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Text of Amendment: 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. Origins: Having been oppressed by a professional army, the founding fathers of the United States had no use for establishing one of their own. Instead, they decided that an armed citizenry makes the best army of all. General George Washington created regulation for the aforementioned "well-regulated militia," which would consist of every able-bodied man in the country. Controversy: The Second Amendment holds the distinction of being the only amendment to the Bill of Rights that essentially goes unenforced. The U.S. Supreme Court has never struck down any piece of legislation on Second Amendment grounds, in part because justices have disagreed on whether the amendment is intended to protect the right to bear arms as an individual right, or as a component of the "well-regulated militia." Interpretations of the Second Amendment: There are three predominant interpretations of the Second Amendment: The civilian militia interpretation, which holds that the Second Amendment is no longer valid, having been intended to protect a militia system that is no longer in place. The individual rights interpretation, which holds that the individual right to bear arms is a basic right on the same order as the right to free speech. The median interpretation, which holds that the Second Amendment does protect an individual right to bear arms but is restricted by the militia language in some way. Where the Supreme Court Stands:

The only Supreme Court ruling in U.S. history that has focused primarily on the issue of what the Second Amendment really means is U.S. v. Miller (1939), which is also the last time the Court examined the amendment in any serious way. In Miller, the Court affirmed a median interpretation holding that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to bear arms, but only if the arms in question are those that would be useful as part of a citizen militia. Or maybe not; interpretations vary, partly because Miller is not an exceptionally well-written ruling.

In Parker v. District of Columbia (March 2007), the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned Washington, D.C.'s handgun ban on grounds that it violates the Second Amendment's guarantee of an individual right to bear arms. The case is being appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court in District of Columbia v. Heller, which may soon address the meaning of the Second Amendment. Almost any standard would be an improvement over Miller.

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Second Amendment - The Text, Origins, and Meaning of the ...

Lyle Denniston looks at recent statements from retired Justice John Paul Stevens about limiting gun rights, and a political reality that runs counter to that idea.

As a result of [Supreme Court] rulings, the Second Amendment, which was adopted to protect the states from federal interference with their power to ensure that their militias were well regulated, has given federal judges the ultimate power to determine the validity of state regulations of both civilian and militia-related uses of arms. That anomalous result can be avoided by adding five words to the text of the Second Amendment to make it unambiguously conform to the original intent of the draftsmen. As so amended, it would read: 'A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear armswhen serving in the militiashall not be infringed.

Retired Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, in an opinion column posted online April 11 byThe Washington Post. It is excerpted from his new book,Six Amendments: How and Why We Should Change the Constitution.The article was republishedinThe Poston April 13.

There is an old saying about the Constitution that, like a lot of old sayings, is at least partly an exaggeration: The Constitution is what the Supreme Court says it is. However, that is very close to the truth about the Second Amendment.

From its inclusion in the Constitution in 1791 until 2008, it was not understood to give Americans a personal right to have a gun. And then it changed, in a profound way.

Prior to 2008, there was a public conversation often, in academic writings funded by the National Rifle Association about whether the Amendment should go beyond protecting the arming of state militias, to allow Americans to arm themselves for personal use.

The Supreme Court finally accepted that expanded view, in the 2008 decision inDistrict of Columbia v. Heller. That ruling applied only to federal laws, or to laws enacted in the federal enclave that is the nations capital city. Two years later, though, in the case ofMcDonald v. City of Chicago, the court extended the broad new right nationwide, applying it to state and local laws, too. Both decisions divided the Justices 5 to 4, and Justice Stevens, then on the Court, dissented each time.

It is to be expected, perhaps, that a member of the court might well want, after retirement, to see the Constitution changed so that it reflected the views that the Justice had while on the court. Of course, retired judges, too, have free speech rights, and they can add importantly to public discourse if they continue to speak out.

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Does the Second Amendment need to be amended?

Published: Sunday, April 13, 2014, 4:45p.m.

WASHINGTON The push and pull over the Second Amendment right to bear arms is heating up again, thanks in part to a former Supreme Court justice's new book.

On Friday, the high court will consider whether to hear a challenge to a New Jersey law restricting the right to carry guns in public. If the court grants the petition, it would be the most important gun control case since the justices upheld the right to keep handguns at home for self-defense in 2008.

While the justices ponder what the Constitution's framers meant with the words 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, former Justice John Paul Stevens suggests it be rewritten.

In his new book, Six Amendments: How and Why We Should Change the Constitution, Stevens, 93, advocates adding the words when serving in the militia to reduce the number of firearms-related deaths about 88 per day that occur in the nation.

Stevens was on the losing side of the court's 5-4 ruling in 2008 that established the right to keep handguns at home for self-defense. Two years later, he was again in the minority when the court ruled that Chicago could not prohibit private citizens from owning handguns.

Emotional claims that the right to possess deadly weapons is so important that it is protected by the federal Constitution distort intelligent debate about the wisdom of particular aspects of proposed legislation designed to minimize the slaughter caused by the prevalence of guns in private hands, Stevens writes. Those emotional arguments would be nullified by the adoption of my proposed amendment. The amendment certainly would not silence the powerful voice of the gun lobby; it would merely eliminate its ability to advance one mistaken argument.

The gun lobby seeks to move in the opposite direction. Despite losses at federal district and appeals courts, groups including the National Rifle Association and Gun Owners Foundation back the effort by New Jersey gun owners to legalize gun possession outside the home.

The Second Amendment guarantees the right to carry weapons for the purpose of self-defense not just for self-defense within the home, but for self-defense, period, the NRA argues in its brief to the high court.

New Jersey law enforcement groups defend the state's requirement that citizens prove a justifiable need to carry handguns outside the home, whether openly or concealed from view. In their brief, they claim the law qualifies as a presumptively lawful, longstanding regulation that does not burden conduct within the scope of the Second Amendment's guarantee.

