Skip to content

The Right to Bear Arms

Much of the heated debate about firearms has been couched in terms of rights. What does the right to bear arms mean?

The Second Amendment

The Second Amendment to the United States Constitution reads: "A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to bear arms, shall not be infringed."

The Second Amendment was drafted as part of the Bill of Rights. The Bill of Rights were amendments to the Constitution drafted as a part of concessions the founding government made to anti-federalist concerns. Since the Supreme Court decision in the United States v. Miller in 1939, the prevailing view of the Second Amendment by federal courts has been that the Amendment confers a collective rather than an individual right to bear arms. In other words, the courts have consistently found that the Amendment, written with a preamble, guarantees the right to bear arms within the context of the states' ability to organize a militia, but does not guarantee a right to bear arms for individual self-protection.

The Supreme Court announced in November 2007 that it would hear oral arguments on the Second Amendment to the Constitution for the first time in 70 years. The Court will hear arguments in favor of upholding or striking down Washington DC's gun ban on Second Amendment grounds. The case is historic and over the next several months we will hear a great deal of debate as to what the right to bear arms means. The Court will overturn hundreds of cases and seven decades of precedents should the Court render a decision that the Right to Bear Arms confers an individual right to bear arms.

Whether individual or collective, however, no right is absolute. The Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution guarantees the right to vote, but we are still required to register in order to have our voice heard at the polls. The First Amendment of the Constitution guarantees the right to "peacefully assemble" but cities and local law enforcement still have the prerogative to require permits for large demonstrations or deny such permits for reasons of public safety. Our own courts in Washington State have concluded that our State Constitutional right to bear arms for self-protection right does not trump public safety by upholding a ban on machine guns and sawed off shotguns as well as allowing local jurisdictions to regulate gun shows.

Read the text of the United States Constitution Online here.

Read more about the Second Amendment and the US Constitution: