(Angus Reid Global Monitor) – Most adults in the United States believe the Second Amendment is intended to give individual Americans the right to keep and bear arms for their own defence, according to a poll by Opinion Research Corporation released by CNN. 77 per cent of respondents agree with this assessment.
(Angus Reid Global Monitor) – Most adults in the United States believe the Second Amendment is intended to give individual Americans the right to keep and bear arms for their own defence, according to a poll by Opinion Research Corporation released by CNN. 77 per cent of respondents agree with this assessment.
Conversely, 21 per cent of respondents feel the Second Amendment was only intended to preserve the existence of citizen-militias.
The U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment guarantees Americans the right "to keep and bear arms." Some American states have enacted their own gun control regulations, independent of existing federal legislation.
In June 2008, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled—in a 5-4 decision—that "the right of the people to keep and bear arms" is not limited to state militias and protects "the inherent right of self-defence."
On May 26, U.S. president Barack Obama nominated Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court. Sotomayor has served as a judge at the District Court for the Southern District of New York and the Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit.
Ken Blackwell, a senior fellow with the Family Research Council, described Obama’s nomination of Sotomayor as a "declaration of war against America’s gun owners," adding, "That puts our Second Amendment freedoms at risk. What she’s basically saying [in a previous decision] is that your hometown can decide to suppress your Second Amendment freedoms."
Polling Data
Which of the following comes closer to your interpretation of the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution?
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In addition to addressing the need for citizen-militias, it was intended to give individual Americans the right to keep and bear arms for their own defence
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77%
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It was only intended to preserve the existence of citizen-militias, and does not give individual Americans the right to keep and bear arms for their own defence
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21%
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Unsure
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2%
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Source: Opinion Research Corporation / CNN
Methodology: Telephone interviews with 1,010 American adults, conducted from May 14 to May 17, 2009. Margin of error is 3 per cent.
