text:
Text of the Amendment and Related Contemporaneous Provisions
Calls for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms from State Ratification
"The Right of the People"
in Other Bill of Rights Provisions
Some Other Contemporaneous
Constitutional Provisions With a Similar Grammatical Structure
18th- and 19th-Century Commentary
William Blackstone, Commentaries on
the Laws of England (1765)
St. George Tucker, Blackstone's
Commentaries (1803)
Joseph Story, Familiar Exposition
of the Constitution of the United States (1840)
Thomas Cooley, Principles of
Constitutional Law (1898)
Selected Supreme Court Cases
United States v. Miller, 307 U.S.
174 (1939)
Lewis v. United States, 445 U.S.
55, 65 (1980)
Casey v. Planned Parenthood, 505
U.S. 833, 848 (1992) (dictum)
List of Cases Mentioning the Second
Relevant Statutes
Militia Act of 1792
The currently effective Militia Act
Dear Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee:
Eight years ago, I got into an argument with a nonlawyer acquaintance about the Second Amendment. The Amendment, this person fervently announced, clearly protects an individual right. Not so, I argued to him, thinking him to be something of a blowhard and even a bit of a kook.
Three years ago, I discovered, to my surprise and mild chagrin, that this supposed kook was entirely right. In preparing to teach a law school seminar on firearms regulation (one of the only about half a dozen such classes that I know of at U.S. law schools), I found that the historical evidence much of which I set forth verbatim in the Appendix overwhelmingly points to one and only one conclusion: The Second Amendment does indeed secure an individual right to keep and bear arms.
The Second Amendment, like the First, Fourth, and Ninth Amendments, refers to a "right of the people," not a right of the states or a right of the National Guard. The First Amendment guarantees the people's right to assemble; the Fourth Amendment protects the people's right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures; the Ninth Amendment refers to the people's unenumerated rights. 1 These rights are clearly individual they protect "the right of the people" by protecting the right of each person. This strongly suggests that the similarly-worded Second Amendment likewise secures an individual right.
What about the seemingly odd two-clause construction, which some commentators have called "unusual," "special," and "nearly unique"? 2 It turns out that there's nothing odd about it at all. During the Framing Era, dozens of individual rights provisions in state constitutions were structured the same way, providing a justification clause explaining the right, and then an operative clause securing the right. The 1842 Rhode Island Constitution's Free Press Clause, for instance, reads
The liberty of the press being essential to the security of freedom in a state, any person may publish his sentiments of any subject, being responsible for the abuse of that liberty . . . . 3
Just as with the Second Amendment, the second clause secures a right, while the first justifies it to the public.
And the two clauses of the Amendment are entirely consistent. The second clause guarantees a "right of the people," which is the right of each individual. The first clause explains that this right helps further a "well-regulated militia," a legal term of art that means "the body of the people capable of bearing arms" (here I quote from the New York Ratifying Convention's proposal that eventually became the Second Amendment 4) the entire armed citizenry, not some small National Guard-type unit. The current Militia Act, enacted in 1956 and derived from the original 1792 Militia Act, defines the "militia" as including all able-bodied male citizens from 17 to 45;5 given the Court's sex equality jurisprudence, I feel comfortable saying that every able-bodied citizen from age 17 to 45, male or female, is a member of the militia. This is quite consistent with the second clause's securing an individual right to every person.
Contemporaneous evidence from the late 1700s and 1800s unanimously supports the individual rights reading of the text. It's widely agreed that the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms was an expanded version of a similar right in the 1688 English Bill of Rights. England, of course, didn't have states, so the English right couldn't have been a states' right; Sir William Blackstone, whose 1765 Commentaries were tremendously influential in Revolutionary Era America, described the right as a "right of the subject," an obviously individual rights characterization. 6
Many early state Bills of Rights also protected the right to keep and bear arms; since these rights were protections against state governments, they surely must have protected individuals, not the states themselves. And many of the constitutions made this quite explicit. The 1790 Pennsylvania and the 1792 Kentucky Constitutions described the right as "the right of the citizens"; the 1796 Tennessee Constitution spoke of "the right of the freemen"; the 1817 Mississippi, 1818 Connecticut, 1819 Maine, and 1819 Alabama Constitution specifically referred to the right of "every citizen." The 1776 Pennsylvania, 1777 Vermont, 1802 Ohio, 1816 Indiana, and 1820 Missouri Constitutions spoke of "the people['s] right to bear arms for the defence of themselves," referring to the people individually ("themselves") rather than collectively ("itself"). 7 Throughout the 1800s, these unambiguously individual rights were seen as directly analogous to the Second Amendment. 8
The same goes for all the notable constitutional commentators of the 1800s. St. George Tucker (1803) treated the Second Amendment right as equivalent to Blackstone's "right of the subject"; 9 William Rawle (1829) did likewise. 10 Justice Joseph Story (1833 and 1840) called it a "right of the citizens." 11 Thomas Cooley (1880 and 1898) took exactly the same individual right view; 12 so did the 1866 Freedmen's Bureau Act, which specifically secured to "all the citizens" "the constitutional right to bear arms" as part of their "personal liberty." 13 A recent exhaustive study reveals that there was exactly one statement in the 1800s cases or commentaries supporting the collective rights view, a concurring opinion in an 1842 Arkansas state court case. 14
The U.S. Supreme Court has said little about the Second Amendment, but it has certainly not said that the Amendment secures only a collective right.
Throughout the Court's history, the Justices have mentioned the Second Amendment, usually in passing, in 27 opinions. In 22 of these 27, the Justices quoted or paraphrased only "the right of the people to keep and bear arms" language, without even mentioning the Militia Clause. 15
One of the remaining five cases and the only extended 20th-century discussion of the right is United States v. Miller (1939), which held that the right extended only to weapons that were rationally related to the preservation of the militia. 16 But the Court emphatically did not hold that the right belonged only to the state or the National Guard. Rather, it reaffirmed that the "militia" referred to the entire armed citizenry, and considered on the merits a lawsuit that was brought by an individual (Miller), not by a state.
The only Supreme Court case that leans in the collective rights direction is Lewis v. United States (1980), which summarily rejected an ex-felon's claim of a right to possess a firearm, in passing citing some lower court cases that took a collective rights view. 17 But Lewis could equally well be explained as concluding only that ex-felons don't have a right to keep and bear arms (something that's also been held in the many states whose constitutions unambiguously guarantee an individual right to keep and bear arms). In any event, if one relies on passing mentions, Casey v. Planned Parenthood (1992) (quoting Justice Harlan) in passing described liberty as including "[freedom from] the taking of property; the freedom of speech, press, and religion; the right to keep and bear arms; the freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures; and so on" a description that treats the right to keep and bear arms as an individual right on par with the other individual rights. 18
Despite all the above evidence, the federal courts of appeal have unanimously subscribed to the states' right approach, though there are a few recent hints to the contrary in some opinions. 19 If the historical or textual evidence were in equipoise, and if the cases dealt carefully with the evidence and explained why the pro-states'-right evidence was more persuasive than the pro-individual-right evidence, then perhaps we might defer to these courts' views. But when the lower courts' decisions are contrary to the unanimous weight of the evidence, and do not really confront this evidence but rely almost entirely on bald assertions or on citations to other lower court decisions, it seems to me that we must respectfully say that the lower courts are mistaken.
While the evidence that the right is an individual right is extremely strong, the precise scope of the right is a matter of considerable debate. This of course is true of all individual rights: Everyone agrees that the First Amendment, the Fourth Amendment, and other provisions secure individual rights, but reasonable minds differ on exactly what speech the First Amendment protects and exactly what searches the Fourth Amendment prohibits.
Thus, recognizing that the Second Amendment secures an individual right tells us little about most moderate gun controls, for instance background checks, waiting periods, or modest restrictions on the kinds of brands that may be marketed. I don't know how these laws should be treated; I suspect that many would be upheld, like many modest speech restrictions are upheld despite the existence of the First Amendment.
But our concern about these problems can't blind us to the clear verdict of the constitutional text and the constitutional history: The Framers of the Bill of Rights (and of the Fourteenth Amendment 20) saw the right to keep and bear arms as an individual right, entitled to the same sort of dignity and protection as the freedom of speech, the privacy of the home, the right to trial by jury, and our other constitutionally secured protections.
As the Court said when defending another often unpopular right the privilege against self-incrimination
If it be thought that [a right] is outmoded in the conditions of this modern age, then the thing to do is to take it out of the Constitution [by constitutional amendment], not to whittle it down by the subtle encroachments of judicial opinion. 21
Constitutional rights may be respected, repealed, or modified; but they must never be ignored.
(I include here all the state rights to keep and bear arms enacted in 1820 or before, plus the provision from the first [1842] Constitution of Rhode Island, the last of the original states to set up a constitution.)
