Wednesday, July 18, 2001

Ashcroft pushes new gun policy: Attorney General reinterprets the Constitution

The “classic” view of the Second Amendment as an individual right was memorably provided by Mr. Justice Story (1842):


“The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered, as the palladium of the liberties of a republic; since it offers a strong moral check against the usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers; and will generally, even if these are successful in the first instance, enable the people to resist and triumph over them. And yet, though this truth would seem so clear, and the importance of a well regulated militia would seem so undeniable, it cannot be disguised, that among the American people there is a growing indifference to any system of militia discipline . . . There is certainly no small danger, that indifference may lead to disgust, and disgust to contempt; and thus gradually undermine all the protection intended by this clause of our national bill of rights."

More recently, Mr. Justice Scalia wrote (in A Matter of Interpretation, 1997):

“...[W]e value the right to bear arms less than did the Founders (who thought the right to self-defense to be absolutely fundamental), and there will be few tears shed if and when the Second Amendment is held to guarantee nothing more than the state National Guard. But this just shows the Founders were right when they feared that some (in their view misguided) future generation might wish to abandon liberties that they considered essential, and so sought to protect those liberties in a Bill of Rights. We may...like elimination of the right to bear arms; but let us not pretend that these are not the reductions of rights.”

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