Gun Charges Dismissed!
What attorneys wont tell you about the second Amendment.
There is a template available for you to study, as well as other documents filed with the courts arguing in favor of the 2nd Amendment.
Bruen directs judges to perform a text, history and tradition only analysis to Second Amendment cases without any judicial balancing of the government's interest in the challenged law against the importance of the asserted right to "keep and bear arms."
The court said: In keeping with Heller, we hold that when the Second Amendment’s plain text covers an individual’s conduct, the Constitution presumptively protects that conduct. To justify its regulation, the government may not simply posit that the regulation promotes an important interest. Rather, the government must demonstrate that the regulation is consistent with this Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation. Only if a firearm regulation is consistent with this Nation’s historical tradition may a court conclude that the individual’s conduct falls outside the Second Amendment’s “unqualified command.” Konigsberg v. State Bar of Cal., 366 U.S. 36, 50, n. 10 (1961).
In the colonial, founding, and early republic periods, Americans were recognized as having the right peaceably to bear or carry arms in public. The only exception was the slave codes that prohibited slaves and, in some states, free blacks from bearing arms without a license that government authorities had discretion to grant or deny. See Stephen P. Halbrook, The Right to Bear Arms: A Constitutional Right of the People or a Privilege of the Ruling Class? 204-63 (2021).
In sum, having no arms right was an incident of slavery. Even free blacks were required to obtain a license to possess or carry a firearm, and the license could limit possession to one’s premises.
Slaves were deprived of all of the rights that would be set forth in the Bill of Rights. The Second Amendment was not unique in that regard. St. George Tucker summarized their plight thus:
To go abroad without a written permission; to keep or carry a gun, or other weapon; to utter any seditious speech; to be present at any unlawful assembly of slaves; to lift the hand in opposition to a white person, unless wantonly assaulted, are all offences punishable by whipping.
St. George Tucker, A Dissertation on Slavery: With a Proposal for the Gradual Abolition of It, in the State of Virginia 65 (1796).
Virginia law provided: “No free negro or mulatto, shall be suffered to keep or carry any firelock of any kind, any military weapon, or any powder or lead, without first obtaining a license from the court of the county or corporation in which he resides . . . .” Ch. 111, §§ 7 & 8, 1 Va. Code 423 (1819).
As a Virginia court held, among the “numerous restrictions imposed on this class of people [free blacks] in our Statute Book, many of which are inconsistent with the letter and spirit of the Constitution, both of this State and of the United States,” was the restriction “upon their right to bear arms.” Aldridge v. Commonwealth, 2 Va. 447, 449 (Gen. Ct. 1824). The contrast with free citizens was stark. Calling the Second Amendment “the true palladium of liberty,” St. George Tucker wrote: “The right of self defence is the first law of nature . . . . Wherever . . . the right of the people to keep and bear arms is, under any colour or pretext whatsoever, prohibited, liberty, if not already annihilated, is on the brink of destruction.” 1 St. George Tucker, Blackstone’s Commentaries, App., 300 (1803). This is not to be taken as legal advice.