Second Amendment: A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
English Bill of Rights: That the subjects which are protestants may have arms for their defence suitable to their conditions and as allowed by law (1689). 22
Alabama: That every citizen has a right to bear arms in defence of himself and the state (1817). 23
Connecticut: Every citizen has a right to bear arms in defense of himself and the state (1818). 24
Indiana: That the people have a right to bear arms for the defense of themselves and the State, and that the military shall be kept in strict subordination to the civil power (1816). 25
Kentucky: [T]he right of the citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves and the State shall not be questioned (1792). 26
Maine: Every citizen has a right to keep and bear arms for the common defence; and this right shall never be questioned (1819). 27
Massachusetts: The people have a right to keep and to bear arms for the common defence (1780). 28
Mississippi: Every citizen has a right to bear arms, in defence of himself and the State (1817). 29
Missouri: That the people have the right peaceably to assemble for their common good, and to apply to those vested with the powers of government for redress of grievances by petition or remonstrance; and that their right to bear arms in defence of themselves and of the State cannot be questioned (1820). 30
North Carolina: [T]he people have a right to bear arms, for the defence of the State; and, as standing armies, in time of peace, are dangerous to liberty, they ought not to be kept up; and that the military should be kept under strict subordination to, and governed by, the civil power (1776). 31
Ohio: That the people have a right to bear arms for the defence of themselves and the State; and as standing armies, in time of peace, are dangerous to liberty, they shall not be kept up, and that the military shall be kept under strict subordination to the civil power (1802). 32
Pennsylvania: That the people have a right to bear arms for the defence of themselves and the state; and as standing armies in the time of peace are dangerous to liberty, they ought not to be kept up; And that the military should be kept under strict subordination, to, and governed by, the civil power (1776). 33
The right of the citizens to bear arms in defence of themselves and the State shall not be questioned (1790). 34
Rhode Island: The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed (1842). 35
Tennessee: [T]he freemen of this State have a right to keep and bear arms for their common defence (1796). 36
Vermont: [T]he people have a right to bear arms for the defence of themselves and the State and as standing armies in time of peace are dangerous to liberty, they ought not to be kept up; and that the military should be kept under strict subordination to and governed by the civil power (1777). 37
Virginia: That a well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the proper, natural, and safe defense of a free state; that standing armies, in time of peace, should be avoided as dangerous to liberty; and that in all cases the military should be under strict subordination to, and governed by, the civil power (1776). 38 [The Virginia Constitution didn't mention a right to keep and bear arms until 1971.]
Five of the states that ratified the Constitution also sent demands for a Bill of Rights to Congress. All these demands included a right to keep and bear arms. Here, in relevant part, is their text:
New Hampshire: Twelfth[:] Congress shall never disarm any Citizen unless such as are or have been in Actual Rebellion.
Virginia: . . . Seventeenth, That the people have a right to keep and bear arms; that a well regulated Militia composed of the body of the people trained to arms is the proper, natural and safe defence of a free State. That standing armies in time of peace are dangerous to liberty, and therefore ought to be avoided, as far as the circumstances and protection of the Community will admit; and that in all cases the military should be under strict subordination to and governed by the Civil power.
New York: . . . That the People have a right to keep and bear Arms; that a well regulated Militia, including the body of the People capable of bearing Arms, is the proper, natural and safe defence of a free State; That the Militia should not be subject to Martial Law except in time of War, Rebellion or Insurrection. That Standing Armies in time of Peace are dangerous to Liberty, and ought not to be kept up, excess in Cases of necessity; and that at all times, the Military should be under strict Subordination to the civil Power.
North Carolina: Almost identical to Virginia demand, but with "the body of the people, trained to arms" instead of "the body of the people trained to arms."
Rhode Island: Almost identical to Virginia demand, but with "the body of the people capable of bearing arms" instead of "the body of the people trained to arms," and with a "militia shall not be subject to martial law" proviso as in New York.
First Amendment: Congress shall make no law . . . abridging . . . the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Fourth Amendment: The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated . . . .
Ninth Amendment: The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
Tenth Amendment: [Speaking of "the powers . . . of the people" rather than "the right . . . of the people"] The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
Rhode Island Free Press Clause: The liberty of the press being essential to the security of freedom in a state, any person may publish sentiments on any subject, being responsible for the abuse of that liberty . . . . 41
Massachusetts Free Press Clause: The liberty of the press is essential to the security of freedom in a state it ought not, therefore, to be restricted in this commonwealth. 42
Massachusetts Speech and Debate Clause: The freedom of deliberation, speech and debate, in either house of the legislature, is so essential to the rights of the people, that it cannot be the foundation of any accusation of prosecution, action or complaint, in any other court or place whatsoever. 43
New Hampshire Venue Clause: In criminal prosecutions, the trial of the facts in the vicinity where they happen is so essential to the security of the life, liberty, and estate of the citizen, that no crime or offence ought to be tried in any other county than that in which it is committed . . . . 44
In the three preceding articles we have taken a short view of the principal absolute rights [personal security, personal liberty, private property] which appertain to every Englishman. But in vain would these rights be declared, ascertained, and protected by the dead letter of the laws, if the constitution had provided no other method to secure their actual enjoyment. It has therefore established certain other auxiliary subordinate rights of the subject, which serve principally as outworks or barriers to protect and maintain inviolate the three great and primary rights, of personal security, personal liberty, and private property.
1. The constitution, powers, and privileges of parliament . . . .
2. The limitation of the king's prerogative . . . .
3. . . . [A]pplying to the courts of justice for redress of injuries.
4. . . . [T]he right of petitioning the king, or either house of parliament, for the redress of grievances.
5. The fifth and last auxiliary right of the subject, that I shall at present mention, is that of having arms for their defence, suitable to their condition and degree, and such as are allowed by law. Which is also declared by the same statute . . . and is indeed a public allowance, under due restrictions, of the natural right of resistance and self-preservation, when the sanctions of society and laws are found insufficient to restrain the violence of oppression.
. . . [T]o vindicate [the three primary rights], when actually violated or attacked, the subjects of England are entitled, in the first place, to the regular administration and free course of justice in the courts of law; next, to the right of petitioning the king and parliament for redress of grievances; and, lastly, to the right of having and using arms for self-preservation and defence.
[Annotation to Blackstone's discussion of the right to have arms as the fifth and last auxiliary right:]
The fifth and last auxiliary right of the subject, that I shall at present mention, is that of having arms for their defence [fn40] suitable to their condition and degree, and such as are allowed by law. [fn41]
[fn40] The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed, and this without any qualification as to their condition or degree, as is the case in the British government.
[fn41] Whoever examines the forest, and game laws in the British code, will readily perceive that the right of keeping arms is effectually taken away from the people of England. The commentator himself informs us, "that the prevention of popular insurrections and resistence [sic] to government by disarming the bulk of the people, is a reason oftener meant than avowed by the makers of the forest and game laws."
[A separate discussion in an Appendix, specifically about the Second Amendment.]
A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep, and bear arms, shall not be infringed.
This may be considered as the true palladium of liberty . . . . The right of self defence is the first law of nature: in most governments it has been the study of rulers to confine this right within the narrowest limits possible. Wherever standing armies are kept up, and the right of the people to keep and bear arms, is under any colour or pretext whatsoever, prohibited, liberty, if not already annihilated, is on the brink of destruction.
In England, the people have been disarmed, generally, under the specious pretext of preserving the game: a never failing lure to bring over the landed aristocracy to support any measure, under that mask, though calculated for very different purposes. True it is, their bill of rights seems at first view to counteract this policy: but the right of bearing arms is confined to protestants, and the words suitable to their condition and degree, have been interpreted to authorise the prohibition of keeping a gun or other engine for the destruction of game, to any farmer, or inferior tradesman, or other person not qualified to kill game. So that not one man in five hundred can keep a gun in his house without being subject to a penalty. [Editorial note: I understand that this last sentence is considered by some historians to be an exaggeration. 47]
The next amendment is, "A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." One of the ordinary modes, by which tyrants accomplish their purposes without resistance, is, by disarming the people, and making it an offence to keep arms, and by substituting a regular army in the stead of a resort to the militia. The friends of a free government cannot be too watchful, to overcome the dangerous tendency of the public mind to sacrifice, for the sake of mere private convenience, this powerful check upon the designs of ambitious men.
