Washington Post reporter claims the Second Amendment was ‘reinterpreted’ to include individual gun rights

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A Washington Post reporter argued on Tuesday that conservative groups reinterpreted the Second Amendment to claim individuals have a right to own a gun.

Staff writer Amber Phillips explained in an analysis titled "How the Second Amendment was reinterpreted to protect individual rights" that historians claim the amendment’s protection of individual gun rights is a "relatively recent reading" pushed by conservative groups rather than the text of the Second Amendment.

"The historical consensus is that, for most of American history, the amendment was understood to concern the use of guns in connection with militia service. The Founding Fathers were likely focused on keeping state militias from being disarmed, said Joseph Blocher, who specializes in the Second Amendment at Duke University’s law school," Phillips wrote.

Joseph Blocher similarly attributed claims that the amendment protects individual rights "to a relatively recent political push by gun rights groups to reinterpret the Constitution."

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Bodyguard with gun indoor home (iStock)

"There has been a decades-long and very successful movement to change the public perception of what the Second Amendment is for," Blocher said. 

Phillips also cited Yale law professor Reva Siegel insisting that "an individual’s right to use guns in self-defense is not expressly written in the Constitution."

"The interpretation that the Second Amendment extends to individuals’ rights to own guns only became mainstream in 2008, when the Supreme Court ruled in a landmark gun case, District of Columbia vs. Heller, that Americans have a constitutional right to own guns in their homes, knocking down the District’s handgun ban," Phillips wrote.

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Comedian Dean Obeidallah echoed this view in an MSNBC column on Saturday in which he insisted the individual’s right to own a firearm came from a "cravenly political" Supreme Court following the Heller decision rather than the Constitution.

Phillips concluded with a quote from Saint Joseph’s University professor Susan Liebell suggesting that an upcoming gun case in the Supreme Court could expand gun rights even further.

"We have moved to more and more radical interpretation of the Second Amendment," Liebell said.

With loaded firearms in hand and flags all around people gather for a 5 Mile Open Carry March for Freedom organized by Florida Gun Supply in Inverness, Florida, U.S. July 4, 2016. (REUTERS)

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In 2021, the Supreme Court announced it will hear the case New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen. The case focuses on whether people have the right to carry a firearm in public for self-defense. The court is expected to announce its decision in the next few days or weeks.