns in their own homes for self-defense or owning hunting rifles goes far beyond anything the Framers contemplated.

To argue otherwise is ridiculous.

ABOUT JOHN W. WHITEHEAD

Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute. His most recent books are the best-selling Battlefield America: The War on the American People, the award-winning A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State, and a debut dystopian fiction novel, The Erik Blair Diaries. Whitehead can be contacted at staff@rutherford.org. Nisha Whitehead is the Executive Director of The Rutherford Institute. Information about The Rutherford Institute is available at www.rutherford.org.

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