This is the seventh of twenty-five weekly articles in The Tennessee Star’s Constitution Series. Students in grades 8 through 12 can sign up here to participate in The Tennessee Star’s Constitution Bee, which will be held on September 23. The Second Amendment declares that individual citizens have a right to keep and bear arms. That right is not created by the Second Amendment but is recognized to naturally exist independent of the Constitution. The purpose of the Second Amendment is to make clear that the federal government lacks any authority to restrict or infringe that individual right. The right is not just the right of the individual to own arms that are suitable for hunting, self defense, recreational shooting or collecting – although each of those are within its scope. The Second Amendment, much like the First Amendment, also exists to protect a political right and the political power that was essential to founding of this nation and as indicated in the Declaration of Independence. That right is the supreme authority and the power of the citizens of any nation or government to change, abolish, redo or re-establish their government. At the time that the Second Amendment was written,…
Read the full storyConstitution Series: The Second Amendment – Its Meaning, Purpose, and Scope