The importance of this article will scarcely be doubted by any persons, who have duly reflected upon the subject. The militia is the natural defence of a free country against sudden foreign invasions, domestic insurrections, and domestic usurpations of power by rulers. It is against sound policy for a free people to keep up large military establishments and standing armies in time of peace, both from the enormous expenses, with which they are attended, and the facile means, which they afford to ambitious and unprincipled rulers, to subvert the government, or trample upon the rights of the people. The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered, as the palladium of the liberties of a republic; since it offers a strong moral check against the usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers; and will generally, even if these are successful in the first instance, enable the people to resist and triumph over them. And yet, though this truth would seem so clear, and the importance of a well regulated militia would seem so undeniable, it cannot be disguised, that among the American people there is a growing indifference to any system of militia discipline, and a strong disposition, from a sense of its burthens, to be rid of all regulations. How it is practicable to keep the people duly armed without some organization, it is difficult to see. There is certainly no small danger, that indifference may lead to disgust, and disgust to contempt; and thus gradually undermine all the protection intended by this clause of our National Bill of Rights.
Section IV. The Right to Keep and Bear Arms.
The Constitution. By the Second Amendment to the Constitution it is declared that "a well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."
The amendment, like most other provisions in the Constitution, has a history. It was adopted with some modification and enlargement from the English Bill of Rights of 1688, where it stood as a protest against arbitrary action of the overturned dynasty in disarming the people, and as a pledge of the new rulers that this tyrannical action should cease. The right declared was meant to be a strong moral check against the usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers, and as a necessary and efficient means of regaining rights when temporarily overturned by usurpation.
The Right is General. It may be supposed from the phraseology of this provision that the right to keep and bear arms was only guaranteed to the militia; but this would be an interpretation not warranted by the intent. The militia, as has been elsewhere explained, consists of those persons who, under the law, are liable to the performance of military duty, and are officered and enrolled for service when called upon. But the law may make provision for the enrolment of all who are fit to perform military duty, or of a small number only, or it may wholly omit to make any provision at all; and if the right were limited to those enrolled, the purpose of this guaranty might be defeated altogether by the action or neglect to act of the government it was meant to hold in check. The meaning of the provision undoubtedly is, that the people, from whom the militia must be taken, shall have the right to keep and bear arms, and they need no permission or regulation of law for the purpose. But this enables the government to have a well regulated militia; for to bear arms implies something more than the mere keeping; it implies the learning to handle and use them in a way that makes those who keep them ready for their efficient use; in other words, it implies the right to meet for voluntary discipline in arms, observing in doing so the laws of public order.
Standing Army. A further purpose of this amendment is, to preclude any necessity or reasonable excuse for keeping up a standing army. A standing army is condemned by the traditions and sentiments of the people, as being as dangerous to the liberties of the people as the general preparation of the people for the defence of their institutions with arms is preservative of them.
What Arms may be kept. The arms intended by the Constitution are such as are suitable for the general defence of the community against invasion or oppression, and the secret carrying of those suited merely to deadly individual encounters may be prohibited.
[This is the only extensive modern discussion of the Amendment.]
An indictment in the District Court Western District Arkansas, charged that Jack Miller and Frank Layton "did unlawfully, knowingly, wilfully, and feloniously transport in interstate commerce from the town of Claremore in the State of Oklahoma to the town of Siloam Springs in the State of Arkansas a certain firearm, to-wit, a double barrel 12-gauge Stevens shotgun having a barrel less than 18 inches in length [contrary to the National Firearms Act] . . . ."
A duly interposed demurrer alleged: The National Firearms Act is not a revenue measure but an attempt to usurp police power reserved to the States, and is therefore unconstitutional. Also, it offends the inhibition of the Second Amendment to the Constitution "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." The District Court held that section eleven of the Act violates the Second Amendment. It accordingly sustained the demurrer and quashed the indictment.
. . .
In the absence of any evidence tending to show that possession or use of a "shotgun having a barrel of less than eighteen inches in length" at this time has some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia, we cannot say that the Second Amendment guarantees the right to keep and bear such an instrument. Certainly it is not within judicial notice that this weapon is any part of the ordinary military equipment or that its use could contribute to the common defense. Aymette v. State, 2 Humphreys (Tenn.) 154, 158.
The Constitution as originally adopted granted to the Congress power "To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions; To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress." With obvious purpose to assure the continuation and render possible the effectiveness of such forces the declaration and guarantee of the Second Amendment were made. It must be interpreted and applied with that end in view.
The Militia which the States were expected to maintain and train is set in contrast with Troops which they were forbidden to keep without the consent of Congress. The sentiment of the time strongly disfavored standing armies; the common view was that adequate defense of country and laws could be secured through the Militia civilians primarily, soldiers on occasion.
The signification attributed to the term Militia appears from the debates in the Convention, the history and legislation of Colonies and States, and the writings of approved commentators. These show plainly enough that the Militia comprised all males physically capable of acting in concert for the common defense. "A body of citizens enrolled for military discipline." And further, that ordinarily when called for service these men were expected to appear bearing arms supplied by themselves and of the kind in common use at the time. [Citing further sources, e.g., the Virginia Act of October 1785 providing for a Militia of "all free male persons between the ages of eighteen and fifty years," with certain exceptions.]
Most if not all of the States have adopted provisions touching the right to keep and bear arms. Differences in the language employed in these have naturally led to somewhat variant conclusions concerning the scope of the right guaranteed. But none of them seem to afford any material support for the challenged ruling of the court below.
[Lewis was convicted of being a felon in possession of a firearm, and challenged the conviction on various statutory grounds, on the ground that his prior felony conviction was uncounseled and therefore shouldn't be considered, and on constitutional grounds. The Court held:]
The firearm regulatory scheme at issue here is consonant with the concept of equal protection embodied in the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment if there is "some þrational basis' for the statutory distinctions made . . . or . . . they þhave some relevance to the purpose for which the classification is made." [fn1]
Section 1202(a)(1) clearly meets that test. . . .
[fn1] These legislative restrictions on the use of firearms are neither based upon constitutionally suspect criteria, nor do they trench upon any constitutionally protected liberties. See United States v. Miller, 307 U.S. 174, 178, 59 S.Ct. 816, 818, 83 L.Ed. 1206 (1939) (the Second Amendment guarantees no right to keep and bear a firearm that does not have "some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia"); United States v. Three Winchester 30-30 Caliber Lever Action Carbines, 504 F.2d 1288, 1290, n. 5 (CA7 1974); United States v. Johnson, 497 F.2d 548 (CA4 1974); Cody v. United States, 460 F.2d 34 (CA8), cert. denied, 409 U.S. 1010, 93 S.Ct. 454, 34 L.Ed.2d 303 (1972) (the latter three cases holding, respectively, that § 1202(a)(1), § 922(g), and § 922(a)(6) do not violate the Second Amendment).
Neither the Bill of Rights nor the specific practices of States at the time of the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment marks the outer limits of the substantive sphere of liberty which the Fourteenth Amendment protects. See U.S. Const., Amdt. 9. As the second Justice Harlan recognized: "[T]he full scope of the liberty guaranteed by the Due Process Clause cannot be found in or limited by the precise terms of the specific guarantees elsewhere provided in the Constitution. This þliberty´ is not a series of isolated points pricked out in terms of the taking of property; the freedom of speech, press, and religion; the right to keep and bear arms; the freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures; and so on. It is a rational continuum which, broadly speaking, includes a freedom from all substantial arbitrary impositions and purposeless restraints, . . . and which also recognizes, what a reasonable and sensitive judgment must, that certain interests require particularly careful scrutiny of the state needs asserted to justify their abridgment." Poe v. Ullman, [367 U.S. 497, 543 (1961)] (opinion dissenting from dismissal on jurisdictional grounds).
U.S. Supreme Court cases that refer to the right to keep and bear arms and also quote the militia clause:
Houston v. Moore, 18 U.S. 1 (1820).
United States v. Miller, 307 U.S. 174
Adams v. Williams, 407 U.S. 143, 149-51 (1972) (Justice Douglas's
Lewis v. United States, 445 U.S. 55, 65 (1980).
Printz v. United States, 117 S. Ct.
2365, 2385-86 (1997) (Justice Thomas's concurrence).
U.S. Supreme Court cases that refer to the right to keep and bear arms without even mentioning the militia clause:
Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. 393, 416-17, 449-51 (1857).
United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U.S.
542, 551 (1876).
Presser v. Illinois, 116 U.S. 252, 264-66 (1886).
Logan v. United States, 144 U.S. 263,
286-87 (1892).
Miller v. Texas, 153 U.S. 535, 538-39 (1894).
Brown v. Walker, 161 U.S. 591, 635
(1896) (Justice Field's dissent).
Robertson v. Baldwin, 165 U.S. 275,
280 (1897).
Maxwell v. Dow, 176 U.S. 581, 597 (1900).
Kepner v. United States, 195 U.S.
100, 123-24 (1904).
Trono v. United States, 199 U.S. 521, 528 (1905).
Twining v. New Jersey, 211 U.S. 78,
98 (1908).
Adamson v. California, 332 U.S. 46, 78 (1947) (Justice Black's dissent).
Johnson v. Eisentrager, 339 U.S. 763, 784 (1950).
