Amended in Senate June 27, 2013

Senate Concurrent Resolution No. 49

Introduced by Senator Knight

(Coauthors: Senators Berryhill, Fuller, Gaines, Huff, and Nielsen)

June 3, 2013

Senate Concurrent Resolution No. 49—Relative to firearms.

LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL’S DIGEST

SCR 49, as amended, Knight. Firearms.

This measure would commemorate the 5-year anniversary of the District of Columbia v. Heller decision and the United States Supreme Court’s interpretation of the Second Amendment’s “right to keep and bear arms.”

Fiscal committee: no.

WHEREAS, The United States Constitution is the supreme law
of the land and the foundation upon which all United States law
is built; and

WHEREAS, The Second Amendment to the United States
Constitution provides 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”; and

WHEREAS, On June 26, 2008, the United States Supreme Court
issued its historic decision in District of Columbia v. Heller to
recognize that the Second Amendment serves to protect an
individual’s right to keep and bear arms, unconnected to militia
service; and

WHEREAS, For centuries, tyrants have recognized that a
disarmed population is readily dominated. Moreover, two out of
three Americans recognize that their constitutional right to own a
gun was intended to ensure their freedom. To that end, the Heller
decision recognized that the right to keep and bear arms was
codified to, among other things, “safeguard against tyranny”; and

WHEREAS, Private, individual ownership and use of firearms
has existed in every American state throughout the nation’s history
and continues to this day as a cherished and fundamental aspect
of American culture; and

begin insert

WHEREAS, In the District of Columbia v. Heller decision, the
Supreme Court stated that the ruling has its limitations: “Like
most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not
unlimited....Although we do not undertake an exhaustive historical
analysis today of the full scope of the Second Amendment, nothing
in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding
prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the
mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive
places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing
conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms”;
and

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WHEREAS, State lawmakers have a profound interest in this
case as guardians of their constituents’ health, welfare, and
constitutional rights; and

WHEREAS, June 26, 2013, will mark the fifth anniversary of
the District of Columbia v. Heller decision; now, therefore, be it

Resolved by the Senate of the State of California, the Assembly
thereof concurring, That the Legislature commemorate the
five-year anniversary of the District of Columbia v. Heller decision
and the United States Supreme Court’s true interpretation of the
Second Amendment’s “right to keep and bear arms”; and be it
further

Resolved, That the Secretary of the Senate transmit copies of
this resolution to the author for appropriate distribution.