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Gun rights to return to Supreme Courts agenda

Excellent piece in the Washington Post yesterdayfrom retiredAssociate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court John Paul Stevens on the Second Amendment, how its original intent has been twisted by the gun lobby, and the five word additionthat could clear up a blurry bit of the language that has allowed the NRA to get a philosophical toehold. The column is an excerpt from Stevens' new book,"Six Amendments: How and Why We Should Change the Constitution."I won't steal Stevens' thunder by telling youwhat the five words are, but it's a solid fix and his thoughts in support of that fix are well worth reading, even if you'll never see it implemented in your lifetime.

Lest you think the reliably liberal Stevens' argument is just an example of his gun-grabbin' politics, Stevens hearkens back to the days before the NRA sold the American public on the idea that Thomas Jefferson supporteda God-Given Right to Bear Flamethrowers,recalling his owntime on the bench and a comment by former Chief Justice Warren Burger a long-time Republican and strict Constitutional constructionist, nominated to the court by noted liberal pinko Richard M. Nixon to make his point about how drastically America's interpretation of the Second Amendment has been changed by pro-gun propaganda in the past thirty years or so:

When I joined the court in 1975, that holding was generally understood as limiting the scope of the Second Amendment to uses of arms that were related to military activities. During the years when Warren Burger was chief justice, from 1969 to 1986, no judge or justice expressed any doubt about the limited coverage of the amendment, and I cannot recall any judge suggesting that the amendment might place any limit on state authority to do anything.

Organizations such as the National Rifle Association disagreed with that position and mounted a vigorous campaign claiming that federal regulation of the use of firearms severely curtailed Americans Second Amendment rights. Five years after his retirement, during a 1991 appearance on The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour, Burger himself remarked that the Second Amendment has been the subject of one of the greatest pieces of fraud, I repeat the word fraud, on the American public by special interest groups that I have ever seen in my lifetime.

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Former SCOTUS Justice Stevens: five little words can fix the Second Amendment

John Paul Stevens served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court from 1975 to 2010. This essay is excerpted from his new book, Six Amendments: How and Why We Should Change the Constitution.

Following the massacre of grammar-school children in Newtown, Conn., in December 2012, high-powered weapons have been used to kill innocent victims in more senseless public incidents. Those killings, however, are only a fragment of the total harm caused by the misuse of firearms. Each year, more than 30,000 people die in the United States in firearm-related incidents. Many of those deaths involve handguns.

The adoption of rules that will lessen the number of those incidents should be a matter of primary concern to both federal and state legislators. Legislatures are in a far better position than judges to assess the wisdom of such rules and to evaluate the costs and benefits that rule changes can be expected to produce. It is those legislators, rather than federal judges, who should make the decisions that will determine what kinds of firearms should be available to private citizens, and when and how they may be used. Constitutional provisions that curtail the legislative power to govern in this area unquestionably do more harm than good.

The first 10 amendments to the Constitution placed limits on the powers of the new federal government. Concern that a national standing army might pose a threat to the security of the separate states led to the adoption of the Second Amendment, which provides that 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.

For more than 200 years following the adoption of that amendment, federal judges uniformly understood that the right protected by that text was limited in two ways: First, it applied only to keeping and bearing arms for military purposes, and second, while it limited the power of the federal government, it did not impose any limit whatsoever on the power of states or local governments to regulate the ownership or use of firearms. Thus, in United States v. Miller, decided in 1939, the court unanimously held that Congress could prohibit the possession of a sawed-off shotgun because that sort of weapon had no reasonable relation to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated Militia.

When I joined the court in 1975, that holding was generally understood as limiting the scope of the Second Amendment to uses of arms that were related to military activities. During the years when Warren Burger was chief justice, from 1969 to 1986, no judge or justice expressed any doubt about the limited coverage of the amendment, and I cannot recall any judge suggesting that the amendment might place any limit on state authority to do anything.

Organizations such as the National Rifle Association disagreed with that position and mounted a vigorous campaign claiming that federal regulation of the use of firearms severely curtailed Americans Second Amendment rights. Five years after his retirement, during a 1991 appearance on The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour, Burger himself remarked that the Second Amendment has been the subject of one of the greatest pieces of fraud, I repeat the word fraud, on the American public by special interest groups that I have ever seen in my lifetime.

In recent years two profoundly important changes in the law have occurred. In 2008, by a vote of 5 to 4, the Supreme Court decided in District of Columbia v. Heller that the Second Amendment protects a civilians right to keep a handgun in his home for purposes of self-defense. And in 2010, by another vote of 5 to 4, the court decided in McDonald v. Chicago that the due process clauseof the 14th Amendment limits the power of the city of Chicago to outlaw the possession of handguns by private citizens. I dissented in both of those cases and remain convinced that both decisions misinterpreted the law and were profoundly unwise. Public policies concerning gun control should be decided by the voters elected representatives, not by federal judges.

In my dissent in the McDonald case, I pointed out that the courts decision was unique in the extent to which the court had exacted a heavy toll in terms of state sovereignty. . . . Even apart from the States long history of firearms regulation and its location at the core of their police powers, this is a quintessential area in which federalism ought to be allowed to flourish without this Courts meddling. Whether or not we can assert a plausible constitutional basis for intervening, there are powerful reasons why we should not do so.

Across the Nation, States and localities vary significantly in the patterns and problems of gun violence they face, as well as in the traditions and cultures of lawful gun use. . . . The city of Chicago, for example, faces a pressing challenge in combating criminal street gangs. Most rural areas do not.

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Justice Stevens: Justice Stevens: The five extra words that can fix the Second Amendment