Guest column: Judges have shifted from 'intent of framers' in regards to 2nd Amendment

Today the United States Supreme Court has a 6-3 majority of justices considered conservative. Among other views, this 2-1 majority appears to favor practically unrestricted availability of firearms to civilians who meet minimal qualifications — in many states these requirements are extremely lax.

Historically, conservative justices proclaim they are “strict constructionists,” meaning that if they can simply ascertain the “intent of the framers” of the Constitution, they will have the correct determination of what is constitutional and what is not.

With that standard in mind, it would seem their interpretation of the Second Amendment to the Constitution today is anything but that of a strict constructionist. The amendment says, “A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed.” It’s obvious the framers intended that the right “to keep and bear arms” had something to do with participating in a militia.

This interpretation embodies the idea of the individual protecting the realm in Anglo-Saxon jurisprudence. It goes back to the days of Queen Elizabeth I in England (late 1500s). It was the concept of the citizen-soldier, identical with our Minutemen of 1776, ready, willing and able to fight for the nation on a moment’s notice.

But the original idea of the Second Amendment being a group right changed by a 5-4 vote of the conservative majority of the Supreme Court in 2008 in the case of District of Columbia v. Heller. In Justice Anton Scalia’s majority opinion, the right to keep and bear arms became an individual right, chiefly for self-protection, ignoring the reference to the clause linking it to the nation’s need for a “well-regulated militia.” In his opinion the country would be a safer place the easier the access to firearms. He felt these firearms would be used almost exclusively for self-protection.

It is ironic that the departure of the conservative majority from their old principal of the “intent of the framers” to a new pragmatic standard of enhancing public safety has achieved neither. The resulting proliferation of firearms has hindered rather than enhanced public safety. Instead of making citizens safer, it has led to mass killings. In the first 100 days of 2023 we have had 144 mass killings, and the numbers are increasing daily.

One other important aspect of the current proliferation of mass killings is the destructive capability of modern arms. Again, considering the conservative acknowledgment of the importance of the framers’ views, the common firearm with which they were familiar was the musket, a single-shot rifle with a long barrel which took about a minute to reload. One wonders if the framers, in their acknowledged wisdom, would have put any reference in the Constitution to civilians bearing arms had they foreseen the appalling capabilities of modern weapons.

Ed Jones is a former member of the Thousand Oaks City Council and a former Ventura County Supervisor.

This article originally appeared on Ventura County Star: Judges have shifted from 'intent of framers' with 2nd Amendment