Date of Award

Fall 2025

Degree Type

Thesis

Department

Political Science

Director of Thesis

Samuel Bagg

Second Reader

Thomas Hughes

Abstract

From the conception of the Bill of Rights until the 21st century, the Second Amendment was read and understood by the American population, both ordinary citizens and government officials, branches, and agencies inclusively, to allow the nation to have an armed military but not for private citizens to own and/or carry firearms. Since 2008, however, the Second Amendment has been interpreted as an absolute freedom for private citizens to own and carry semiautomatic assault weapons in the name of personal protection. This thesis holds that the evolution of society’s attitude on guns and gun control is specifically denoted by the landmark Supreme Court decision in District of Columbia v. Heller (2008), which flipped the precedential interpretation of the Second Amendment. Further, this new view of the right to bear arms has limited Congress’ ability to enact federal gun control, which in tandem have contributed to the current epidemic of mass gun violence.

This thesis aims to disprove popular arguments against gun control, which include that: 1) under an originalist interpretation of the Second Amendment, there is an implied individual right to bear arms; 2) gun control unconstitutionally restricts the right to bear arms; and 3) the mass shooting epidemic is an unfortunate yet inevitable consequence of the freedom to bear arms. By tracing the history of federal gun control and Second Amendment jurisprudence, this paper will demonstrate that: 1) an originalist interpretation of the Second Amendment and its legislative tradition refutes individual-rights interpretations; 2) the regulation of guns is not an infringement of the right to bear arms; and 3) epidemic mass gun violence is not inevitable, as federal intervention from the Legislature and Judiciary has been enacted and upheld specifically to mediate the issue of mass gun violence.

First Page

4

Last Page

83

Rights

© 2025, Amanda Tureaud

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