Why should the Second Amendment apply to states and localities?
In asking whether a right should apply to bind the states and localities, the Supreme Court asks whether it is a right that is “implicit in the concept of ordered liberty” or “deeply rooted in our nation’s history and traditions.” The right to keep and bear arms clearly meets this test. The right to arms is based upon the ancient right of human self-defense and self-preservation, and is also intended to allow the people, in time of crisis, to maintain or restore the proper constitutional order in the event that our government becomes tyrannical, or if the country should be invaded by hostile forces. Even the Second Amendment’s preamble tells us that one reason for having the right to arms is to preserve the people’s ability to act as militia, which the Framers believed was “necessary to the security of a free state.” Indeed, the Fourteenth Amendment and some of its related legislation was aimed squarely at preventing the states from disarming the freedmen in the wake of Reconstruction.
