David E. Young has written a fantastic, historical treatment of why a recent amicus brief in favor of the D.C. gun ban is way off base as well as based on bad historical research. Filed by “fifteen professional academic historians,” the piece makes all sorts of missteps and excludes fact all too often. These so-called historians are just plain wrong so often that one gets the feeling that they let agenda get in the way of truth and research.
This piece was originally published by the History News Network and is a must read for anyone interested in our 2nd Amendment rights.
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Why DC’s Gun Law Is Unconstitutional
Historical arguments about American bills of rights are major points of discussion in the District of Columbia vs Heller case currently before the U.S. Supreme Court. At issue is exactly what the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution means and whether it was proper for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia to overturn Washington D.C.’s handgun ban for violating the Second Amendment. An amicus brief in support of Washington D.C.’s handgun ban dealing with the historical issues in the case was filed by fifteen professional academic historians. One would expect such a brief to be historically accurate, address the Second Amendment in its proper Bill of Rights related context, and include the most relevant figures, statements, and actions for understanding any historical issues in the dispute. However, any such expectation is left largely unfulfilled in the historians’ brief.
The historians’ Heller amicus brief begins with a look at the English Bill of Rights, which limited only the king, not the legislative branch of government. James Madison indicated during his speech to Congress introducing the Bill of Rights provisions that the comparison was inapplicable. The reason was because their purposes were different. England’s Bill of Rights did not limit the legislative branch at all, while the fundamental rights protections in American bills of rights were understood as limiting all branches of government.
The historians’ brief bizarrely claims that only two states, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, actually made their declarations of rights a part of their state constitutions. This statement is factually incorrect. On the contrary, two other states, Vermont and North Carolina, copied verbatim the Pennsylvania Constitution’s language making their declaration of rights a part of their state constitution. Also, George Mason specifically stated in the Virginia Ratifying Convention that the 1776 Virginia Bill of Rights, which he was the author of, was part of Virginia’s Constitution. Mason’s statement was made to illustrate the need for a federal bill of rights based upon the state bills of rights because the proposed U.S. Constitution allowed Congress to violate the rights of the citizens that were protected in the state bills of rights. Other historical materials exist that directly contradict the historians in this matter as well.
Continue reading “Why DC’s Gun Law Is Unconstitutional”
Recently, the anti-Second Amendment group, The Brady campaign to Prevent gun Violence, came out with another of their “scorecards” where they rank states according to how bad or good gun laws there are — according to their anti-gun reckoning, of course. Upon its release, the MSM warmed up its anti-gun machine and began touting this “scorecard” as if it were gospel. Headlines blared how “good” a state was because it restricted guns or how “bad” it was if it ranked as a state with fewer restrictions on guns according to Brady. Of course, all this assumes straight out that this Brady organization “scorecard” is the correct view of guns, as if they are correct in their assessment. And their assessment is that guns are bad. Period.