Knapp v. Schweitzer, 357 U.S. 371,
378 n.5 (1958).
Konigsberg v. State Bar, 366 U.S. 36, 49 & n.10 (1961).
Poe v. Ullman, 367 U.S. 497, 543 (1961) (Justice Harlan's dissent).
Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113, 169 (1973) (Justice Stewart's concurrence)
(quoting Justice Harlan's dissent in Poe v. Ullman).
Moore v. City of East Cleveland, 431 U.S. 494, 502 (1977) (plurality
opinion) (quoting Justice Harlan's dissent in Poe v. Ullman).
United States v. Verdugo-Urquidez, 494 U.S. 259, 265 (1990).
Casey v. Planned Parenthood, 505 U.S. 833, 848 (1992) (quoting Justice
Harlan's dissent in Poe v. Ullman).
Albright v. Oliver, 510 U.S. 266,
306-07 (1994) (Justice Stevens's dissent) (quoting Justice Harlan's
dissent in Poe v. Ullman).
Muscarello v. United States, 118 S.
Ct. 1911, 1921 (1998) (Justice Ginsburg's dissent).
Sec. 1. Be it enacted . . . That each and every free able-bodied white male citizen of the respective states, resident therein, who is or shall be of the age of eighteen years, and under the age of forty-five years (except as is herein after excepted) shall severally and respectively be enrolled in the militia . . . . That every citizen so enrolled and notified, shall, within six months thereafter, provide himself with a good musket or firelock, a sufficient bayonet and belt, two spare flints, and a knapsack, a pouch with a box therein to contain not less than twenty-four cartridges, suited to the bore of his musket or firelock, each cartridge to contain a proper quantity of powder and ball: or with a good rifle, knapsack, shot-pouch and powder-horn, twenty balls suited to the bore of his rifle, and a quarter of a pound of powder. . . .
Sec. 2. [Exempting the Vice President, federal judicial and executive officers, congressmen and congressional officers, custom-house officers and clerks, post-officers and postal stage drivers, ferrymen on post roads, export inspectors, pilots, merchant mariners, and people exempted under the laws of their states.] 50
(a) The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age and . . . under 45 years of age who are, or who have made a declaration of intention to become, citizens of the United States and of female citizens of the United States who are members of the National Guard.
(b) The classes of the militia are
(1) the organized militia, which consists of the National Guard and the Naval Militia; and
(2) the unorganized militia, which consists of the members of the militia who are not members of the National Guard or the Naval Militia. 51
1. See Appendix, Part III.
2. See, e.g., Geoffrey R. Stone, Louis M. Seidman, Cass R. Sunstein & Mark V. Tushnet, Constitutional Law Supp. 53-54 (3rd ed., Supp. 1997) (describing it as "unusual"); L. Tribe, American Constitutional Law 299 n.6 (2nd ed. 1988) (describing it as "nearly unique"); Sanford Levinson, The Embarrassing Second Amendment, 99 Yale L.J. 637, 644 (1989) (describing it as "special," though concluding that it secures an individual right).
3. I give some more examples in the Appendix, Part IV; Eugene Volokh, The Commonplace Second Amendment, 73 NYU L. Rev. 793, 814-21 (1998) (collecting examples).
4. The various states' proposals are set forth in the Appendix, Part II.
5. Both Acts are set forth in the Appendix, Part VII.
6. Quoted extensively in the Appendix, Part V.A.
7. All these provisions are set forth in full in the Appendix, Part I.
8. See, e.g., David C. Williams, Civic Republicanism and the Citizen Militia: The Terrifying Second Amendment, 101 Yale L.J. 551, 590 (1991) ("the Second Amendment was copied from right to arms provisions in state constitutions, and the debates at the time reveal no suggestion that the scope of the right changed when adopted into the federal Bill of Rights"; Professor Williams says this even though he believes the Second Amendment does not secure an individual right).
9. Quoted extensively in the Appendix, Part V.B.
10. See infra William Rawle, A View of the Constitution of the United States of America 126 (1829).
11. Quoted extensively in the Appendix, Part V.C.
12. Quoted extensively in the Appendix, Part V.D.
13. Freedmen's Bureau Act, ch. 200, 14 Stat. 173, sec. 14 (1866) (re-enacting and extending Act of Mar. 3, 1865, ch. 90, 13 Stat. 507) ("the full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings concerning personal liberty, personal security, and the acquisition, enjoyment, and disposition of estate, real and personal, including the constitutional right to bear arms, shall be secured to and enjoyed by all the citizens of such state or district without respect to race or color, or previous condition of slavery.").
14. David B. Kopel, The Second Amendment in the Nineteenth Century, 1998 BYU L. Rev. (forthcoming). The lone case was State v. Buzzard, 4 Ark. 18 (1842).
15. I give a comprehensive list in the Appendix, Part VI.D.
16. Quoted extensively in the Appendix, Part VI.A.
17. Quoted extensively in the Appendix, Part VI.B.
18. Quoted extensively in the Appendix, Part VI.C.
19. See, e.g, Fraternal Order of Police v. United States, 1998 WL 543822, *3 (Aug. 28) (acknowledging the debate but concluding that it needs not be resolved in the particular case); Runnebaum v. Nationsbank of Maryland, 123 F.3d 156, 171 (4th Cir. 1997) (en banc) (dictum) ("individuals have the constitutional right to peaceably assemble, see U.S. Const. amend. I; and to 'keep and bear Arms,´ U.S. Const. amend. II").
20. See generally Stephen Halbrook, Personal Security, Personal Liberty, And "The Constitutional Right To Bear Arms": Visions Of The Framers Of The Fourteenth Amendment, 5 Seton Hall Const. L.J. 431 (1995).
21. Ullmann v. United States, 350 U.S. 422, 427-28 (1956) (Frankfurter, J.).
22. 1 Wm. & Mary sess. 2, ch. 2 (1689).
23. Ala. Const. art. I, § 23 (1819).
24. Ct. Const. art. I, § 17 (1818). Connecticut had no Constitution until 1818.
25. Ind. Const. art. I, § 20 (1817).
26. Ky. Const. art. XII, § 23 (1792).
27. Maine Const. art. I, § 16 (1819).
28. Mass. Const. pt. 1, art. 17 (1780).
29. Miss. Const. art. I, § 23 (1817).
30. Missouri Const. art. XIII, § 3 (1820).
31. N.C. Const. Bill of Rights, § XVII (1776).
32. Ohio Const. art. VIII, § 20 (1802).
33. Penn. Const. Declaration of Rights, cl. XIII (1776).
34. Penn. Const. art. IX, § 21 (1790).
35. R.I. Const. art. I, § 22 (1842). Rhode Island had no Constitution until 1842.
36. Tenn. Const. art. XI, § 26 (1796).
37. Vt. Const. ch. I, art. 16 (1777).
38. Va. Const. art. I, § 13 (1776).
39. See The Complete Bill of Rights 181-83 (Neil H. Cogan ed. 1997).
40. See generally Eugene Volokh, The Commonplace Second Amendment, 73 NYU L. Rev. 793 (1998) (giving more such provisions, and discussing them in more detail).
41. R.I. Const. art. I, § 20 (1842).
42. Mass. Const. pt. I, art. XVI (1780); see also N.H. Const. pt. I, art. XXII (1784) ("The Liberty of the Press is essential to the security of freedom in a state; it ought, therefore, to be inviolably preserved").
43. Mass. Const. pt. I, art. XXI (1780); see also N.H. Const. pt. I, art. XXX (1784) (same); Vt. Const. chap. I, art. XVI (1786) (same, but with "either house of" omitted).
44. N.H. Const. pt. I, art. XVII (1784).
45. William Blackstone was the leading British legal commentator of the 1700s, and was widely read in the Colonies; he was writing about the more limited right found in the English Bill of Rights.
46. St. George Tucker's Blackstone's Commentaries: With Notes of Reference, to the Constitution and Laws, of the Federal Government of the United States; and of the Commonwealth of Virginia (1803), contained the earliest prominent commentary on the U.S. Constitution. Tucker taught law at the University of William and Mary, and was a Virginia state judge. This material is from p. 143 of book 1 and p. 300 of the Appendix.
47. See, e.g., Joyce Lee Malcolm, To Keep and Bear Arms: The Origins of an Anglo-American Right 122-34 (1994).
48. U.S. Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story was, of course, the leading constitutional commentator of the early 1800s.
49. Michigan Supreme Court Justice Thomas Cooley was probably the leading constitutional commentator of the late 1800s.
50. 2nd Cong. sess. I, ch. 33 (1792).
10 U.S.C. § 311 (enacted 1956, amended 1958).


text:
Smart device manufacturers are learning a lesson that most internet-based service companies know very well. At least half of the consumer market is willing to trade their personal information, and trade it cheaply, according to a recent study conducted by Parks Associates titled, "The Value of Data – New Smart Home Business Models."
