Constitution Check: What does it mean that there is a right to “bear” guns?

– Charles J. Cooper, a Washington, D.C., attorney for the National Rifle Association, in a brief filed at the Supreme Court on Monday, urging the Justices to strike down a law that bans minors from carrying a handgun in public, beyond the home.

WE CHECKED THE CONSTITUTION, AND…

The Second Amendment, at its core, spells out not one, but two, rights when it protects “the right of the people.” There is a right to “keep” a gun, there is a right, to “bear” a gun. There is an “and” between the two in the text, so that might well be taken as a significant indication that these are separate rights.

The Supreme Court in 2008 made it clear that the right to “keep” a gun is a personal right, and that it means one has a right to keep a functioning firearm for self-defense within the home. But it has refused repeatedly since then to take on the question of whether that right exists also outside the home. If there is a separate right to “bear” a gun (and the Court, in fact, did say in 2008 that the two rights were separate), it has not said what that means.

The National Rifle Association, and some of its members, are now pressing the Supreme Court to answer that question. They are doing so in two cases testing whether the federal government and the states can restrict the rights of minors to possess a gun outside the home. The Court is expected to take its first look at those cases later this month, to decide whether it will hear either or both of them. The federal government, once again, is urging the Court to bypass those cases, as it has done with perhaps a half-dozen others seeking clarification of the Second Amendment’s scope.

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