State and Local Government Dr. U

2.2 State Constitutions: An Overview

All state constitutions have a bill of rights, which are written protections for basic freedoms that mostly reflects the United States Constitution. The basic freedoms being the freedom of speech, religion, and the right to assemble. The right to bear arms is one of the rights discussed in the passage referring to Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newton, Connecticut. On December 14, 2012 a gunman entered Sandy Hook Elementary School and killed at total of 20 children and six adults. Many states include provisions that guarantee the right to bear arms. Other states hold that right for people to bear arms in self-defense. The Supreme Court resolved the meaning of the second amendment in two important cases in 2008 and 2010. The District of Columbia v. Heller (2008), the Supreme Court held that “The second amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia and to use that firearm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home.” In McDonald v. Chicago (2010), a case challenging Chicago’s complete ban on handguns. The court held that “that the Framers and ratifiers o the fourteenth Amendment counted the right to keep and bear arms among those fundamental rights necessary to our system of ordered liberty. But the opinion also stated the second amendment right is not unlimited. Following that the state of New York acts quickly and the state was inspired to enact the nation’s toughest state gun regulations. All state constitutions reflect the American political tradition of Separation of powers. The separation of powers is the allocation of powers among the three branches of government, legislative, executive, and judicial. These powers are separate because they each have an important set of factors and are made to remain in