The key finding of the report was as described above, but the report goes into some detail, breaking customers down by the products they use. For example, their findings indicated that owners of the following smart products would be willing to share their personal information if a discount on electricity usage was offered:
• 51 percent of smart thermostat owners
• 48 percent of smart clothes dryer owners
• 50 percent of smart water heater owners
Those statistics may seem surprising on the face of it, but on reflection, they're nothing new. Consider how much personal information consumers readily give away when they use free services like Facebook or free email accounts.
What we're seeing here, then, is a new frontier of opportunity for manufacturers. Smart devices make it easier than ever to collect detailed information about consumer habits, and the consuming public has already demonstrated a receptiveness to give away that data, or sell it cheaply.
In fact, the study found that in some cases, customers expressed a willingness to part with their information, even when non-monetary incentives were offered.
According to Brad Russell, one of the analysts at Parks Associates, "consumers are more likely to share data for non-monetary value related to warranties, product improvements, product education and remote technical support. They are less likely to share data to receive product recommendations or to simplify ordering consumables. For data-sharing programs to be successful, service providers and utilities need to ensure they are communicating value propositions that align with their own customers."
The bottom line here is simply this: what's old is new again.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Here's a lovely, sad Childhood essay by Eric Foley. It's a meditation on presence and absence, the presence of his sister growing up in Toronto and her sudden death, at the age of 14. It's a meditation on photography and the strange way photographs carry the mark of absence, of love and loss, even as they record (in snapshots, sometimes double-exposed or damaged) the apparent trivia of family life. What's the difference between life and a photograph? And what is the meaning of those ghostly images of loved ones now gone? Eric Foley has been a finalist for the Random House Creative Writing Award, the Hart House Literary Contest, and winner of Geist Magazine and the White Wall Review's postcard story contests. Eric currently attends Guelph University's Creative Writing MFA program (last summer, he was a student of mine in Guelph's mentorship program), where he is at work on his first novel, and a memoir about living in Morocco. His poetry and criticism can be found online at influencysalon.ca.
In photography, exhibition value begins to displace cult value all along the line. But cult value does not give way without resistance. It retires into an ultimate retrenchment: the human countenance. The cult of remembrance of loved ones, absent or dead, offers a last refuse for the cult value of the picture. For the last time the aura emanates from the early photographs in the fleeting expression of a human face. This is what constitutes their melancholy, incomparable beauty. But as man withdraws from the photographic image, the exhibition value for the first time shows its superiority to the ritual value. To have pinpointed this new stage constitutes the incomparable significance of [the photographer Eugène] Atget, who, around 1900, took photographs of deserted Paris streets. It has quite justly been said of him that he photographed them like scenes of crime. The scene of a crime, too, is deserted; it is photographed for the purpose of establishing evidence. With Atget, photographs become standard evidence for historical occurrences, and acquire a hidden political significance. They demand a specific kind of approach; free-floating contemplation is not appropriate to them. They stir the viewer; he feels challenged by them in a new way. At the same time picture magazines begin to put up signposts for him, right ones or wrong ones, no matter. For the first time, captions have become obligatory. —Walter Benjamin
The above quotation is from Walter Benjamin's famous essay "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction." By cult value, Benjamin is referring to the private, ceremonial, spiritual status of the art object, where what matters most is the object's existence, rather than it being constantly on view. The photograph in the family album or the musty cardboard box in the attic, rather than the framed print on the (facebook) wall. Writing in the 1930's, Benjamin saw photography and film as "the most serviceable exemplifications" of a new function of art where "absolute emphasis" was placed on the exhibition value of the work. I'm interested in the tension that exists between cult value and exhibition value in relation to photographs taken prior to the existence of the digital realm for essentially private family albums. What happens to these images when they are scanned and disseminated online, for all to see? Who today would allow a picture of themselves to be taken (or to remain undeleted on a camera), without imagining its appearance on Facebook?
As I came to try and make a narrative out of a series of the most resonant photographs from my childhood, perhaps it is no surprise that I kept returning Benjamin, who, in the end, inspired me to use this narrative not only to narrate but also to essay, to attempt to think about the nature of photographs and their use within a family. Here then are a series of the pictures that still obsess me, an album of images for which I "have not yet found the law," with obligatory captions (right ones or wrong ones, no matter).
November 16, 1979
An image is not a permanent referent for those complexities of life which are revealed through it; its purpose is not to make us perceive meaning, but to create a special perception of the object – it creates a vision of the object instead of serving as a means of knowing it. – Victor Shklovsky, "Art as Technique"
By a chance double exposure, the first picture taken of me, less than one hour old in my mother's arms, also contains the last picture taken of her before she became a mother. In the ghosted image snapped one day earlier, she sits with her hands on her lap, hands that push through time to rest on my newborn head. Of course, I'm also in her stomach in that fainter image, more than a week overdue.
Eleven Days Old
One of the—often unspoken—objections to photography: that it is impossible for the human countenance to be apprehended by a machine. This the sentiment of Delacroix in particular. – Benjamin, The Arcades Project
"Look at the camera!" my parents must have said, voices young, soft, and joyous. "Look at Daddy!" My mother's robed arm propping me up. What am I looking at? It appears to be an otherworldly orb, a gaseous rupture in the surface of the image, but in fact, this rupture inserted itself along my line of vision several months after the shutter was clicked.
In the spring of 1980 my father went on a canoe trip in with his best friend Joe, bringing along his camera, which contained the undeveloped film from my first months of life. Stepping out of the canoe, my father dropped the bag with the camera into the lake. When the pictures were finally developed, they had this milky, bluish cast, as if light were peeling away the surface of the image. My mother was heartbroken.
Fall, 1980
Over the next several years, my mother would take thousands of pictures, like this one of my father and me in France:
.Or the one that begins this piece, of my brother Andrew and me, which perfectly captures our opposing dispositions. Andrew: carefree, happy-go-lucky, singing away in his own fine world. Me: well, me.
103 Glenrose
Hopkins describes these obsessive images of objects as things for which he has not "found the law." They are unfulfilled in meaning, but take up a lot of room in the memory as if in compensation. They seem both gratuitous and inexplicably necessary. – Charles Baxter.
I grew up in Toronto, in a three-story brick house surrounded by oak trees and lilac bushes. A beer commercial had been shot on the property a month before my parents bought it, and for the first few years we lived there, we would gather around the TV excitedly whenever the ad came on to watch three sweaty, blue-jeaned men kick back on our porch with a couple of cold ones.
Jumping through that first-floor window and reversing the camera angle, we can travel ahead seven years in time, to where I sit poised at our newly acquired 1906 Steinway Grand, my father's dream-come-true..
"Put your hands out like you're about to play," my mother instructed, "and look over at me." So I did. To take this picture, my mother would have had to stand in the entranceway to our living room, which, if we the reverse the angle again, is approximately here:.
.That piñata was one tough mother. Forty minutes of heavy abuse, and it wasn't even dented. My friends and I exhausted, their parents due to arrive any moment, my father pulled the piñata down and dumped the candy onto the hardwood floor for us to flail over.
In making a portrait, it is not a question only…of reproducing, with a mathematical accuracy, the forms and proportions of the individual; it is necessary also, and above all, to grasp and represent, while justifying and embellishing,…the intentions of nature towards the individual. – Gisela Freund, "La Photographie au point de vue sociologique"
I had better luck with these two:
My mother snapped these from opposing angles in the living room of my grandparent's cottage. The first was taken in the summer of 1987, at my sister Kristen's third birthday party. The piñata hangs from a long wooden beam that at Christmastime held up to twenty-eight stockings at once. In the second image, you can see one of the stockings in my cousin John's hands.
This picture was taken a few years earlier, from where the piñatas would later hang:
My parents had seen an ad in the paper for dwarf rabbits, and decided to get us one for Christmas. But by the time they went to pick one up, this monstrous creature was all that was left. It hopped around my grandmother's carpet leaving a trail of brown pellets. Andrew crawled along behind picking up the pellets and putting them into his mouth, thinking they were chocolate-covered raisins. That spring, I forgot to close lid of the rabbit's cage and the rabbit escaped. My Dad told us it probably got eaten by raccoons. The body was never found.
Speaking of Cages
Consideration of the image is still a sacred cause today only because the fate of thought and liberty are at stake in it. The visible world, the one that is given to us to see: is it liberty or enslavement? – Marie-Jose Mondzian, Image, Icon, Economy: The Byzantine Origins of the Contemporary Imaginary
Two photographs taken thirty years apart. The first is of my mother on vacation with her family in Florida, 1961. The second one shows my sister Kristen with our new dog Tessa.
