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Amendment II

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The Second Amendment or popularly known as The Right to Bear Arms was originally created to allow citizens to protect themselves against the attacks of the militaries of other nations. When the amendment was created the United States had just fought Britain and was worried that Britain would retaliate against them at any moment.   The amendment was created because it would take too long to get the national military together to fight back against surprise attacks. However, since its original creation, the interpretation of this amendment has changed significantly. In the modern day, many perceive this amendment to say that citizens are allowed to own guns.  

One side to the argument is that the Second Amendment should stay as long as it is used to the original purpose of the amendment.   Because the amendment was vague, many people misunderstood the amendment and each person understood it in a different way. Questions have risen over parts of the amendment that were not mentioned in the constitution such as the right to bear arms in public and which type of guns were allowed to be owned by a common citizen.  

The other side to the argument is that similar to the First Amendment there is a point where reason overrules the amendment. For example, despite the notion that there is freedom of speech, one cannot commit perjury or fraud. Also despite the right to bear arms one cannot possess a nuclear bomb.   Many agree with the amendment in which it means that a law abiding citizen can own a gun and protect themselves against opposing governments or criminals. The controversy begins with which type of guns can be owned and by who. Many people who disagree with the Second Amendment believe that guns can be allowed to be owned by citizens but it should be more difficult to purchase a gun.  

Originally there was a law in Washington DC that stated that all guns must be registered and that all guns stored at home must be unloaded and locked. Police Officer Dick Anthony Heller was denied the right to own a handgun but was denied. He then sued the District of Columbia.   The supreme court reversed this law as it was a violation of the Second Amendment. This shows that even hundreds of years after the creation of the constitution, the constitution is still looked at to decide laws around guns.  

While I believe that this amendment should remain, I think that there needs to be stricter guidelines and restrictions around who can own guns where they can carry them. For example I think that it should be more difficult to purchase a gun and if you are not a part of the military or a police officer, it should be illegal to possess a gun outside of your property. While in many areas it is already illegal to carry a loaded gun, the punishment for doing so should be harsher.

Elections and Suspension Clause – Alex Berman

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The Articles of Confederation demonstrated the dangers of giving states too much power, so when drafting the Elections Clause worries arose that if each state had complete control over their own elections, they could compromise Congress’ abilities by opting not to hold an election at all. Thus, the Elections Clause gives states the authority to regulate most aspects of congressional elections, while still offering Congress the power to overwrite any of those regulations. In the Elections Clause, a lack of clarification, such as the meaning of state legislature and what counts as prescribing the “times, places, and manner of holding elections,” has led to varying interpretations of the right of states to regulate elections.

In the supreme court case of Cook V. Gralike, Missouri argued that they could put negative warnings on an election ballot based on if a candidate would support a bill or not. This was ruled unconstitutional because while it is an alteration of the manner of an election, it at the same time is an attempt to regulate the outcome of the election. I agree with this decision because the Elections Clause allows states and congress to regulate the manner of congressional elections, but not their outcomes. For the sake of clarification, the Elections Clause should be amended to define in more detail state legislature and the regulatory actions that states are allowed to take. The Elections Clause demonstrates how the faults seen in the Articles of Confederation were addressed in the Constitution, primarily by granting the federal government power over the states. In article 1, section 9 of the Constitution, the Suspension Clause explains the application and suspension of habeas corpus.

The writ of habeas corpus protects citizens from being arbitrarily arrested by allowing someone who has been arrested to challenge the legal justification of their detention in court. Americans knew that people in England, up until just over a century before the Constitutional Convention, were sometimes imprisoned for life without any trial. Thus, the writ of habeas corpus was of the utmost importance to include in the Constitution. Equally important, however, was Congress’ right to suspend it, illustrated by the fact that habeas corpus was suspended just months before the Constitutional Convention during Shays’ rebellion. The Suspension Clause insures that someone who has been arrested has the right to a trial, unless the arrest is during a rebellion or invasion. A debate about the Suspension Clause, however, regards the process with which habeas corpus can be suspended. In the four instances of suspension, three times the president got permission through Congress, however during the civil war Abraham Lincoln suspended habeas corpus on his own, without the expressed consent of Congress.

To me it would make more sense for a president to first need to get permission from congress to prevent the president from having sole authority to make unlimited uncontested arrests. Because of this, I believe that the Suspension Clause should be amended to clarify the process to suspend habeas corpus.

Alex – The Eighth Amendment

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Context

Ratified on December 15, 1791, the Eighth Amendment states that, “Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.” The history of the ideas in this clause can be traced back to even before the Articles of Confederation were written; in 1689, the British government adopted a bill of rights that included protection against cruel and unusual punishment. The original United States Constitution did not offer the same protection, instead giving the federal government the power to create federal crimes and punish perpetrators. However, many opponents of the Constitution expressed the fear that giving Congress this power would eventually lead to corruption and the use of punishment as a method of oppression. As such, the Constitution was amended to include protection against cruel and unusual punishment. 

 

Common Interpretation

As suggested by its title, the Eighth Amendment forbids Congress from imposing unjustifiably harsh punishments on criminal defendants. This protection can be divided into two categories: cruel and unusual punishment, which refers to penalties that involve unnecessary infliction of pain or suffering, and disproportionate punishment, which refers to penalties that are disproportionate to the severity of the offense committed. “Cruel and unusual punishments” are commonly interpreted as punishments that are fundamentally barbaric or lack a legitimate penological purpose; these are the types of punishments that would violate the Eighth Amendment. However, the courts’ definition of what constitutes excessive barbarism has shifted throughout the time since the Eighth Amendment was ratified.

 

Matters for Debate

The vague language of the Eighth Amendment has allowed for certain debates to consistently surface in contemporary discussions regarding cruel and unusual punishment. One of these debates questions what the current standard is for determining if a punishment is barbaric enough to violate the Eighth Amendment—whether the most important consideration is what was accepted when the Amendment was ratified in 1791, current public opinion, or the subjective morality of the courts. One progressive argument relies on the concept of “evolving standards of decency,” which asserts that the Court should consider contemporary shifts in societal attitudes and public opinion, rather than the originally intended meanings of America’s Founding Fathers. However, another prominent argument is that a punishment can be judged by its length of practice; essentially, a punishment deemed acceptable by multiple generations of Americans is still Constitutional until it falls out of practice for multiple generations, at which point it can be labeled cruel and unusual.  

 

Significance

Some of the ideas in the Constitution, but particularly in the Eighth Amendment, reflect ideas expressed by John Locke in his writing. Locke asserted that individuals possess certain inalienable rights, and that the primary purpose of the government is to protect these rights. As such, he proposed a separation of powers in order to ensure no one branch of government becomes too powerful and threatens individual liberty. This is, in essence, the goal of the Eighth Amendment: to ensure the federal government does not have enough power to oppress individuals through cruel and unusual punishment.