Opinion ID: 835750
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Second Amendment to the United States Constitution

Text: The American colonial experience respecting the right to bear arms culminated in the adoption, in 1791, of the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution, which provides: 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. [42] We note, first, that most Second Amendment scholarshipas well as some recent federal case lawconsists of a lively, even acrimonious, debate as to whether that amendment guarantees an individual right to bear arms (the more current prevailing academic view), a collective right that extends to only the states (the more traditional view), or some other quasi-collective or civic right. See, e.g., United States v. Emerson, 270 F.3d 203, 220, 260 (5th Cir.2001), cert. den., 536 U.S. 907, 122 S.Ct. 2362, 153 L.Ed.2d 184 (2002); Stephen P. Halbrook, What the Framers Intended: A Linguistic Analysis of the Right to Bear Arms, 49 Law & Contemp. Probs. 151, 162 (Winter 1986); Kates, 82 Mich. L. Rev. at 273 (all adopting or advocating individual-right view); Silveira v. Lockyer, 312 F.3d 1052, 1060-61, 1086-87 (9th Cir.2002), cert. den., 540 U.S. 1046, 124 S.Ct. 803, 157 L.Ed.2d 693 (2003); David C. Williams, Civic Republicanism and the Citizen Militia: The Terrifying Second Amendment, 101 Yale L.J. 551 (1991); Kenneth Lasson, Blunderbuss Scholarship: Perverting the Original Intent and Plain Meaning of the Second Amendment, 32 U. Balt. L. Rev. 127 (2003) (all adopting or advocating collective-right view); Cornell and DeDino, 73 Fordham L. Rev. at 491 (advocating civic right view, that is, a right exercised by citizens, not individuals   , who act together in a collective manner, for a distinctly public purpose: participation in a well-regulated militia). Much of that debate is not useful to our inquiry, because, as this court previously has recognized, Article I, section 27, of the Oregon Constitution guarantees an individual right. See Kessler, 289 Or. at 371, 614 P.2d 94 ([W]e hold that Article I, section 27, of the Oregon Constitution includes a right to possess certain arms for defense of person and property.). However, while we are mindful that that debate has shaped much of the research that is available to us in addressing the more particular question presented in these cases, [43] some of the available scholarship and commentarywhich sheds right on the general American view of the right to bear arms in the late eighteenth centurybears on our analysis, as discussed below. We begin by observing, as do many scholars, that a number of states proposed amendments to the original United States Constitution before its adoption in 1788and 13 years before the ratification of the Bill of Rightsthat would have guaranteed a right to bear arms. In particular, scholars often quote a proposed amendment from the dissent of the minority of the Pennsylvania ratifying convention as supporting the notion that the government constitutionally may disarm criminals. That proposed amendment provided: That the people have a right to bear arms    and no law shall be passed for disarming the people or any of them unless for crimes committed, or real danger of public injury from individuals[.] [44] The Address and Reasons of Dissent of the Minority of the Convention of the State of Pennsylvania to their Constituents, 1787, reprinted in Schwartz, 2 Bill of Rights at 665 (emphasis added). We agree that that proposed provisionhad the framers adopted itexpressly would have permitted the disarming of criminals. However, other proposed amendments to the United States Constitution were not so explicit. For example, the Massachusetts ratifying convention recommended an amendment that provided, And that the said Constitution be never construed to authorize Congress    to prevent the people of the United States, who are peaceable citizens, from keeping their own arms[.] Debates and Proceedings in the Convention of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Held in the Year 1788 pp. 78-92 (1856), reprinted in Schwartz, 2 Bill of Rights at 681 (emphasis added). Although we could view the reference to peaceable citizens as the equivalent of law-abiding citizens (thereby suggesting permissible disarmament of criminals), we just as easily could view that reference as a declaration that the colonial American citizenryas opposed to the Native Americans who lived among themwere peaceable. New Hampshire also proposed an amendment, which provided that Congress shall never disarm any Citizen unless such as are or have been in Actual Rebellion.  