Second Amendment
Protecting your right to keep and bear arms
The Second Amendment of the United States Constitution reads, “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.”
I am pleased by the Supreme Court’s recent verdict in District of Columbia v. Heller, in which the Supreme Court upheld an individual’s constitutional right to bear arms. The case was the first Second Amendment case heard by the Supreme Court in nearly seventy years.
Justice Scalia, writing for the majority in the case, overturned the District of Columbia handgun ban. In so doing the Court wrote, "There seems to us no doubt, on the basis of both text and history, that the Second Amendment conferred an individual right to keep and bear arms.” The Court notes that, “like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited.” As such the decision is not meant to cast doubt on prohibitions on firearm possession by felons and the mentally ill or laws prohibiting firearms in school and government buildings.
I joined a group of fifty-five Senators in signing an amicus curie (friend of the court brief) expressing our belief that the Second Amendment of the Constitution was intended to protect an individual’s right to bear arms.
I believe it is important that the Congress pass legislation supporting the Supreme Court’s well-reasoned decision. Accordingly, I am a cosponsor of S. 1001, a bill to restore Second Amendment rights in the District of Columbia, which has been cosponsored by a bipartisan group of forty-five senators. It would repeal bans on handguns and other firearms, while retaining the ban of sawed-off shotguns, machine guns and short-barreled rifles. It would also eliminate the clearly unconstitutional criminal penalties for carrying a functional firearm in the home. Companion legislation in the House (H.R. 1399) is cosponsored by 245 Members of Congress.
Another Second Amendment issue I have been involved in was the recent decision by the Administration to allow functional firearms on public lands. Previous federal regulations prohibited functional firearms within National Parks and Wildlife Refuges. In Alaska, this controversy was unique because the ban applied only to lands declared “federal” prior to passage of ANILCA (the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act).
To remedy this situation, I joined a bipartisan group of fifty-one Senators in writing to Secretary of the Interior Kempthorne seeking a solution to this problem. Secretary Kempthorne has enacted a rule that allows the bearing and use of firearms in National Parks and Wildlife Refuges, so long as their use was in compliance with state regulations on similar state lands
lands.
Along those same lines, I am also a cosponsor of Senate Bill 2619, Protecting Americans from Violent Crime Act of 2008, which prohibits any law barring possession of a firearm in the National Park or Wildlife Refuge System. The bill would give states the prerogative of regulating firearm possession within their borders, and citizens the right to responsibly exercise their second Amendment rights on public lands.
The Congress has also taken important action on a bipartisan basis. In a unanimous vote by both the House and Senate, Congress passed and the President signed into law, H.R. 2640: The NCIS (National Instant Criminal Background Check System) Improvement Amendments Act. H.R. 2640 greatly streamlines and upgrades the process of screening gun buyers. The Act provides funding for the updating and revising the NCIS. These updates will neither require the provision of any new information to government agencies, nor further restrict which citizens may lawfully buy guns, but will simply allow for a more thorough compilation of already available public information, to be checked against previously existing laws.
Patients of voluntary mental treatment or rehabilitation will not be affected by the bill, as the records of such treatment are protected by federal and state health privacy laws. Importantly, the act outlines a simple process by which those people formerly banned from buying firearms may have their names removed from the list if the mental health issue or criminal charges have expired or been expunged. This will allow citizens who were previously banned from purchasing firearms to recover their Second Amendment rights after successful treatment.
I have also taken additional measures to protect the Second Amendment rights for our Veterans. I am a cosponsored S. 3167, a bill to clarify conditions under which veterans and their families are considered mentally incompetent for firearm ownership purposes. The bill would protect veterans and their families from being added to the NICS list based on having a fiduciary assigned to assist with financial matters. The legislation was approved by the Veterans Affairs Committee by a voice vote as a part of S. 2969, the Veterans Medical Personnel Recruitment and Retention Act of 2008.
I am proud to have supported the rights of Alaskans through my actions on these issues. Though I must evaluate each bill that reaches the Senate floor on its own merit, I always keep in mind the Second Amendment and the importance of its responsible exercise to Alaskans.
