Looking back at how courts have dealt with right to bear arms
IN THE Dec. 2 op-ed "Staring down the barrel" Professor Cass Sunstein argues that the Second Amendment is a collective right.
He cites select historical sources to show that the federal courts have been in agreement with his belief. In part, he states that no federal court of appeals has invalidated a law on Second Amendment grounds until 2007.
As for invalidating a law, he may be correct, but he overlooks the 2001 Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals decision (U.S. v. Emerson), in which the ruling stated the court's interpretation of the Second Amendment as an individual right.
In addition, Sunstein's piece suggests that his opinion is biased by partisan political view.
Referring to "a number of bold Republican appointees to the federal bench," he grudgingly predicts the Supreme Court will uphold the individual rights interpretation.
Those of us who contend the individual rights meaning is clear on its face can only hope his prediction rings true.
LAWRENCE E. OBER
Hudson
WHEN THE Supreme Court considers how the Second Amendment applies to individuals, I hope this court will be as historically assiduous as was its 1939 predecessor.
That year, in "United States v. Miller et al.," the court took, on direct appeal from Arkansas, a narrow question of whether the Second Amendment protected the possession and interstate transport of a sawed-off shotgun.
To reach its opinion, the court researched the rules and regulations that the original 13 states had applied to the types of firearms and equipment they required their militia to own. After this study, the court determined that the sawed-off shotgun in question was not the kind of firearm states required their militia to carry. Thereupon, the Supreme Court remanded the Miller case to the original jurisdiction for further deliberation.
The rules for a well-regulated militia - which meant the troops must be well drilled and trained, must carry weapons of a specified barrel length and bore, and must possess the same type and number of accoutrements including powder and ball - were contained in state constitutions, which also affirmed the right of individual firearm ownership in general, not just for militia duty.
There is also the philosophical import of the Second Amendment, which warns any errant branch of federal power that the ultimate power resides with an armed populace. Imagine how much worse the abridgements and infringements of our rights and liberties might be if the executive branch thought there was no counterbalancing power outside of the central corridors of federal power.
PAUL M. CRAIG
Northampton 