Durston for Congress

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Second Amendment "gun rights"

The Second Amendment to the U.S. constitution 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." When citing the Second Amendment, the National Rifle Association typically leaves out the part about the well regulated militia. The U.S. Supreme court ruled in U.S. v. Miller (1939) and in Lewis v. United States (1980) that the Second Amendment confers a collective right of "the people" of the states to maintain armed militias, such as the current day National Guard, but not an individual right of each and every person to own a gun. The late Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren Burger said, "The Second Amendment has been the subject of one of the greatest pieces of fraud, I repeat the word fraud, on the American people by special interest groups that I have ever seen in my lifetime." On June 26, 2008, Supreme Court Justices Scalia, Roberts, Thomas, Alito, and Kennedy reversed 70 years of legal precedent in ruling in a slim 5-4 decision that a 32 year old ban on new acquisition of handguns in Washington DC violated the Second Amendment. The implications of the June 26 Supreme Court decisions for other firearm regulations remain to be determined. As a U.S. Congressmen, I work for sensible firearm regulations similar to those in other civilized, democratic countries which allow legitimate hunters and target shooters to practice their sports but which have far lower rates of gun violence than in our country. I will also work to inform the public about the overwhelming evidence that guns in our homes and in our communities are far more likely to kill or injure honest citizens than to protect them.

See also "Firearm Injury Prevention"