GUN RIGHTS 

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Gun Rights
Edited by Andre Campos

The right to keep and bear arms (RKBA) or right to bear arms is the concept that people have a personal right to weapons for individual use, or a collective right to bear arms in a militia, or both.

The people's right to have their own arms for their defense is described in the philosophical and political writings of Aristotle, Cicero, John Locke, Machiavelli and Jefferson. Though possessing arms appears to be distinct from "bearing" them, the possession of arms is recognized as necessary for and a logical precursor to the bearing of arms.

Don Kates, a civil liberties lawyer, cites historic English usage describing the "right to keep and bear their private arms." The phrase in the Pennsylvania ratifying convention states:

"The people have a right to bear arms for the defense of themselves and their own state, or the United States, or the purpose of killing game; and no law shall be passed for disarming the people or any of them, unless for crimes committed..."

 
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