Political significance of the Second Amendment Term Paper

Political significance of the Second Amendment - Term Paper Example When the issues are conflicting with each other, the highest court remained silent. The Supreme Court keeps silent about the issues and interpretation of the Second Amendment. It diverts itself to other issues such as adjustments in constitutional rules of criminal procedure and doctrines affecting obscenity, libel and time, place, and manner restrictions on speech, the Second Amendment are simply ignored (Lund, 1987). This paper will review the true meaning of the Second Amendment and the cases of the Supreme Court which illustrate the controversy of the topic. The Real Meaning The Second Amendment states that â€Å"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.† The controversy arise from the phrase â€Å"a well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State† where one group of commentators treats the phrase simply as statement of purpose and maintain s that the Second Amendment individual rights to keep and bear arms (Lund, 1987). ... ) stated that the right to bear arms is a political right.  The time the Bill of Rights was proposed, British tyranny was fresh in everyone’s mind; hence, it was to fight tyranny that the second amendment was adopted (Noga, 2011). The Second Amendment was all about protecting liberty and countering the threat from a standing army (Noga, 2011). But still, in the pre ratification debate, both Federalists and Anti-Federalists agreed the federal government should not have any authority at all to disarm the citizenry (Noga, 2011). There are conflicting understandings of the phrase stated above. The laypersons or ordinary prudent men favour or understand the â€Å"individual right† interpretation of the Second Amendment. On the other hand, those who belong in the academe and court, the â€Å"collective right† interpretation is more dominant. The reason why this â€Å"collective right† interpretation is more dominant than the â€Å"individual right† is b ecause the leaders or those in the legal profession believe and favour the restrictive regulations on the ownership and use of firearms as a matter of social policy (Lund, 1987). According to Lund (1987), the advocates of the â€Å"collective right† interpretation focus almost exclusively on the text â€Å"well regulated Militia† which they argue that it implies the right to keep and bear arms is strictly restricted to officially organized military units. However, the term Militia was used. This is why until now there is no clear meaning of the Second Amendment because there is no clear and agreed meaning of the term â€Å"Militia." But there were arguments on what the term â€Å"Militia† protects. Some argued that the Second Amendment did not mention the right of state to regulate the militia (Lund, 1987). It is argued if the state

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Essay Example Christina Hoff Sommers, in â€Å"Philosophers Against the Family† discusses that there is a false dichotomy as there is the great divide which distinguishes the radical feminist from the simply feminine and the mutual exclusivity of the two concepts which completely overlooks the reality that both can co-exist. Sommers (2005) offers that there is a middle ground, though this has not been widely recognized by both views, especially radical feminism in the United States. Liberal feminism gives focus on reforms which touches base on the very root of feminism. The oppression and the discrimination that necessarily entails sexism as commonly seen in the workplace and in society is the very nature that belittles women and that affects them on a regular basis. This is the fight of feminism on a daily basis that is in the heart of the average woman and her understanding of what feminism is. This, however, is far removed from the philosophical feminist’s view. â€Å"But to be a ntisexist in the technical, radical philosophical sense is not merely to be opposed to discrimination against women; it is to be for what Wasserstrom calls the assimilationalist ideal† (Sommers, 2005, p.313). The truly antisexist in this sense would neither fight nor agree for laws that give preference to women such as maternity leave. Equality is achieved by overlooking and consequently extinguishing gender and all notions that come with it. The wider perspective that transcends the philosophical feminist movement is best understood by first appreciating the average woman. â€Å"The average woman enjoys her femininity† (Sommers, 2005, p.314). She has goals which include being with a man, having children and maintaining a career with the same opportunities that her male counterpart has. â€Å"These are the goals that women actually have, and they are not easily attainable. But they will never be furthered by an elitist radical movement that views the actual aspirations of women as the product of a false consciousness† (Sommers, 2005, p.314). The goals and aspirations of the average woman must first be understood in order to make a correlation with these and how they are achieved. The characterization of a woman in the realistic sense juxtaposed to the ideal woman of the radical feminist movement made by the author brings forth a wider understanding on why the two concepts cannot meet. The illustration made by the radical feminist movement of the woman is arguably deductive and brings it to a realm that makes it incomprehensible most especially to the average woman herself. The false consciousness that is attributed her makes her very existence appear to be a pretense together with all of her life’s worth along with all her hopes and dreams. Sommers is correct in concluding that goals for marriage, family, career, and more logically, equal opportunity for all of the foregoing are the main points that calls for what is deemed as the av erage woman’s feminist ideals as oppose to the scholarly feminism written of extensively. Radical feminism, at the heart of it, attacks societal pressures to conform to gender roles which has been proliferated for ages and has been inculcated in every person from the moment of conception. The idea of an assimilationist society is the very purpose of many feminist movements which has often been likened to Marxism in many regards. Citing the famous feminist Simone de Beauvoir, Sommers