ACLU Versus the Second Amendment:Change the Wording

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ACLU's absurd definition of 'the people'

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=60160

March 29, 2008
By William J. Federer
© 2008

There are two ways to change laws.

One way is tedious. You have to get a majority of citizens to share your views, motivate them to vote for representatives, get a majority of the representatives to vote for a bill, then get the president to sign it.

The other way to change laws is easy. You simply get activist judges to change the definitions of words that are in existing laws.

On March 18, the Supreme Court heard the case of District of Columbia v. Heller (07-290), a case regarding the Second Amendment, which reads:

"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 ACLU argued that the term "the people" should have its definition changed to mean "the state militia," as the ACLU website states under the section "Gun Control":

"We believe that the constitutional right to bear arms is primarily a collective one, intended mainly to protect the right of the states to maintain militias. … The ACLU therefore believes that the Second Amendment does not confer an unlimited right upon individuals to own guns."

Using the ACLU's new definition of "the people," the Second Amendment would read:

"A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people 'the state militia' to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."

The absurdity of the ACLU's definition of "the people" is revealed when its definition is applied to the rest of the Constitution and Bill of Rights:

PREAMBLE: We the people "the state militias" of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union … establish this Constitution. ...
ARTICLE 1, SECTION 2: The House of Representatives shall be composed of Members chosen every second year by the people "the state militias." …

FIRST AMENDMENT: Congress shall make no law … abridging … the right of the people "the state militias" peaceably to assemble …

FOURTH AMENDMENT: The right of the people "the state militias" to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated. …

FIFTH AMENDMENT: No person "state militia" shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment of indictment of a grand jury. …

NINTH AMENDMENT: The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people "the state militias." ...

10th AMENDMENT: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people "the state militias."

18th AMENDMENT: The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, elected by the people "the state militias."…

In U.S. v. Verdugo-Urquidez, (494 U.S. 247, 288, 1990), Justice William J. Brennan Jr. argued:

"The term 'the people' is better understood as a rhetorical counterpoint 'to the government' … that rights that were reserved to 'the people' were to protect all those subject to 'the government.' …"

Justice Brennan continued:

"The Bill of Rights did not purport to 'create' rights. Rather, they designed the Bill of Rights to prohibit our government from infringing rights and liberties presumed to be pre-existing."

In United States v. Verdugo-Urquidez, the Supreme Court wrote:

"'The people' protected by the Fourth Amendment, and by the First and Second Amendments, and to whom rights and powers are reserved in the Ninth and Tenth Amendments, refers to a class of persons who are part of a national community. …

"The Fourth Amendment's drafting history shows that its purpose was to protect the people of the United States against arbitrary action by their own government."

The ACLU's definition is more disingenuous when one realizes the U.S. Constitution already covered the subject of "militias" in Article 1, Section 8:

"Congress shall have Power … to provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union. ... To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia … reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia. …"

In the debates of the Massachusetts Convention to ratify the U.S. Constitution, 1788, Samuel Adams stated:

"And that the said Constitution be never construed to authorize Congress to infringe the just liberty of the press, or the rights of conscience; or to prevent the people of the United States, who are peaceable citizens, from keeping their own arms."

James Madison wrote in Federalist No. 46, published in the New York Packet, January 29, 1788:

"The ultimate authority ... resides in the people alone. … The advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation … forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition. …

"In the several kingdoms of Europe … the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms."

The ACLU's mis-definition of "the people" reminds one of Thomas Jefferson's letter to Supreme Court Justice William Johnson, June 12, 1823, where he warned of attempts to try "what meaning may be squeezed out of the text or invented against it":

"On every question of construction, carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or invented against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed."

Hopefully, the Supreme Court will conform to the right definition when they rule on "the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."
 
On March 18, the Supreme Court heard the case of District of Columbia v. Heller (07-290), a case regarding the Second Amendment, which reads:

"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 ACLU argued that the term "the people" should have its definition changed to mean "the state militia," as the ACLU website states under the section "Gun Control"
Click to expand...

Huh? IIRC, the ACLU didn't file a brief for either side in DC v. Heller. http://www.gurapossessky.com/news/parker/pleadings.html
 
Silly conservative/libertarians. Judges that look to the framer's original intent in determining the proper definition of a word or phrase are "activist judges", and judges that take the modern meaning of a word or phrase and attempt to cram everything in that conceivably might fit are merely breathing life into an old document. What about this do you not understand?

