Joel Friederich
English 102
REVISION OF: Essay 3, April 10, 2013

The Scoop of the Second Amendment: A Beginner’s Guide
To many average people, the thought of breaking down legislation, such as the Bill of Rights, and identifying different amendments within the document, sounds pretty dull. However, the Bill of Rights gives every American his or her freedoms and limitations, while listing specific prohibitions on governmental power. That being said, it is important to know exactly what your rights are, especially when the subject comes to gun control. What is the Bill of Rights and how does it actively pertain to daily lives in the 21st century? Written in 1776 and later added to the Constitution in 1791, the Bill of Rights
The Second Amendment collaborates with this amendment because, if the opposing side requests a search and or seizure of a citizen’s house or a citizen, and enters unlawfully without a search permit, that citizen has the right to protect his or herself.
In the wake of several recent shootings across the United States, some people wonder where the lines of the Second Amendment are drawn. Ultimately, many questions about the Second Amendment are recently returning to the idea of an individual right versus a “collective” right, which are all focused around the first clause regarding militias. What does a collective right actually mean? The definition of collective rights are rights that are held by a group rather than by its members separately. Roger Isaac Roots, a graduate of Roger Williams University School of Law, analyzed a 1939 court case, United States v. Miller, which was historically sited in the wake of President Roosevelt’s unsuccessful “court-packing plan.” In this case, Miller transported a sawed-off shotgun in interstate commerce. He wrote, “The Ninth Circuit went so far in adopting the collective right theory as to say that ‘following Miller,’ it is clear that the Second Amendment guarantees a collective rather than an individual right” (Roots 1). For clarification purposes, “The Ninth Circuit” is an Appeals Court that consists of federal judicial districts that comprise the