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

Heading: Colonial American History

Text: The American colonists believed that they retained all the same rights as Englishmen, including the right to bear arms. Malcolm, To Keep and Bear Arms at 138. In his Commentaries on the Laws of England, widely read and relied on as a source of law in the colonies, Malcolm, To Keep and Bear Arms at 142, William Blackstone wrote that the right to bear arms was requiredtogether with other rights involving the administration of justice and the application for redress of injuryto secure the absolute, primary individual rights of personal security, personal liberty, and private property, id. at 143. [37] Many early colonial statutes required the citizenry to arm itself, largely for the defense of their isolated and endangered communities. Levin, 48 Chi-Kent L. Rev. at 148; see also id. at 148-49 (setting out early colonial statutes requiring possession or carrying of arms); Emery, 28 Harv. L. Rev. at 474-75 (In the American colonies, with their small revenues and beset as they were with savage and other enemies, it was deemed necessary that every man of military age and capacity should provide himself with arms and be ready to bear them in defense of himself and his neighbors and the colony at large.). Additionally, as with community defense in England, the colonists were expected to hunt[] criminals down when the hue and cry went up, and in more formal posse and militia patrol duties, under the control of public officials. Randy E. Barnett and Don B. Kates, Under Fire: The New Consensus on the Second Amendment, 45 Emory L.J. 1139, 1217 (1996). [38] Notably, however, the colonists did not treat the common-law right to bear arms as absolute and, instead, regulated firearm use and ownership. Such restrictions generally fell into three categories: (1) those prohibiting gun ownership or the carrying of arms by Native Americans and persons of African descent; (2) those prohibiting hunting or shooting near urban areas; and (3) those prohibiting the carrying or brandishing of arms so as to cause fear. ( See Kates, 82 Mich. L. Rev. at 241 n. 156); see also Malcolm, To Keep and Bear Arms at 140 (colonies restricted use of firearms in crowded places and prohibited riding with firearms with intent to terrify); Levin, 48 Chi-Kent L. Rev. at 149-50 (colonies tried to keep arms out of the wrong hands by forbidding slaves and Native Americans from carrying certain weapons and regulated firearms use to protect people and livestock). [39] It does not appear, however, that any laws of the colonial era expressly prohibited criminals from owning firearms or otherwise provided for the disarmament of that group. Further, early colonial militia laws do not appear to have exempted criminals from the military ranks; indeed, such laws required that all who qualified for military service provide their own arms. See, e.g., The Statutes at Large; Being a Collection of All the Laws of Virginia from the First Session of the Legislature in the Year 1619, XII General Assembly of 1785, ch. 1, § III, pp. 10, 12 (all free male persons between 18 and 50 years of age, with exceptions based on occupation, required to report for militia service armed, equipped, and accoutered) (Cochrand ed. 1823). After the French and Indian War, which ended in 1763, the colonists no longer believed that they could rely on the English Bill of Rights. That war had brought many British troops to the colonies, and, following the war, George III maintained a standing army in American cities and ordered that the troops be quartered in private homes. The colonists viewed the standing army as an instrument of oppression and, therefore, drafted state constitutions during the Revolutionary War period that included arms provisions and that prohibited the keeping of standing armies during times of peace. See Kessler, 289 Or. at 364-65, 614 P.2d 94; see also Malcolm, To Keep and Bear Arms at 143-47. Following the adoption of those constitutions, the states continued to regulate firearm use and possession, including the types of regulations discussed earlier, i.e., general disarmament of Native Americans and persons of African descent; prohibitions on the carrying of concealed weapons and the carrying of firearms in certain places; and prohibitions on carrying weapons with intent to terrorize the public. [40] Other regulatory laws at the time of the Revolutionary War concerned the use of firearms as part of militia service and the safe storage of gunpowder. See generally Saul Cornell and Nathan DeDino, A Well Regulated Right: The Early American Origins of Gun Control, 73 Fordham L. Rev. 508-12 (2004) (discussing such regulations). Another type of arms restriction that emerged at the time of the Revolutionary War involved the disarmament of persons who refused to swear oaths of allegiance to a state or to the United States. See id. at 506-08 (discussing loyalty oaths). For example, the State of Pennsylvaniathe constitutional arms provision of which likely was a genesis for Oregon's provision, see 338 Or. at 646-47, 114 P.3d at 1117-18 (so explaining)required any person who `refuse[d] or neglect[ed] to take the oath or affirmation' of allegiance to the state to deliver up his arms to agents of the state and thereafter was prohibited from carry[ing] any arms about his person or keep[ing] any arms or ammunition in his `house or elsewhere.' Cornell and DeDino, 73 Fordham L. Rev. at 506 (quoting 1777-1778 Pa Laws, § 5, p. 126). Such a broad provision effectively eliminated the opportunity for someone to violently protest the actions of the Pennsylvania government or defend himself with a firearm. Id. Similarly, Massachusetts passed an act that disarmed `such Persons as are notoriously disaffected to the Cause of America, or who refuse to associate to defend by Arms the United American Colonies.' Id. at 507 (quoting 1775-1776 Mass. Acts, ch. VII at 31). The Massachusetts law exempted Quakers by offering them a different form of declaration to accommodate their religion. Thus, as two authoring scholars put it, a Quaker's right    to practice his religion outweighed the state's interest in its preferred test of allegiance, while the right to bear arms did not outweigh the state's interest in maintaining security through disarmament of those considered dangerous to the state. Instead, the state's interest in public safety dominated. Id. As to the early colonial and state militia laws, despite some commentators' assertions, we have been unable to locate any statutes that explicitly excluded criminals from membership in the militia; [41] to the contrary, early militia statutes that we have reviewed contained no exemption for felons or criminals, although they contained a litany of other exemptions. See 338 Or. at 661-62, 114 P.3d at 1126-27 (discussing early Virginia statutes); Laws and Resolves of Massachusetts 1784-85, ch. 55, An Act for Regulating and Governing the Militia of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts (1785), p. 140, 151-52 (militia service required as to able-bodied men ages 16 to 60; exemptions based on occupation and status as Quaker[], negro[], Indian[], and mulatto[]); Laws of New York, ch. 25, an Act to regulate the militia, pp. 220, 225 (1786) (militia service required as to able-bodied men ages 16 to 45; exemptions based on occupation and Quaker status only). Finally, we could find no reference to laws adopted before the drafting of the Oregon Constitution that specifically prohibited groups such as felons from possessing firearms or other weaponry. We note, however, that scholars have written that colonial America often punished felonies by death, see, e.g., Kates, 82 Mich. L. Rev. at 266 (so stating), which early Oregon statutes did not do.