Journal of the Proceedings of the Convention of the State of New Hampshire Whom Adopted the Federal Constitution (1788), reprinted in Miscellaneous Documents and Reports Relating to New Hampshire at Different Periods 18 (1877), reprinted in Schwartz, 2 Bill of Rights at 761 (emphasis added). As with the peaceable citizens reference in the Massachusetts proposal, the phrase Actual Rebellion is ambiguous at best respecting any reference to common criminals; more likely, it referred to those involved in treasonist activities against the government. [45] In short, the collective wording of the early proposedand defeatedamendments to the United States Constitution did not clearly confirm a general understanding among the founders that criminals or felons were excluded from any traditional right to bear arms or that the government otherwise constitutionally could disarm them. As to the drafting of the Second Amendment itself, scholars generally agree that the framers viewed the constitutional arms guarantee as fundamental to their new form of government. Specifically, the framers viewed citizen arms possession as a critical check on governmental tyranny and as necessary protection against outlaws and enemy attack. See, e.g., Glenn Harlan Reynolds, A Critical Guide to the Second Amendment, 62 Tenn. L. Rev. 461, 467 (1995) (With the citizenry armed, imposing tyranny would be far more difficult than it would be with the citizenry defenseless.); Shalhope, 49 Law & Contemp. Probs. 125 at 126 (one theme shaping framers' attitudes in late eighteenth century was the vital interrelationship linking arms, the individual, and society.); David Thomas Konig, The Persistence of Resistance: Civic Rights, Natural Rights, and Property Rights in the Historical Debate Over The Right of the People to Keep and Bear Arms,  73 Fordham L. Rev. 539, 541 (2004) (American right to bear arms represented a right to impos[e] the force of the community on those who    threatened its safety); Barnett and Kates, 45 Emory L.J. at 1216-17 (many founders thought that survival of republican government depended on the armed freeholder    able to repulse outlaws and oppressive officials,    and foreign invaders). [46] But see Cornell and DeDino, 73 Fordham L. Rev. at 500-01 (in adopting civic right view of Second Amendment, authors rejected notion that self-defense concerns accompanied adoption of that amendment). The framers of the United States Constitution drew most fully upon a tradition of `republicanism' espoused by earlier European political philosophers such as Niccolo Machiavelli and James Harrington, and more contemporary political writers such as James Burgh. Shalhope, 49 Law & Contemp. Probs. at 126. In keeping with that tradition, the framers understood that the preservation of republican institutions depended upon the continued existence of a `virtuous' citizenry. Id. at 128. As defined by Machiavelli, Harrington, and Burgh, the hallmark of virtuous republican citizenship was the existence of a self-reliant citizenry that both possessed arms and was willing to use them in defense of    person,    property, and    state. Id. at 130-31. Second Amendment scholars and commentators have focused on that notion of a virtuous citizenry to conclude that, historically, the Second Amendment guarantee excluded convicted felons. As one commentator wrote: [T]he [individual right] interpretation of the Second Amendment does not guarantee a right to keep and bear arms for everyone. The right to arms always extended beyond the core membership of the militia, encompassing those (like women, seamen, clergymen, and those beyond the upper age for militia service) who could not be called out for militia duty. But [individual right] scholars tend to stress that[,] in `classical republican political philosophy, the concept of a right to arms was inextricably and multifariously tied to that of the virtuous citizen. Free and republican institutions were believed to be dependent on civic virtu which, in turn, depended upon each citizen being armedand, therefore, fearless, self-reliant, and upright. Since possession of arms was the hallmark of citizen's independence, the ultimate expression of civic virtu was his defensive use of arms against criminals, oppressive officials, and foreign enemies alike. One implication of this emphasis on the virtuous citizen is that the right to arms does not preclude laws disarming the unvirtuous (i.e. criminals) or those who, like children or the mentally unbalanced, are deemed incapable of virtue. ' Reynolds, 62 Tenn. L. Rev. at 480 (quoting Don B. Kates, Jr., The Second Amendment: A Dialogue, 49 Law & Contemp. Probs. 143, 146 (Winter 1986)) (internal citations and footnotes omitted; emphasis added). The excerpt set out above suggests that, in right of the political theories that guided the framers of the United States Constitution and the Bill of Rights, the framers never intended felons to obtain the benefit of the Second Amendment guarantee because they did not qualify as virtuous citizens. Indeed, we have not found a scholar or commentator addressing the topic who disagrees with that general conclusion. We note, however, that the articles that we have reviewed offer little by way of concrete historical example to support that conclusion, other than generally invoking the notion of virtuous citizenship. For example, one commentator writes: The constitutionality of    legislation [prohibiting firearms possession by felons] cannot seriously be questioned on a theory that felons are