Lies the government told you Read Online Free PDF

and determined that “the right of the people” meant that the right belonged to the individual, like those enumerated in the First and Fourth Amendments. “To keep and bear arms” was held to mean “the carrying of the weapon . . . for the purpose of offensive or defensive action.” The Court therefore determined that the D.C. handgun ban was an infringement of the natural, constitutionally protected right of self-defense, and struck down the requirement that a gun be disassembled and inoperable in one’s own home.
    One Giant Leap Back:
A Fundamental Right Can Be Infringed
    As much as the Heller decision has been celebrated for its long-sought-for conclusion that the right to keep and bear arms is an individual and fundamental right, there is also a huge gap in its protection. That gap is the fact that the Court, while giving pages of analysis on each separate clause of the Second Amendment, almost completely ignored the most crucial, the phrase “shall not be infringed.” One would think that is because this phrase, above all the others, is the most self-explanatory. Rather than “should not” or other statements that would portend that the Founding Fathers wanted to give the federal government some leeway within this right, the words used are “shall not.” “Shall not” does not mean “should not”; it means that the right cannot , for any reason, be infringed by any government without due process. The Court did not grant this phrase any analysis, noting only that “ of course the right was not unlimited” (emphases added) and that the Second Amendment did not “protect the right of citizens to carry arms for any sort of confrontation.” The statements made by the Court focused on the idea that certain types of weapons were not protected.
    As well, the Court determined only the right to carry guns in the home, noting that the case did not “cast doubt on longstanding . . . laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools or government buildings.” But it also protects only certain weapons, not overruling Miller but modifying it to mean that “the Second Amendment does not protect those weapons not typically possessed by law abiding citizens for lawful purposes.” Miller had held that the Second Amendment only protected the ownership and possession of weapons typically possessed by the military. But without an exhaustive analysis or an objective standard under which to judge whether or not a law infringes on the Second Amendment, the Court has left open the door for any government to continue its infringement. By not addressing the standard of review to be applied by courts to gun laws, the Court has left open the door for lower courts to decide each case as they feel, not as the Constitution requires.
    At the moment, then, the state need only argue at most that the law passes strict scrutiny. The strict scrutiny standard essentially means that any law the government wants to pass that infringes on a constitutional right must affirmatively and effectively serve a compelling government interest by the least restrictive means. Anytime the court analyzes a law under strict scrutiny, there are three steps to ensuring that it passes constitutional muster: First, the law must be justified by a compelling government interest, which means that it is an interest that the government needs to maintain in order for it to deliver government services to people in its jurisdictions. For example, courts have held that maintaining a stable political system, protecting voters from confusion, undue influence and intimidation, and preventing vote-buying are all compelling state interests.
    Second, the law must be narrowly tailored to achieve that interest, which means that it cannot be too broad, thereby affecting more people and rights than is required, or too narrow, meaning that it does not address all that the so-called compelling interest requires. The government has to prove to the