Political significance of the Second Amendment Term Paper

Political significance of the Second Amendment - Term Paper Example When the issues are conflicting with each other, the highest court remained silent. The Supreme Court keeps silent about the issues and interpretation of the Second Amendment. It diverts itself to other issues such as adjustments in constitutional rules of criminal procedure and doctrines affecting obscenity, libel and time, place, and manner restrictions on speech, the Second Amendment are simply ignored (Lund, 1987). This paper will review the true meaning of the Second Amendment and the cases of the Supreme Court which illustrate the controversy of the topic. The Real Meaning The Second Amendment states that â€Å"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.† The controversy arise from the phrase â€Å"a well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State† where one group of commentators treats the phrase simply as statement of purpose and maintain s that the Second Amendment individual rights to keep and bear arms (Lund, 1987). ... ) stated that the right to bear arms is a political right.  The time the Bill of Rights was proposed, British tyranny was fresh in everyone’s mind; hence, it was to fight tyranny that the second amendment was adopted (Noga, 2011). The Second Amendment was all about protecting liberty and countering the threat from a standing army (Noga, 2011). But still, in the pre ratification debate, both Federalists and Anti-Federalists agreed the federal government should not have any authority at all to disarm the citizenry (Noga, 2011). There are conflicting understandings of the phrase stated above. The laypersons or ordinary prudent men favour or understand the â€Å"individual right† interpretation of the Second Amendment. On the other hand, those who belong in the academe and court, the â€Å"collective right† interpretation is more dominant. The reason why this â€Å"collective right† interpretation is more dominant than the â€Å"individual right† is b ecause the leaders or those in the legal profession believe and favour the restrictive regulations on the ownership and use of firearms as a matter of social policy (Lund, 1987). According to Lund (1987), the advocates of the â€Å"collective right† interpretation focus almost exclusively on the text â€Å"well regulated Militia† which they argue that it implies the right to keep and bear arms is strictly restricted to officially organized military units. However, the term Militia was used. This is why until now there is no clear meaning of the Second Amendment because there is no clear and agreed meaning of the term â€Å"Militia." But there were arguments on what the term â€Å"Militia† protects. Some argued that the Second Amendment did not mention the right of state to regulate the militia (Lund, 1987). It is argued if the state