TN Constitution and the Right to Keep, Bear and Wear Arms

[C. Richard Archie]

I would like to challenge our friends in the Tennessee Legislature to study and discern the facts of their obligation to the Citizens of this State with regard to their Right to keep, bear and wear arms for their own protection.

It is a known fact that each individual Citizen is responsible for providing safety and security for themselves and for those that depend on them for protection, e.g. their spouses and children. Irrespective of the age of the passé statement "that the police are minutes away when seconds count", it is as true now as when it was coined. Violent crime occurs in seconds, while the response of even the best staffed Police Departments is measured in minutes. The Supreme Court of the United States has found that governments are not responsible for the personal protection of individuals, as is proven by their finding in DeShaney v. Winnebago County Department of Social Services (No. 87-154): "A State's failure to protect an individual against private violence generally does not constitute a violation of the Due Process Clause, because the Clause imposes no duty on the State to provide members of the general public with adequate protective services." The only charter that Law Enforcement has in Tennessee, (as in every other jurisdiction) is to investigate the commission of crime. From Peter Kasler's article "Police Have No Duty to Protect Individuals": "It is, therefore, a fact of law and of practical necessity that individuals are responsible for their own personal safety, and that of their loved ones. Police protection must be recognized for what it is: only an auxiliary general deterrent."

Our State Constitution, in Article 1 Section 26 of the Declaration of Rights mandates the keeping and bearing of arms as a Right, not a privilege, and demands that the Legislators, as the only arbiters of regulation on the wearing of arms, must do so with a view to prevent crime, and for no other reason. In the Tennessee Supreme Court case Andrew v. State the Court held that "Bearing arms for the common defense may well be held to be a political right, or for the protection and maintenance of such rights, intended to be guaranteed; but the right to keep them, with all that is implied fairly as an incident to this right, is a private individual right, guaranteed to the citizen, not the soldier." this same ruling further states: "The right to keep arms, necessarily involves the right to purchase them, to keep them in a state of efficiency for use, and to purchase and provide ammunition suitable for such arms, and to keep them in repair. And clearly for this purpose, a man would have the right to carry them to and from his home, and no one could claim that the Legislature had the right to punish him for it, without violating this clause of the Constitution.", and "But the power is given (to the Legislature) to regulate, with a view to prevent crime. The enactment of the Legislature on this subject, must be guided by, and restrained to this end, and bear some well defined relation to the prevention of crime, or else it is unauthorized by this clause of the Constitution."

It is the duty of our Legislature and it's individual members, as they are bound by their oath or obligation upon agreeing to take their office, to protect and defend the Constitution, and, to learn and abide by the requirements that it enumerates as the only guide for their actions when framing and passing laws in this State, and, as has been pointed out to me, to repeal the ones that require it.

[johnharris]

The status of laws which should be repealed and others which should be passed but have not in the face of a legislature controlled by a caucus which, according to Speaker Harwell is 100% pro Second Amendment, suggests that the operational definition of the 2nd Amendment use in the government is far different than that intended by those who drafted it.

[Fred762]

Personally I think a VT-style cary situation should prevail..no need for permits. I feel emminently safer where folks are openly armed and feel downright UN-safe in 'posted' places..where it is known [by criminals] that the sheeple are helpless against criminal attack.
The hypocracy of those who 'post' their establishments is galling...where does it say that the business owner accepts any responsibility for the safety of his patrons IF a armed criminal attacks a disarmed patron on his "posted" property? No place! What TH does a person do about taking armed responsibility to and from a "posted" establishment?...are we supposed to leave our weapons in a car..unguarded? What hypocracy THAT is!
rant off.