Mike ;)
 
Huh? IIRC, the ACLU didn't file a brief for either side in DC v. Heller.
Click to expand...

awkx,I believe the author of this article is referring to the ACLU's websites language,not a brief.

The ACLU argued that the term "the people" should have its definition changed to mean "the state militia," as the ACLU website states under the section "Gun Control":

"We believe that the constitutional right to bear arms is primarily a collective one, intended mainly to protect the right of the states to maintain militias. … The ACLU therefore believes that the Second Amendment does not confer an unlimited right upon individuals to own guns."
Click to expand...
 
I do agree with then... the 2a does need to be changed... but thats not the change I would like to see.
 
I'm not challenging anything anybody said. I'm adding my interpretation of "people" directly from the Preamble to the Constitution:

Preamble
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

It sure can't be construed to say We the "militia".....


dean
 
well spoke...errrr written...typed. Individual rights...except for the 2nd??? :banghead:
If we could just shoot the lawyers everything would be fine. Constitution was written by more learned men then I'd guess most of us are. Plain good old fashioned ENGLISH.
 
The way the article is written insinuates that the ACLU sided with DC against Heller, which simply isn't true. Whether you believe their uncompromising support of the 1st is right or wrong, you will be hard pressed to find any instance where they have taken up a stance against the second. If only the NRA was as rabid in its defense of the 2nd amendment as the ACLU is with the 1st, gun owners would not be in the piss poor situation that we are in today.

A quick Google search shows that the ACLU has on several occasions sided with the NRA in lawsuits.
 
The ACLU only actively supports four out of the five clauses of the 1st Amendment. They are as rabidly opposed to the religious freedom clause as they are to the individual right aspect of the 2nd. Their selective adherence to "strict interpretation" of the whole of The Constitution is staggering, whether you're talking about their vast deviations from original intent or their playing fast and loose with the English language such as they did with the subject of this thread.

If I had any pull in the NRA, I would direct the whole orginization to reject any support the ACLU offered on any subject important to gun owners. I wouldn't trust the ACLU to even have the capacity to sincerely help gun rights groups without some uber-liberal ulterior motive being the reason for it. We've got enough divisions between us already, sincere, honest ones for the most part, and not agenda-driven beyond our common goal of preserving our God-given RKBA. The last thing we need is to be willingly duped into sleeping with the enemy, and to my way of thinking, the ACLU is an enemy to gun owners, to religious people and to America. Sorry if that sounds extreme, but it is honestly what I believe.

Seekerrr
 
I actually won't be surprised if the nat'l ACLU changes its position and adopts an individual-rights interpretation of the Second Amendment after DC v. Heller is officially decided in late June. The ACLU isn't composed entirely of anti-gun liberals. There is also a contingent of pro-RKBA libertarians. Up to this point, the anti-gun liberals have prevailed, in large part due to the fact that the vast majority of federal circuit courts have adopted the collective-rights (mis)interpretation of the Second Amendment. When the Supreme Court rules that the Second Amendment protects the rights of individuals unaffiliated with an organized militia, I think the pro-2A libertarian contingent of the ACLU will be able to secure a recognition (at least on paper) that the Second Amendment really does protect the right of the people as individuals.

In terms of actually bringing cases to court, I think the ACLU chapters in anti-gun states may very well decline to support Second Amendment cases. But ACLU chapters in pro-gun states *are* likely to actively support the Second Amendment. (In fact, the Texas chapter of the ACLU has already supported the rights of gun-owners, although not on Second Amendment grounds.)
 
If I had any pull in the NRA, I would direct the whole orginization to reject any support the ACLU offered on any subject important to gun owners. I wouldn't trust the ACLU to even have the capacity to sincerely help gun rights groups without some uber-liberal ulterior motive being the reason for it.
Click to expand...

For what it is worth, the Texas State Rifle Association teamed up with the Texas ACLU to rewrite the Texas law covering firearms in cars so that law-abiding Texans can now carry a loaded, concealed handgun in their car without a license.

In fact, according to TSRA's Alice Tripp, one of the Texas legislators was about to pull a parliamentary maneuver to block the bill when he saw the Texas ACLU brief on the top of the pile and instead of blocking the bill, he just turned around and walked back to his chair with no further opposition.

All successful political organizations eventually learn to work with other groups that they may not completely trust. The ones that don't learn this skill basically never get big enough to have any real effect.
 
