Supreme Court Could Confront Second-Amendment Questions

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Supreme Court Could Confront Second-Amendment Questions 10/19/01Thanks to a recent decision, the U.S. Supreme Court may soon have to face the question of whether the Second Amendment guarantees an individual right to bear arms, UPI reported Oct. 17.For more than 60 years, the Supreme Court has avoided the issue. But with both gun-control advocates and opponents using the language of the amendment to support their positions, the Supreme Court may have to provide an interpretation of the amendment either later this term or in upcoming terms.The Second Amendment states: "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 last time the Supreme Court addressed the issue was in 1939 during the Miller case. The case involved two men who were charged with bringing a sawed-off shotgun from Oklahoma into Arkansas in violation of federal law. They claimed the law violated their Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms.In the case, the Supreme Court ruled that the Second Amendment did not protect the right to have the type of weapon the men were carrying.Ever since, both sides of the gun-control debate have been using the Miller ruling to support their positions.Recently, U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft wrote to the National Rifle Association, saying that he believed in an individual's constitutional right to bear arms. And just this week, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals stated in a Texas case that, "We reject the collective rights and sophisticated collective-rights models for interpreting the Second Amendment. We hold, consistent with Miller, that it protects the right of individuals, including those not then actually a member of any militia or engaged in active military service or training, to privately possess and bear their own firearms, such as the pistol involved here, that are suitable as personal, individual weapons and are not of the general kind or type excluded by Miller."It is likely that the U.S. Supreme Court could be divided in its interpretation of the Second Amendment. On the one hand, Justice John Paul Stevens, the leader of the four-member liberal block on the court, believes there is no individual right to bear arms, while Justice Clarence Thomas, one of the court's three staunch conservatives, supports an individual's right to bear arms. http://www.jointogether.org/gv/wire/news/reader.jtml?Object_ID=546170