State Constitutional Right to Keep and Bear Arms Provisions, Past and Present:
I include all 44 states' provisions, dating from 1776 to 1998, sorted by state, categorized by type, and sorted by date, in this short article that's forthcoming in the Texas Review of Law & Politics. It's mostly reference material with little analysis, but it hadn't been assembled before in an Official Source. But since the two Web pages that I put together on this have been cited in several law review articles, I figured that they were useful — and that publishing them in a law review could get still more people to notice them and use them.
DKK
That said though, I never click any link without mousing over to see where it's headed first, so when it comes down to it, it's the responsiblity of the reader to check first.
A few years ago here in Texas, we had a constitutional amendment to fix several grammatical and spelling errors (and to get rid of a number of obsolete provisions).
Looks like a couple typos in the boxes in Part II. Kansas has "6idual" and Virginia has that plus "1ective." (Unless this is some NRA secret code I'm not privy to.)
(Suspicious look). You don't have the decoder ring?
In that case the giveaway would be the picture of Wayne LaPierre and the appeal for contributions.
Other states with no provision for Second Amendment Rights are Iowa, Maryland, and Minnesota, which appear to have less restrictive gun laws, but what does the future hold for them?
1) they were enacted long before incorporation to provide a state level protection analogous to the 2nd on the federal level
2) they were enacted in response to lack of supreme court action on the 2nd amendment and increasing anti-gun activism at both the federal and state levels.
Were they really outright errors, or just updates to reflect the fact that American spelling and grammar has changed slightly over the past couple of centuries? You'd think they'd have QC'd the provisions the first time around, especially given the leisurely pace of law and legislating back in the day.
"§ 4. Right to keep and bear arms. A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms cannot be infringed." [ "cannot" in place of "shall not" in the 2nd Amendment - Me]
Source is here.
I've had the opinion from long years of living in and reading about New York that it was the queer uncle of the colonies, i.e., it always had to do things a bit differently and in the oddest way, and that it hadn't changed much since. Sorry, but I don't have the annotation for when this was established. I should note the 2.2 states:
"§ 2. Supreme sovereignty in the people. No authority can, on any pretence whatsoever, be exercised over the citizens of this state, but such as is or shall be derived from and granted by the people of this state."
But I am curious, now, as to what those familiar with law would opine on the differences and similiarities in civil rights law and Consitutional Bill of Rights and, also, what the difference might be between civil rights law and what is termed "common law". I ask this both independently and within the context of 2.2, above.
I've sometimes wondered why rights are called "civil." It's not because they're constitutional - lots of statutory rights are not in the constitution but still called "civil rights." Presumably they've got something to do with being personal to the individual so a Title VII statutory right to be free from discrimination in certain situations is a "civil right" whereas the easement you hold over your neighbor's property is just a right without being a "civil right." Presumably First Amendment free speech is a civil right too. What about a Second Amendment right to bear arms? How about a Third Amendment right not to have troops quartered in your home?
One can find civil rights of a sort in the common law. The concept of property and the ownership of it is as old as the common law and we didn't have (or need) a statute to provide that property existed and that people could own it. The right to own property is a civil right of a sort and the right not to be deprived of it except in certain circumstances is also a constitutional right.
Here
The Constitution of 1861, for the first time, included:
“6) The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”
Patterned largely after the Confederate constitution, the Georgia Constitution of 1861 was the first state constitution to be submitted to the people for ratification. Though earlier constitutions had enumerated only four or five personal liberties, the Constitution of 1861 incorporated a lengthy bill of rights
Constitution of 1877, modified RKBA to:
“Par. XXII. The right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed, but the General Assembly shall have power to prescribe the manner in which arms may be borne.”
The manner of course was designed to prevent Blacks from bearing arms via a permit process with fees, good moral character standards, and ownership of property.
Constitution of 1945, the RKBA is:
“Paragraph XXII. Arms, Right to Keep and Bear. The right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed, but the General Assembly shall have power to prescribe the manner in which arms may be borne.”
Constitution of 1976 includes the following:
‘Paragraph V. Arms, Right to Keep and Bear. The right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed, but the General Assembly shall have power to prescribe the manner in which arms may be borne.”
Constitution of 1983 retains prior RKBA language:
Paragraph VIII. Arms, right to keep and bear. The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed, but the General Assembly shall have power to prescribe the manner in which arms may be borne.
practice." This is not a prohibition of concealed carry -- just an authorization for the legislature to enact such a prohibition.
The North Carolina legislature (and legislatures in other states that have such provisions) may have chosen not to take advantage of that authorization. But the state constitutional provision, which is all that I'm discussing in this article, does provide such an authorization.
The word civil comes from the Latin where it meant of a citizen or proper for a citizen. In modern English the meaning that is relevant to your question is "of or relating to or befitting citizens as individuals".