CONGRESS INTERPRETS THE SECOND AMENDMENT: DECLARATIONS BY A CO-EQUAL
BRANCH ON THE INDIVIDUAL RIGHT TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS
I. Introduction: Congress Recognizes and Reaffirms the Second
Amendment Right of Individuals "to Keep and Bear Arms"
The Bill of Rights, including the Second Amendment right to keep and bear firearms, originated in the United States Congress in 1789 before being ratified by the States.
[1] On three occasions since then--in 1866, 1941, and 1986--Congress enacted statutes to reaffirm this guarantee of personal freedom and to adopt specific safeguards to enforce it.[2] This Article (p.59
analyzes the legislative movement to register firearms in the 1930s, and the swinging of the pendulum in the opposite direction in the 1941 legislation as a reaction to the worldwide growth of police states. This Article also analyzes the 1986 declaration and considers whether the judiciary should defer to expansive interpretations of constitutional rights by the legislative branch.