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Since it is Black History Month, we look back to the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Scott v. Sandford and ahead to its decision in McDonald v. City of Chicago.  In Scott, the High Court recognized in 1856 that the rights of citizens included travel without passport, assembly, speech, and “carrying arms wherever you went.”  It then denied those rights to Dred Scott, his wife Harriet, and their children because of their ancestry.  This decision is why many proponents of self-defense rights say citizens own firearms while slaves or subjects cannot.

After passage of the Thirteenth Amendment which abolished slavery outside prison and the military, the rights to keep and bear arms were still denied the newly Freedmen with often devastating consequences.  Freedmen, many of who had served as soldiers during the Civil War, were stripped of their arms by local mobs and denied the ability to protect themselves or their families from criminals and terrorist groups.

This was, in large part, why Congress enacted the Fourteenth Amendment which guaranteed the rights of citizens to anyone born in the U.S. regardless of ancestry.

Next month this struggle continues in the case of McDonald v. City of Chicago.  Heller decided in 2008 that the Second Amendment prohibited Washington, D.C. from outlawing functional handguns in the home.  D.C., however, is a federal enclave so the decision is not binding on the states.

Like the District of Columbia, however, Chicago has long denied the rights of its citizens to keep and bear arms for self-defense within their homes.  Otis McDonald and three other courageous citizens have challenged this injustice.

The U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral argument on this case in March.  If the Court decides that the Second Amendment does not restrict states and local governments as it does the federal government, than any state can then strip any citizen of their rights to keep and bear arms as Dred and Harriet Scott were denied those rights.  If it holds that the Second Amendment means such rights “shall not be infringed” even by state or local governments, than states and cities can no longer deny these civil rights to law abiding citizens.

God bless America.

Very truly yours,

Steve Mannion

Sheepdog Academy, LLC

http://www.sheepdogacademy.com