(VitalNews.org) – The Democrat presidential candidate, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has said in an interview with Elon Musk that the issue of the Second Amendment is sacrosanct and that a Kennedy administration will not be trying to confiscate the guns of otherwise law-abiding citizens. He emphasized that the Supreme Court had settled the issue and that as a “constitutional maximalist,” he would not restrict Second Amendment freedoms.
The Second Amendment refers to the necessity of a well-regulated militia, which is deemed necessary for the security of a free state and empowers the citizenry to keep and bear arms. The framers of the Constitution envisioned that it would be necessary to keep a check on federal power, and therefore enshrined the ancient Roman and Florentine constitutional principle of making every citizen into a soldier, and conversely, every soldier into a citizen.
The constitutional scope of the Second Amendment had never been seriously considered by the Supreme Court until 2008, although its first hearing on the matter was Presser v. Illinois in 1886. Further hearings followed in 1929 with United States v. Schwimmer and with United States v. Miller in 1939, although the end result of that hearing was considered by many to be somewhat uncertain. The Supreme Court sought to remove that uncertainty in 2008 with District of Columbia v. Heller, and McDonald v. Chicago in 2010, although aspects of the law relating to “concealed carry” still remain unresolved.
Although the history of the Second Amendment dates back to Roman and Florentine times, its English origins were developed in the Elizabethan era of the late sixteenth century. The English Civil Wars of 1642-1651 and the Glorious Revolution of 1688-1689 prompted a fierce political debate over the establishment and control of such a militia.
Fast forward to the present day, and we can easily see that federal tyranny is fast becoming a very real threat to the freedom of individual Americans. Whether Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will keep his word remains to be seen.
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