Happy Monday Show Mo Facts readers! This week we're going to give Eric Schmitt a little respite and we will be focusing on GOP Congressional ads. Today we will be looking at an ad on Twitter from Mark Alford. Alford is the Republican nominee for Missouri’s Fourth Congressional District. Alford is vying to replace Vicky Hartzler, who retired after an unsuccessful bid for the Republican nomination for US Senate.
In this ad, Alford is seen shooting a handgun at a target on a tree. He then turns to the camera and makes several claims about the Second Amendment and the right to own firearms in the United States.
Claim: “We all know the Second Amendment is absolute”.
Fact: This is a claim often made by members of the GOP. However, the actual history of the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution is complicated and its’ legal interpretation is an extreme source of debate among scholars.
Firstly, the actual text of the amendment which Alford fails to mention is as follows:
“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 qualifying phrase of “A well regulated Militia” is often absent when politicians are making claims about the Second Amendment, yet this has been an important component for legal scholars when examining the Second Amendment. For most of the history of the United States, the prevailing legal opinion was that the Second Amendment did not create an individual constitutional right to possess and use firearms. In 1939 the US Supreme Court ruled in a unanimous decision in United States v. Miller that Congress could regulate certain types of firearms and the Second Amendment did not guarantee an individual the right to own certain types of firearms such as a sawed-off shotgun.
This was the prevailing legal interpretation until 2008 when the Supreme Court handed down the decision in District of Columbia v. Heller. In this 5-4 decision the Court proclaimed that the Second Amendment established an individual right for U.S. citizens to possess firearms going against US legal precedent that had been the prevailing legal opinion for over 200 years.
Yet even in District of Columbia v. Heller, which is the most expansive legal interpretation of the Second Amendment taken by the Supreme Court, the opinion still stated that, “Like most rights, the Second Amendment right is not unlimited. It is not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose…”.
Alford’s claim that the Second Amendment is absolute is not consistent with the current interpretation of the Supreme Court or within the realm of mainstream interpretations shared by legal scholars.
Because of the fact that Alford misrepresented the Second Amendment and made a claim that is inconsistent with the currently prevailing legal opinion, we rate Alford’s ad as HIGH on our Pants On Fire O-Meter.
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