We used to go on a canoe trip every summer to Algonquin Park, and I always wished Tessa could come, but she was too hyper, my Dad said. He worried that if she spotted a loon she would go crazy, tip the canoe. I was, however, allowed to bring Tessa along in the form of an image of the two of us together on a t-shirt:
Communications technology reduces the informational merits of painting. At the same time, a new reality unfolds, in the face of which no one can take responsibility for personal decisions. One appeals to the lens. – Benjamin, The Arcades Project
My brother's favorite pet was a hamster named Rusty. Like our rabbit, Rusty also escaped. One day after school Andrew and I were playing floor hockey in our unfinished basement, when Andrew slapped the ball past me into the furnace room. I went in behind the woodpile to retrieve the ball and there was Rusty: trembling, emaciated. He had been missing for five days. Andrew carried him upstairs and tried to feed him, but the animal was too weak to ingest anything. When my father got home he gave Rusty a series of sugar-water infusions, reviving him for three weeks, after which the hamster passed away. "The shock to Rusty's system must have been too great," my father explained.
The above photograph was taken for a series of watercolor portraits my mother commissioned her friend Maureen to do (mine of course featured Tessa and me). In the background of the photo below, taken during one of our theme dinners, Andrew and Rusty's portrait hangs above the mantle between a framed photograph of Kristen and one of me as a toddler standing beside a baguette. Here is evidence that not all the pictures my mother took were intended solely for our family albums (lined up chronologically in the cupboard behind my father's left shoulder).
If, when she clicked the shutter, my mother happened to capture an image that made her feel a particular warmth within (and she says she always knew it with that initial click, before the film was developed), something to do with natural lighting, composition, the expression on a face she loved, if all of these combined to preserve a moment she wished to keep on seeing, then the image would be enlarged and placed on more permanent display..
No House, Hardly a Room
There used to be no house, hardly a room, in which someone had not once died. – Benjamin, "The Storyteller"
Going over these photographs, I think of the spaces they were taken in. What, besides pets, died there? A look? An object? A gesture? An idea?
These pictures were taken to preserve moments now past, but in another way they also constitute my past. As I grew, so did the pile of images that related to me, and I regularly went to that cupboard where the albums were kept and pored over them, using them to build the narrative of who I was, where and what I had come from.
I could always count on my mother to fill the plastic pages of those gilded, leatherbound books thick with photos from each year, forming a canon of accepted family imagery, a pictorial narrative that each of us could access at will (and, for the most part, agree upon).
Let it rescue from oblivion those tumbling ruins, those books, prints and manuscripts which time is devouring, precious things whose form is dissolving and which demand a place in the archives of our memory—it will be thanked and applauded. – Baudelaire, on the proper use of photography
It is no accident that the portrait was the focal point of early photography. The cult of remembrance of loved ones, absent or dead, offers a last refuge for the cult value of the picture. – Benjamin, The Arcades Project
These pictures of my sister Kristen almost didn't make it into the canon. They were taken after she had gone into the bathroom, aged three, and given herself a haircut. For years, Andrew and I used these images to tease her. She hated them, wanted them destroyed, at one point even stole them from the family album. I'm surprised they still exist. I'm glad they still exist, because in 1999, at the age of fourteen, Kristen died of meningitis, and our family's narrative was irrevocably changed. After such an event, every trace of the past gains in significance.
Following Kristen's death the old canon of images splintered apart, reforming with her at its centre, as my mother disassembled the master albums to make copies of pictures, reassembling them into more than fifty individualized mini-albums for friends and family.
For the last time the aura emanates from the early photographs in the fleeting expression of a human face. This is what constitutes their melancholy, incomparable beauty. – Benjamin, The Arcades Project
There are photographs from that time, still not held in any album, that are crucial to me. One shows my father kneeling in front of Kristen's open casket, my two-and-a-half-year-old sister Kathryn in his arms in a green dress, sucking on the nub of a glass bottle filled with apple cider. Another is of the cemetery: it has started to rain, and I've just opened a burgundy umbrella, which I'm holding high over my mother's head. My father and I are looking up at that umbrella as it floats above the crowd of relatives and friends. As I look at the picture now, it occurs to me that it is the only image I have of any of these people looking so sad; an uncomfortable thing to behold, but all the more valuable for that. Also: no one is looking into the camera. Their attention is elsewhere.
Postscript: Summer, 2002
In the end, we managed to convince our father to let us take Tessa along on a camping trip. She was nearly twelve by this point, her hips going, unlikely to bolt up for a bird or anything else. For the last three days of the trip my father had to carry Tessa, the hair of her hindquarters stained with diarrhea, along the portages. She died not long afterwards, but at least she got to see the Barron Canyon from the belly of a canoe.
The work of art is valuable only in so far as it is vibrated by the reflexes of the future. – André Breton
What reflexes vibrate these photographs? Are they art, or the merely the passing memories of a single family? The above image was taken on the first day of our trip to the Barron Canyon. Andrew and I, now young men, sit behind the stump of the jack pine from Tom Thomson's iconic painting of Round Lake. The tree has been cut down years before, but a sapling grows from its roots. This picture takes me back to the very first in this series, of my brother and me as children. Many things happened between that earlier photo and this one. Many things happened afterwards, and continue to happen to each of us, every day, and we are all filled with multiple exposures. The hands of time push through to rest upon our heads. A feeling kicks in our stomachs, waiting to be born. But "the true picture of the past flits by," as Benjamin says, and, at least for now, the images of all those places, times, and events not shared between us will have to remain lost.
—Eric Foley


text:
Donald Trump mischaracterized the record on Hillary Clinton's defense of her husband and her own treatment of women when he brought up Bill Clinton's sexual history and other episodes of the past. Clinton didn't give a square account of the fallout from her email practices.
A look at some of the claims in the second presidential debate:
TRUMP, asked whether the predatory behavior with women that he described in a 2005 video amounted to sexual assault: "No, I didn't say that at all."
THE FACTS: He certainly didn't own up to sexual assault in his boastful remarks in 2005. But he clearly described groping and kissing women without their permission, using his celebrity to impose himself on them.
"I don't even wait," he bragged in the video. "And when you're a star, they let you do it. You can do anything." He went on: "Grab them by the p----. You can do anything."
He described a specific sexual advance toward a married woman. "I moved on her like a bitch. But I couldn't get there."
TRUMP on Hillary Clinton's behavior when, as a young public defender, she was assigned to represent an accused child rapist: "She's seen on two separate occasions, laughing at the girl who was raped. Kathy Shelton, that young woman, is here with us tonight."
THE FACTS: At no point was Clinton seen laughing at the victim.
In 1975, at the age of 12, Shelton was sexually assaulted in Northwest Arkansas. Clinton was asked by a judge overseeing the case to represent her alleged attacker. After the prosecution lost key evidence, Clinton's client entered a plea to a lesser charge.
In an interview a decade later, Clinton expressed horror at the crime, but was recorded on tape laughing about procedural details of the case. The audio has been seized on by conservative groups looking to attack Clinton's presidential candidacy but does not convey mirth at the girl's fate.
TRUMP on women linked to Bill Clinton sexually: "Hillary Clinton attacked those same women and attacked them viciously."
THE FACTS: There is no clear, independent evidence that Hillary Clinton "viciously" attacked women who alleged or confirmed sexual contact with her husband.
To be sure, in the 1992 Democratic primaries, she was deeply involved in the Clinton campaign's effort to discredit one accuser, actress Gennifer Flowers, who alleged she had a long-running affair with Bill Clinton. Both Clintons acknowledged past troubles in their marriage but sought to undermine Flowers' claims. Bill Clinton later acknowledged in a 1998 court deposition that he had a sexual encounter with Flowers.
Hillary Clinton was also quoted over the years making disparaging comments about other women linked with her husband.
What is lacking is proof that she engineered efforts to smear their reputation. Diane Blair, a political science professor and long-time Hillary Clinton friend who died in 2000, left behind an account of private interviews with Hillary Clinton in which she told her during the Monica Lewinsky affair that she considered the former White House intern a "narcissistic loony toon."
CLINTON: "After a yearlong investigation, there is no evidence that anyone hacked the server I was using, and there is no evidence that anyone can point to, at all ... that any classified material ended up in the wrong hands."
THE FACTS: Maybe, maybe not. While there's indeed no direct, explicit evidence that classified information was leaked or that her server was breached, it was nevertheless connected to the internet in ways that made it more vulnerable to hackers — and the public may never know who saw them. FBI Director James Comey has said: "We assess it is possible that hostile actors gained access to Secretary Clinton's personal e-mail account."
The Associated Press previously discovered that her private server, which has been a major campaign issue for Clinton and the focus of U.S. investigations, appeared to allow users to connect to it openly over the internet and control it remotely. That practice, experts said, wasn't intended to be used without additional protective measures, and was the subject of U.S. government warnings at the time over attacks from even amateur hackers.
