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So the Framers were vague on the Second Amendment?


Charlie T Waite

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This was George Washington's Attorney General comments on the Second Amendment.  While reading his definition from 1829, note the 2nd paragraph:

 

The corollary, from the first position, is, that the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

The prohibition is general. No clause in the Constitution could by any rule of construction be conceived to give to congress a power to disarm the people. Such a flagitious attempt could only be made under some general pretence by a state legislature. But if in any blind pursuit of inordinate power, either should attempt it, this amendment may be appealed to as a restraint on both.

 

William Rawle, A View of the Constitution of the United States 125--26 1829 (2d ed.)

 

 

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They were very clear that it is a right, to use a phrase from the 10th Amendment, "not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, ...reserved ... to the people."   We see it again and again in writings and even court decisions throughout our history.  

 

Part of the reason Scott v Sandford was decided as it was revolved around the individual RKBA:

" It would give to persons of the negro race, who were recognised as citizens in any one State of the Union, the right to enter every other State whenever they pleased, singly or in companies, without pass or passport, and without obstruction, to sojourn there as long as they pleased, to go where they pleased at every hour of the day or night without molestation, unless they committed some violation of law for which a white man would be punished; and it would give them the full liberty of speech in public and in private upon all subjects upon which its own citizens might speak; to hold public meetings upon political affairs, and to keep and carry arms wherever they went. And all of this would be done in the face of the subject race of the same color, both free and slaves, and inevitably producing discontent and insubordination among them, and endangering the peace and safety of the State."

 

So clearly by 1857 it was a clearly established right for individuals not connected with the militia to "keep and carry arms" as they went about their daily business.

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