In 1791 William Rawle was appointed as a United States Attorney for Pennsylvania by President George Washington, a post he held for more than eight years. He had also been George Washingtons candidate for the nations first attorney general, but Rawle declined the appointment. Rawles A View of the Constitution of the United States of America (1829), was adopted as a constitutional law textbook at West Point and other institutions. He describes the scope of the Second Amendments right to keep and bear arms. (Rawles comments quoted from Halbrook, Stephen P., That Every Man Be Armed: The Evolution of a Constitutional Right, University of New Mexico Press, 1984.) the powers not delegated to congress by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people[quoting the 10th Amendment]. What we are about to consider are certainly not delegated to congress, nor are they noticed in the prohibitions to states; they are therefore reserved either to the states or to the people. Their high nature, their necessity to the general security and happiness will be distinctly perceived. In the second article, it is declared, that a well regulated militia is necessary to a free state; a proposition from which few will dissent. Although in actual war, in the services of regular troops are confessedly more valuable; yet while peace prevails, and in the commencement of a war before a regular force can be raised, the militia form the palladium of the country. They are ready to repel invasion, to suppress insurrection, and preserve the good order and peace of government. That they should be well regulated, is judiciously added. A disorderly militia is disgraceful to itself, and dangerous not to the enemy, but to its own country. The duty of the state government is, to adopt such regulation as will tend to make good soldiers with the least interruptions of the ordinary and useful occupations of civil life. In this all the Union has a strong and visible interest. The corollary, from the first position, is that the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. The prohibition is general. No clause in the Constitution could by any rule of construction be conceived to give to congress a power to disarm the people. Such a flagitious attempt could only be made under some general pretence by a state legislature. But if in any blind pursuit of inordinate power, either should attempt it, this amendment may be appealed to as a restraint on both. In most of the countries of Europe, this right does not seem to be denied, although it is allowed more or less sparingly, according to circumstances. In England, a country which boasts so much of its freedom, the right was secured to protestant subjects only, on the revolution of 1688; and is cautiously described to be that of bearing arms for their defence,suitable to their conditions, and as allowed by law. An arbitrary code for the preservation of game in that country has long disgraced them. A very small proportion of the people being permitted to kill it, though for their own subsistence; a gun or other instrument, used for that purpose by an unqualified person, may be seized and forfeited. Blackstone, in whom we regret that we cannot always trace expanded principles of rational liberty, observes however, on this subject, that the prevention of popular insurrections and resistance to government by disarming the people, is oftener meant than avowed, by the makers of forest and game laws. (A View of the Constitution of the United States, 125--26 1829 (2d ed.) by William Rawles) Rawle stresses the importance of the militia as a safeguard against a standing army, but he is also clear in pointing out that the right of individuals to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed, period, regardless of usage, as it was arbitrarily restricted by hunting laws in England. Over time, it is the fusion of the militia clause and the broad scope of the right to keep and bear arms that has caused many people to misunderstand the Second Amendment. Many of the Founders and commentators were concerned about the militia, but this was never meant to restrict the right to keep and bear arms to military purposes only. Remember the prohibition against infringement was meant to be general. (online source: guncite/gc2ndcom.html)
Posted on: Tue, 23 Sep 2014 04:21:07 +0000
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