For what it's worth, here is ACLU Policy #47 quoted verbatim:
ACLU POLICY
"The ACLU agrees with the Supreme Court's long-standing interpretation of the Second Amendment [as set forth in the 1939 case, U.S. v. Miller] that the individual's right to bear arms applies only to the preservation or efficiency of a well-regulated militia. Except for lawful police and military purposes, the possession of weapons by individuals is not constitutionally protected. Therefore, there is no constitutional impediment to the regulation of firearms."
Click to expand...
The ACLU web site makes no further policy statement on the subject of arms or guns. Depending upon the Heller decision, it will be interesting to see if Policy #47 is changed. That's why I wanted to quote it verbatim on this thread, so we have a record of the policy from March 4, 2002 (when this policy statement was published) to the present date.

The article written by William J Federer in the original post that started this thread takes liberties in the interpretation of the ACLU policy. But time and the Heller decision will tell us more.
 
I'm not a lawyer, I own a very small business.

On the subject of shooting lawyers, it's a fine joke. But no one who has benefited from the professional services of a good lawyer will ever make that joke. A good lawyer is a highly valuable asset to any community.

I just wish there was a Darwinian method for letting good lawyers survive as the 'fittest' while allowing bad lawyers to wither on the vine.
 
The ACLU is a lot of things but they are not stupid. They know perfectly well what the ammendment says. That is why it they think it has to be changed.
 
Worldnet's article is a secondary source. We need link to the original ACLU web page being referenced. Can anyone find it?

I'm going to discount Worldnet's article because: It's the web. If they don't provide a link to their source that they obtained from the web, than they're hiding something. Or they're lazy. If they're lazy, I'm going to treat them as though they're hiding something.
 
From the ACLU website (emphasis mine):

Gun Control (3/4/2002)

Why doesn't the ACLU support an individual's unlimited right to keep and bear arms?

BACKGROUND

The ACLU has often been criticized for "ignoring the Second Amendment" and refusing to fight for the individual's right to own a gun or other weapons. This issue, however, has not been ignored by the ACLU. The national board has in fact debated and discussed the civil liberties aspects of the Second Amendment many times.

We believe that the constitutional right to bear arms is primarily a collective one, intended mainly to protect the right of the states to maintain militias to assure their own freedom and security against the central government. In today's world, that idea is somewhat anachronistic and in any case would require weapons much more powerful than handguns or hunting rifles. The ACLU therefore believes that the Second Amendment does not confer an unlimited right upon individuals to own guns or other weapons nor does it prohibit reasonable regulation of gun ownership, such as licensing and registration.

IN BRIEF

The national ACLU is neutral on the issue of gun control. We believe that the Constitution contains no barriers to reasonable regulations of gun ownership. If we can license and register cars, we can license and register guns.
Most opponents of gun control concede that the Second Amendment certainly does not guarantee an individual's right to own bazookas, missiles or nuclear warheads. Yet these, like rifles, pistols and even submachine guns, are arms.

The question therefore is not whether to restrict arms ownership, but how much to restrict it. If that is a question left open by the Constitution, then it is a question for Congress to decide.

ACLU POLICY

"The ACLU agrees with the Supreme Court's long-standing interpretation of the Second Amendment [as set forth in the 1939 case, U.S. v. Miller] that the individual's right to bear arms applies only to the preservation or efficiency of a well-regulated militia. Except for lawful police and military purposes, the possession of weapons by individuals is not constitutionally protected. Therefore, there is no constitutional impediment to the regulation of firearms." — Policy #47

ARGUMENTS, FACTS, QUOTES

"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 Second Amendment to the Constitution

"Since the Second Amendment. . . applies only to the right of the State to maintain a militia and not to the individual's right to bear arms, there can be no serious claim to any express constitutional right to possess a firearm."


— U.S. v. Warin (6th Circuit, 1976)

Unless the Constitution protects the individual's right to own all kinds of arms, there is no principled way to oppose reasonable restrictions on handguns, Uzis or semi-automatic rifles.
If indeed the Second Amendment provides an absolute, constitutional protection for the right to bear arms in order to preserve the power of the people to resist government tyranny, then it must allow individuals to possess bazookas, torpedoes, SCUD missiles and even nuclear warheads, for they, like handguns, rifles and M-16s, are arms. Moreover, it is hard to imagine any serious resistance to the military without such arms. Yet few, if any, would argue that the Second Amendment gives individuals the unlimited right to own any weapons they please. But as soon as we allow governmental regulation of any weapons, we have broken the dam of Constitutional protection. Once that dam is broken, we are not talking about whether the government can constitutionally restrict arms, but rather what constitutes a reasonable restriction.
Click to expand...
 
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