Since the AP in early 2015 traced her server to her home in Chappaqua, New York, Clinton hasn't fully explained who administered her server, if it received software updates to plug security holes or if it was monitored for unauthorized access. It's also unclear what, if any, encryption software Clinton's server may have used to communicate with official U.S. government email accounts.
Comey has said Clinton and her staff "were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information." But he said the FBI won't recommend criminal charges against Clinton for use of the server while she was secretary of state and closed the investigation.
TRUMP: "We have to be sure that Muslims come in and report when they see something going on... As an example, in San Bernardino, many people saw the bombs all over the apartment of the two people that killed 14 and wounded many, many people... Muslims have to report the problems when they see them."
THE FACTS: There's no evidence that Muslims failed to report suspicious activity.
The FBI works closely with the Muslim community and encourages people to report possible criminal activity.
In San Bernardino, California, a Muslim couple shot and killed 14 people at an office party in December 2015. The couple was killed in a police shootout. But the FBI has never suggested that people from the Muslim community — or anyone else — failed to alert authorities of bombs in the couple's home.
TRUMP on Bill Clinton: "He lost his license. He had to pay an $850,000 fine."
THE FACTS: Trump's facts are, at best, jumbled. In 1998, lawyers for Bill Clinton settled with former Arkansas state employee Paula Jones for $850,000 in her four-year lawsuit alleging sexual harassment. It was not a fine, and there was no finding or admission of wrongdoing.
Trump erred in describing the legal consequences of that case. In a related case before the Arkansas State Supreme Court, Clinton was fined $25,000 and his Arkansas law license was suspended for five years. Clinton also faced disbarment before the U.S. Supreme Court but he opted to resign from the court's practice instead of facing any penalties.
CLINTON: "We are now, for the first time ever, energy independent."
THE FACTS: Clinton inaccurately overstates the case. For the first time in decades the United States gets more energy domestically than it imports, but it is not yet energy independent as the country continues to rely on oil imports, from the Mideast and elsewhere. Estimates vary as to when the U.S. might achieve energy independence.
Domestic oil production has greatly increased in recent years. And at the same time oil imports as a percentage of consumption have dropped, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Oil imports have dropped from 3.58 billion barrels in 2008 to 2.68 billion barrels in 2015.
TRUMP: "She (Clinton) wants to go to a single-payer plan, which would be a disaster...she wants to go to single-payer, which means the government basically rules everything."
THE FACTS: It's Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders — not Clinton — who supports a Canada-style government-run health care system.
While Clinton's health care proposals would expand the government's role in the health care system, she's not talking about dismantling the current system, which is a hybrid of employer-sponsored coverage, government programs like Medicare and Medicaid, and individually purchased insurance.
As president, Clinton would push for a government-sponsored insurance plan in the health care markets created by President Barack Obama's health care law, as an alternative to private insurance. But those markets currently cover about 11 million people, while about 155 million have job-based coverage.
In excerpts from Clinton's paid speeches she gave behind closed doors, though, she did praise Canada's universal coverage and said that single-payer systems were "as good or better" when it came to basic medical care. But she also noted drawbacks of such health care systems, such as longer wait times for procedures.
TRUMP: "I would not have had our troops in Iraq."
THE FACTS: Trump actually offered lukewarm support for invading Iraq before the war began. He's repeatedly and erroneously claimed to have come out against the war before it started, telling Howard Stern in September 2002: "Yeah I guess so," when asked if he would back an invasion.
This time, his claim was slightly different — that if he had been president at the time, he would not have invaded. It's conceivable, at least, that he would have taken a position in office at odds with his stance as a private citizen. A few months before the March 2003 invasion, he did tell Fox News that the economy and threats from North Korea posed greater problems than Iraq.
TRUMP: "I don't like Assad at all. But Assad is killing ISIS. Russia is killing ISIS."
THE FACTS: Only partially true. Syria's President Bashar Assad considers the Islamic State group to be among numerous "terrorist" groups that threaten his government. His overstretched military is mainly focused on combating Syrian opposition groups, some of which are supported by the United States. Assad does use air power against IS-held areas and his ground forces are engaged in fighting with the extremists in Deir el-Zour in the east.
TRUMP, asked whether he had ever sexually assaulted a woman: "No, I have not."
THE FACTS: He's been accused of it but a case has not been proved.
Trump's first wife, Ivana Trump, accused him of rape in a deposition in the early 1990s. She later said she didn't mean it literally, but rather that she felt violated. Trump was also sued for sexual harassment in 1997 by Jill Harth, a woman who, along with her romantic partner, was pitching Trump to get involved in a pin-up competition in the early 1990s.
In a recent interview with The New York Times, Harth said Trump ran his hands up her skirt during dinner in 1992, and on another occasion, she said Trump tried to force himself on her in his daughter Ivanka's bedroom. "Next thing I know he's pushing me against a wall and has his hands all over me," Harth told the newspaper. Harth dropped her harassment lawsuit against Trump after he settled a separate breach of contract lawsuit. Trump has denied Harth's allegations.
TRUMP: "She is raising your taxes and I am lowering your taxes. ...She's raising everybody's taxes massively."
CLINTON: "He would end up raising taxes on middle-class families"
THE FACTS: Clinton is not raising taxes on "everybody." Nearly all of Hillary Clinton's proposed tax increases would affect the wealthiest 5 percent of Americans, according to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center.
Trump is proposing massive tax cuts for both individuals and businesses. Yet it's not clear that all Americans would benefit. The conservative Tax Foundation estimates that the bottom 80 percent of taxpayers would see their after-tax income rise from 0.8 percent to 1.9 percent. The wealthiest 1 percent would see their after-tax incomes rise at least 10.2 percent to 16 percent.
Yet Clinton may be right that Trump's proposals would increase taxes on many middle- and lower-income families. Trump's plan eliminates the personal exemption, which currently allows households to reduce their taxable income by $4,050 for each member of the household, including children. He would replace that with higher deductions, but for many single parents and families with three or more children, the standard deduction wouldn't be large enough to offset the loss of personal exemptions.
TRUMP, asked whether his tweets directing people to check out a sex tape showed discipline: "It wasn't 'check out a sex tape.'"
THE FACTS: Yes it was. Trump tweeted "check out sex tape and past" of former 1996 Miss Universe Alicia Machado, a woman whom Clinton discussed in the first presidential debate as an example of Trump's derogatory comments about women.
Machado has publicly supported Clinton and criticized Trump for body-shaming her by calling her "Miss Piggy" and threatening to take away her crown for gaining weight.
The video Trump appeared to be referring to was from a Spanish reality show. In 2005, Machado, who was a contestant on the show, was filmed in bed, under the covers with a male contestant and speaking sexually about his body parts. The grainy footage doesn't show nudity, though Machado has said that she was having sex in the footage.
CLINTON: "If we repeal (Obama's health care law) as Donald has proposed, all of those benefits I have mentioned are lost to everybody...and then we will have to start all over again."
THE FACTS: Clinton is essentially correct. Congressional Republicans have promised their replacement plan for Obama's health care law would provide coverage for the uninsured, but they have not provided enough detail to allow a rigorous comparison. A complete repeal of the health care law would wipe the slate clean and lawmakers would have to start over.
Republicans have expressed support for some goals of the health care law, such as assuring that people with health problems can get coverage, but whether a GOP replacement plan would work as well remains to be seen. Trump's own plan was recently evaluated by the Commonwealth Fund and the RAND Corporation, and the analysis found would increase the number of uninsured people by about 20 million.
Associated Press writers Erica Werner, Robert Burns, Deb Riechmann, Christopher S. Rugaber, Jeff Horwitz, Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar, Chad Day, Jack Gillum, Eileen Sullivan and Eric Tucker contributed to this report.


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A few days ago, we reached out for help to gather evidence about the use of "Python" in Europe. We received an overwhelming response from the community, with hundreds of letters from individuals, companies, and universities, as well as scans of articles, book covers, conference T-shirts, and brochures. It has been truly been amazing to see.
Unfortunately, we also saw that there were a few who decided to directly attack the people and the company we are opposing. We put out a call for civility - and we want to emphasize that any hacktivism or threats will end up hurting the Python community in the long run. This is not who we are or how we act.
Although the issues have not yet been resolved, we are engaged in good-faith negotiations with the head of Veber, and we hope and expect that we will be able to announce a settlement soon.
Van Lindberg
Chairman, Python Software Foundation


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Banks turn to virtual property inspections amid COVID-19
Necessity is pushing lenders toward technology that allows for contactless site visits
The coronavirus is presenting the opportunity for some industries to test long-held ideas.
Banks and other lenders have been relying on video calls to conduct property inspections as lockdowns and social-distancing rules prevent valuations being carried out in person.
In Australia, at least 5,000 residential and commercial properties have been valued using virtual inspections, including remote properties in the government's defence portfolio, according to JLL.
