5.5: Arms

The United States is the only country in the world that has more privately owned guns than it does citizens. America’s appreciation for firearms predates its independence: most of the colonies required all adult white male citizens to own a gun so that they could be recruited into a militia in the event of a crisis. The Founders understood the right to bear arms as an essential bulwark against tyranny: the new Constitution enabled Congress to maintain a standing army and navy, which could easily be used to overpower the states and the people if they lacked the means to defend themselves.

The right to bear arms does not mean that any U.S. citizen can carry any weapon anywhere. In the 2008 Supreme Court case District of Columbia v. Heller (which declared D.C.’s handgun ban unconstitutional), the court emphasized that the government could constitutionally prohibit convicted felons and mentally ill persons from possessing firearms, and that it could restrict the carrying of firearms in places where they might be particularly dangerous or disruptive (such as schools or government buildings). In 1939’s United States v. Miller, the court ruled that a ban on sawed-off shotguns was constitutional because the firearms in question were not the type that would be employed by a militia, establishing that not all guns were created equal in the eyes of the Second Amendment.

Since the days of the Founders, the United States military has gone from an underfunded and impermanent entity to the world’s most expensive and most advanced fighting force, and the idea that a state militia could hold its own against the national government’s vastly superior firepower has become increasingly implausible. Nevertheless, in the 2010 case McDonald v. City of Chicago, the Supreme Court incorporated the right to bear arms for self-defense. This was similar to the court’s Heller decision two years prior, which had declared gun ownership for self-defense to be constitutionally protected but had stopped short of incorporating it against the states (because the case had originated in the District of Columbia, rather than one of the 50 states).

Gun rights are a controversial topic in the United States due to its high rate of gun-related homicides, suicides, and accidental deaths. Some gun control advocates argue that the Second Amendment protects the gun-ownership rights of militia members only, and that the right to bear arms was never meant to extend to private ownership for non-militia purposes. The Supreme Court has ruled otherwise, however, and its decisions have the force of law. States can (and do) impose various restrictions on firearms purchases, but the Second Amendment ensures that those restrictions can only go so far.