The Senate’s official website page on the Constitution says the Second Amendment right to bear arms could be a collective right, not an individual freedom.
The website explains the Second Amendment this way: “Whether this provision protects the individual’s right to own firearms or whether it deals only with the collective right of the people to arm and maintain a militia has long been debated.”
The Bill of Rights, however, was the Founding Father’s way of guaranteeing each and every individual their “unalienable rights,” as “endowed” by God. On top of that, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled — at least twice in the past five years — that the Second Amendment is an individual right, Breitbart reported.
In 2008, the court ruled on District of Columbia v. Heller and found that “the Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia.”
And in 2010, Breitbart reported, the Supreme Court ruled the same held true in McDonald v. Chicago — that the Heller case showed “that individual self-defense is the ’central component’ of the Second Amendment rights,” Associated Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. wrote in his opinion.
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• Cheryl K. Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com.
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