Second Amendment of the US Constitution - Essay Example

Second Amendment Rights Second Amendment Rights of the United s Constitution According to the Second Amendment of the United States Constitution, the right of people to possess arms shall not be ‘infringed’, given that the nation maintains a well regulated militia which is necessary to the security of a free state. Unfortunately, much debate has ensured with regards to the limits of the language of this amendment. While some people believe that the wordings imply a constitutional right for American citizens, but this makes it impossible for legislative bodies from prohibiting the possession of firearms, or at least, the amendment limits the restriction of prohibitive regulation as essentially unconstitutional. On the other hand, scholars support the same wordings with the argument that its framers meant just to limit Congress from legislatively removing a state’s right to self-defense. Such scholars refer to the content of the Second Amendment as ‘the collective rights theory, which affirms that citizens do not possess an individual privilege to keep guns, and that local, state, and federal legislative bodies may maintain the authority to regulate firearms without violating a constitution right. The American Supreme Court went on affirming the Second Amendment via its decision in 2010 in the McDonald vs. City of Chicago case. The plaintiff had challenged the constitutional establishment of the Chicago handgun prohibition, which prohibited nearly all private citizens’ form keeping handguns. In a 5-4 decisions, the court spoke of the inclinations of the framers of the Second Amendment as well as those who endorsed the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution, and maintained that the Second Amendment was applicable to all states through the ‘incorporation doctrine.’ The court, however, did not have a majority as to which section of the Fourteenth Amendment comprised the important right to possess arms for reasons of self-protection. While Justine Alito and his devotees considered to the Due Process Clause, Justice Thomas, stated in agreement that the Privileges and Immunities Clauses were enough to support the said aforementioned incorporation in the Fourteenth Amendment (Cornell, 2014). Several issues still remained unaddressed, for example whether legislation, less stringent than the D.C. state violate the Second Amendment, whether lower courts will use their dicta with regards to allowable restrictions, and what to what extent should the courts apply scrutiny when analyzing a statute that imposes upon the Second Amendment. Keeping in view several issues and the interpretations in focus it all has helped in shaping the nation’s gun control debate. There are several societies and groups which are supporting an individual right to own a personal gun licensed by the National Rifle Association. Further it was argued that the Second Amendment will provide all citizens with not only with powers of militia but they will possess a power and right to own a gun. Moreover the agencies which propel a stricter gun control such as Brady Campaign believed that the Second Amendment is not a blank check for anyone to possess a gun. It is required to place certain restrictions on firearms; some of these rules include the right who can have them, what specific condition is necessary for carrying a gun, where these firearms can be taken and what category of firearms are safe to carry and what is the appropriate place to buy such things (Ersin, 2014). In the context of the above stated information, we turn now to the case of Ivette Ros was dismissed from Wells Fargo after the corporation found that she had a hidden carry license and a gun. Ivette was brought up in a house where her father kept guns. It was a natural inclination on her part to obtain a concealed weapons license and she then carried a 9 mm handgun. Ivette is a single mother of three children and her stated reason for carrying the gun was merely safety. She said that it was a matter of possessing it or not, and that she felt vulnerable without the gun. Unfortunately, her employer did not agree with the idea and he terminated her employment. Ivette sued her employer, Wells Fargo Bank, in a circuit court. She had been a manager at the bank’s Oldsmar branch, and in her lawsuit, she stated that being terminated from her job for possessing the handgun was a violation of her. Being a manager at Well Fargo, she went on inform that many robberies take place there and so she felt safer if she had the gun should she need to protect her employees. Ivette also said that sometimes she left the handgun in her locked vehicle, while, on other occasions, she took it with her into the work place but kept it hidden under her clothes or in her purse. Never did she openly display it, she insisted (Girona, 2014). In 2013, someone saw that she had a gun the bank and informed bank officials about it. An investigation was undertaken, and Ivette was fired for violating the bank’s rule that prohibited employees from carrying weapons into the building. An indignant Ivette maintained that she had remained within her constitutional rights, that the bank was one of places where she was able to carry a weapon, and further, her weapon was concealed, and she also had an arms permit. A spokeswoman for Wells Fargo declined to comment on the subsequent court case that involved one of their employees. All she stated was that the rule against employees carrying guns in the bank’s offices was implicit. Team members, she said, were not allowed to keep firearms on company premises. There are no exemptions to this rule even when if a state statute exists, allowing for people with a concealed weapons license to keep a gun locked in their vehicles in the company parking lot (WN, 2014). Ivette’s attorney argued that Well Fargo’s policy with regards to keeping firearms was illicit. He said that in the state of Florida, employers may not demonstrate any discrimination against employers or customers if any of them have been conscientious enough to obtain a permit to own weapons. He went on to say that simply because the company had this rule written in their handbook, it did not mean that it was correct or that it would survive legal scrutiny or an investigation, and that is precisely what he was doing to work in Ivette favor. According to Jason Bent, an assistant professor of law at Stentson University College of Law in Gulfport, the constitution restricts the government’s ability to prohibit gun possession. But it was another matter altogether in the case of a private employer such as Well Fargo, he mentioned. Nothing in the statute implied that an employer must allow an employee to bring a firearms weapon into its building. Flastertein objected however, he said that a concealed weapons license was enough to let Ivette bring her gun to work. Moreover, he stated, that Ivette is a good person who chose to defend herself since she is constitutionally allowed to do so. He emphasized that the Second Amendment was not merely a privilege; it was a right (Mayk, 2014). References Cornell. (2014). SECOND AMENDMENT. Retrieved from law.cornell.edu: http://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/second_amendment Ersin, O. (2014). Interpretations of the Second Amendment. Retrieved from livescience.com: http://www.livescience.com/26485-second-amendment.html GIRONA, J. P. (2014). Bank manager, fired after carrying gun into work, files suit. Retrieved from Tribune staff : tbo.com/news/crime/bank-manager-fired-after-carrying-gun-into-work-files-suit-20140221/ Mayk, L. (2014). Bay area woman sues Wells Fargo over gun issue. Retrieved from wfla.com: http://www.wfla.com/story/24790648/woman-sues-wells-fargo-over-gun-issue WN. (2014). Bay area woman sues Wells Fargo over gun issue. Retrieved from WN.com: http://article.wn.com/view/2014/02/22/Bay_area_woman_sues_Wells_Fargo_over_gun_issue/ Read More