The idea isn't new, but the increasing activity has been born out of necessity.
"Lockdowns were rolling out and banks and other lenders immediately recognised that inspections would be a problem," says Bart Mead, executive director, valuations and advisory, JLL. "Because if a bank can't get a valuation, it can't lend, and that would be a huge problem for global economies."
Live-streaming inspections
Virtual inspections require property owners to connect with valuers through a secure live-streaming platform on their mobile device. They tour the property, discussing all the details they would in a face-to-face inspection. Per usual, the valuer then compiles a report, and submits it to the bank presiding over the loan.
In the past banks have been reluctant to accept anything other than an on-site valuation inspection to avoid the risk of inaccurate or incomplete information.
A turning point in Australia came during the pandemic when the Australian Property Institute – an industry body for the property profession – issued a state of emergency protocol in March as lockdowns hit. It allowed for alternative inspection methods that would protect the health and safety of valuers and property owners, while allowing financial institutions to continue lending.
"There are a lot of people assessing their financial situation, and accessing property equity to get themselves to the other side of this economic downturn," says API Chief Executive Amelia Hodge. "Stakeholders, including banks and professional indemnity insurers, have been very helpful in formulating a framework that could work for virtual valuations, and support the economic recovery of our country."
With similar protocols introduced in other countries, virtual valuations are now being accepted by banks across the world, including New Zealand, Spain and the U.S., with the potential to continue indefinitely, says Mead.
"To me the most important part of all of this is that the borrower has confidence in what they're doing and that they are making the right decision for their, or their business's, own financial position and future," he says.
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Data security
For banks, the protection of data remains a key consideration.
Despite the most reputable virtual-valuations platforms encrypting their live-streaming videos, which aren't stored, companies remain wary about the sophistication of cybercrime.
Recent data breaches of property valuations and peoples' personal information has heightened banks' focus on data security.
Nevertheless, the valuations sector is moving towards a data revolution. There is a belief among 87 percent of people and organisations – including banks – that data and technology will increasingly influence the actual value of a property, according to a 2019 survey by LiquidREI, a UK-based organisation which helps real estate companies capitalise on digital transformation.
The survey also found strong appetite among purchasers of property valuations to consider new solutions, with 72 percent open to lower priced, technology-based alternatives.
Products such as automated valuation modelling for residential properties, and artificial intelligence desktop assessments for agricultural property, are already in the market and adoption is expected to accelerate, with COVID-19 impeding the movement of valuers, says Mead.
Investment Opportunities
"Data and technology are now playing an increasingly important role in determining the value of a property," Mead says. "Combined with human expertise we'll find a consistency in valuations that has been difficult to achieve in the past. It's satisfying to see how COVID is accelerating acceptance of these new methods."
Contact Bart Mead
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Showing Collections: 1 - 1 of 1
Johns Hopkins University French Avant-Garde ephemera collection
The material is diverse, including engravings, drawings, posters, and medals, ranging from the 18th to the 20th century. Much of the collection is oriented toward the avant-garde, so even the 18th-century material tends to be literature of the margins. It is especially strong in 19th and 20th century avant-garde material (Symbolisme, Cabaret literature, political and social satire, Surrealism).


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I have sold a property at 4601 MARINE DR in West Vancouver.
Exceptional floor plan set on a private property with fantastic ocean views. Enjoy West Vancouver living right across the street from tranquil Caulfield Park Beach. A West Coast Contemporary home that oozes with charm and a beautiful yardfor garden lovers. Features includes 5 bedrooms, updated kitchen, newer windows in most of the house, high ceilings, lots of room for entertaining inside and outside on the deck, a usable yard and ample parking space for an RV and/or a boat. Do not miss this well priced home. Priced $100,000 under assessed value.


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Throughout its history the diesel engine has always maintained its status as the most efficient system for converting fuel into mechanical energy, and this situation is expected to continue for the foreseeable future.
The systems for after treatment focus on:
- The reduction of NOₓ
- The reduction of SOₓ
- The reduction of particulates (soot and particulate matter)
In order to achieve the lowest emission possible an after treatment of the exhaust gases is imperative. For the reduction of sulphur, nitrogen oxides and particulates a variety of promising options is available. These options have to be evaluated and the right combination of technologies has to be chosen for each application.


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Example: The 3500 Hz Square Wave |
Other examples: |
An "Ear Rape" YTMND is one that is usually created solely for the purpose of annoying or causing pain to the viewer using loud and/or high pitched noises. The most common type of these sites use a square wave to create a high pitched whine and suffering.
These sites are NOT to be confused with Poland and KHANTMND sites, which use high volume but have quite different intentions.
Ear rape is generally done over ytmnd ventrilo, however it will earn you a ban (unless you are a senior user). There is quite a few popular sounds used for ear rape, generally because people are too lazy to make new ear rape sound clips. Blue noise is often used.
Some people use this as a method to troll on the YTMND vent, however this is generally ineffective due to moderators being on most of the time.
- This page is a stub. Make it meaningful and add something to it.


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Stand Out in the Crowd! If branding, lead generation and market visibility are important to your organization, the marketing and sponsorship opportunities available at TechNet Cyber 2019 are exactly what you need. This event attracts over 4,000 cyber security professionals, who want to see the leading industry solutions, and take part in networking and business building opportunities.
Have an idea for a sponsorship? Let us know! We are happy to discuss possibilities with you. Contact us today!
Leidos is a Fortune 500® science and technology solutions and services leader working to solve the world's toughest challenges in the defense, intelligence, homeland security, civil, and health markets. The company's 32,000 employees support vital missions for government and commercial customers. For more information, visit www.Leidos.com.
Contact this Exhibitor


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Memex Automation Announces Sale of MERLIN for $106,000 to Club Coffee
Astrix Networks Inc, operating under the trade name Memex Automation Inc (one of the leading manufacturers of machine-to-machine (M2M) productivity solutions), stated that the Toronto-based Club Coffee has purchased $106,000 of Memex's flagship product Merlin.
Merlin delivers overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) metrics in real-time, enabling manufacturers to increase rates of production and increase income from plant operations.
"Merlin enables Club Coffee to understand the root causes of machine downtime and how to convert unutilised time into production," said David McPhail, chief executive officer, Merlin.
"This should signal to food processors and the sector that Merlin could increase the efficiency of their operations by monitoring their machines in real-time and increasing overall profitability."
To see the full article, please click here.


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HOLLYWOOD, CALIFORNIA – "Life of Pi," Academy Award-winning Director Ang Lee's latest, pushes the boundaries of stereoscopic 3D, visual effects and cinematic storytelling. To create the film's elegantly crafted main title sequence, end crawl and additional key sequences in the film, Lee turned to Creative Director Garson Yu and the creative team at design/visual effects studio yU+co.
"I think I share a similar visual aesthetic with Ang, which is why we work well together and he involves us in the filmmaking process. Ang introduced us to this project nearly two years ago when he and his team were still in pre-production," Yu says. "He was looking to create a new visual language for how stereoscopic 3D can be used to tell a story."
Which is the same mindset the creative team at yU+co – which had worked with Lee on his previous four films – brought to the project.
The opening of the film sets the tone for the audience with a series of lushly photographed shots of the animals that inhabit the fictional zoo, set to a quiet Indian lullaby. With a focus on the simple beauty of the typography and how it interacts with the live action, the three-minute opening sequence unfolds in a deliberately unhurried fashion. The motion of the yU+co typography playfully creates a visual dialogue between the animals and the titles.
During a shot of a monkey hanging from a tree branch, select letters in the typography appear to swing similarly to the live image. In another scene showing a group of hummingbirds hovering over flowers — the type flies off the screen similar to the bird's flight.
"Our concept was to imbue the letters in each title with its own personality that subtly mimics the animals," Yu notes. "In designing the stereo sequences, our overall approach was to not try to over-design it. Ang wanted the 3D to be part of the film's visual language — not merely be an effect or a technique. For us it was all about designing in a very simple yet lyrical style that was largely invisible to the audience but effective."
Markedly different in tone from the main title sequence are the additional scenes yU+co designed in the film that help depict Pi and the Bengal tiger named Richard Parker hopelessly lost at sea. The choreography of layered images creates a kind of visual echo that helps conveys a sense of time passing.
One magical transition takes viewers from a flashback showing the young Pi being thrown into a swimming pool, shot from underwater, which dissolves slowly into the adult Pi's kitchen where he is retelling his story to a guest. For a moment it looks like the young Pi is swimming in the kitchen.
Yu adds, "All of the stereoscopic 3D we did was in service of the story and characters – it was never about just using the 3D to create something flashy. The question we always asked ourselves as we worked on this was 'how do we best tell this story'? That kind of sensibility, which was instilled by Ang from the outset, is what made this project so special."
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