included within `the people' whose right to arms is guaranteed by the [S]econd [A]mendment. Felons simply did not fall within the benefits of the common law right to possess arms. That law punished felons with automatic forfeiture of all goods, usually accompanied by death. We may presume that persons confined in jails awaiting trial on criminal charges were also debarred from the possession of arms. Nor does it seem that the Founders considered felons within the common law right to arms or intended to confer any such right upon them. All the ratifying convention proposals which most explicitly detailed the recommended right-to-arms amendment excluded criminals and the violent. Kates, 82 Mich. L. Rev. at 266; see also Kates, 49 Law & Contemp. Probs. at 146 (to same effect). Unlike the rest of that author's lengthy article analyzing the federal constitutional right to bear arms, the above-quoted excerpt bears no citation to any historical authority. Further, as discussed earlier in this opinion, only one of the ratifying convention proposals that the author mentionsfar from allexpressly would have excluded common criminals and felons from the right to bear arms. [47] In sum, in light of the lack of definitive examples from the historical record, we find much of the conclusory scholarship respecting the right of felons to possess arms under the Second Amendment to be unhelpful. Other material, however, provides us with a clearer picture of the scope of the framers' view of the notion of a virtuous citizen. For example, some scholars point to the writings of Cesare Beccaria, an Italian philosopher whose work proved influential to Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, and of Thomas Paine. Beccaria was fiercely opposed to the notion of disarming the general populace, for fear of the now-common adage that, when guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns. Barnett and Kates, 45 Emory L.J. at 1215. [48] Similarly, Paine wrote that [a]rms like laws discourage and keep the invader and the plunderer in awe, and preserve order in the world as well as property.    To protect themselves, responsible citizens must arm themselves. Shalhope, 49 Law & Contemp. Probs. at 129. Further, an early constitutional scholar, William Rawle, wrote that, although the Second Amendment could not be conceived to give congress a power to disarm the people, the right to bear arms ought not, however, in any government, to be abused to the disturbance of the public peace. Robert Dowlut, The Right to Arms: Does the Constitution or the Predilection of Judges Reign? 36 Okla. L. Rev. 65, 84-85 (1983) (quoting William Rawle, A View of the Constitution of the United States of America 125-26 (Phil. 1825)). Finally, in emphasizing the notion of the virtuous citizen, one commentator has written that the founders learned to conceive of tyrants as felons whom the virtuous citizen should resist just as he would resist any other species of robber. Kates, 49 Law & Contemp. Probs. at 145-46 n. 16. Those guiding philosophies demonstrate the general view of the framers of the Second Amendment that a certain criminal elementnotably, outlaws using weapons or otherwise committing injurious crimes against person and propertyoccupied a lesser status in the community than the responsible, law-abiding citizenry, particularly respecting the bearing of arms. See also Dowlut, 36 Okla. L. Rev. at 70 (stating that [t]he necessity of self-defense against criminal attacks was also a reason for keeping and bearing arms and citing 1697 complaints that Philadelphia was becoming invested with pirates and rogues and was overrun with wickedness (internal quotation marks omitted)). At the same time, the citizenry's bearing of arms was necessary to repel crimes of that nature. Finally, we note that the United States Supreme Court has upheld federal legislation prohibiting felons from possessing firearms against a Second Amendment challenge. See Lewis v. United States, 445 U.S. 55, 66, 100 S.Ct. 915, 63 L.Ed.2d 198 (1980) (Congress could rationally conclude that any felony conviction, even an allegedly invalid one, is a sufficient basis on which to prohibit the possession of a firearm; This Court has recognized repeatedly that a legislature constitutionally may prohibit a convicted felon from engaging in activities far more fundamental than the possession of a firearm, citing cases involving disenfranchisement, the holding of public office, and professional licensing). However, the Court reached that conclusion in the context of an earlier holding that the Second Amendment guarantees no right to keep and bear a firearm that does not have `some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia.' Id. at 65 n. 8, 100 S.Ct. 915 (quoting United States v. Miller, 307 U.S. 174, 178, 59 S.Ct. 816, 83 L.Ed. 1206 (1939)). Consequently, the court's particular construction of the Second Amendment in Lewis which, unlike this court's construction of Article I, section 27, in Kessler, exclusively focused on the military use of armsis not instructive to our analysis here. [49]