U.S. Supreme Court Decisions concerning [Armed] Self-Defense

"The court, in effect, said-or the jury may, not unreasonably, have understood the court as declaring-that preparation by arming, although for self-defense only, could not be followed, in any case, by manslaughter, if the killing, after such arming, was not, in fact, in necessary self- defense. Such we understand to be the meaning of the charge. In our opinion, the court erred in so charging the jury. If the accused was justified in the eye of the law in arming himself for self-defense,[Page 153 U.S. 183, 192] and if, without seeking, but on meeting, his adversary, on a subsequent occasion, he killed him, not in necessary self-defense, then his crime was that of manslaughter or murder, as the circumstances, on the occasion of the killing, made it the one or the other. If guilty of manslaughter, looking alone at those circumstances, he could not be found guilty of murder by reason of his having previously armed himself solely for self- defense."
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- Mr. Justice HARLAN, U.S.Supreme Court, Gourko v. U.S., April 16, 1894.
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"...The principal question in the case arises out of those parts of the charge in which the court instructed the jury as to the principles of the law of self-defense..."
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"...'A man may repel force by force in defense of his person, habitation, or property against one who manifestly intends and endeavors, by violence or surprise, to commit a known felony, such as murder, rape, robbery, arson, burglary, and the like, upon either. In these cases he is not obliged to retreat, but may pursue his adversary until he has secured himself from all danger; and if he kill him in so doing it is called justifiable self-defense..."
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- Mr. Justice HARLAN, U.S.Supreme Court, Beard v. U.S., May 27, 1895.
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Other United States Supreme Court Decisions Concerning: The Right of [Armed] Self Defense;

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Wiggins v. State Of Utah, Oct. Term, 1876.

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Starr v. U.S., May 14, 1894.

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Thompson v. U.S., Dec. 3, 1894.

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Allison v. U.S., Dec. 16, 1895.

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Brown v. Walker, March 23, 1896.

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Stevenson v. U.S., April 13, 1896.

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Wallace v. U.S., April 20, 1896.

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Adamson v. People Of State Of California, June 23, 1947.

This about says it all:

"'Though originally the first ten Amendments were adopted as limitations on Federal power, yet in so far as they secure and recognize fundamental rights-common law rights-of the man, they make them privileges and immunities of the man as citizen of the United States, and cannot now be abridged by a State under the Fourteenth Amendment. In other words, while the ten Amendments, as limitations on power, only apply to the Federal government, and not to the States, yet in so far as they declare or recognize rights of persons, these rights are theirs, as citizens of the United States, and the Fourteenth Amendment as to such rights limits state power, as the ten Amendments had limited Federal power..."

- Adamson v. People Of State Of California, U.S. Supreme Court, (Justice Black, Douglas and Swayne in Dissent), June 23, 1947.

Second Amendment to the United States Constitution:

"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."

Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution:

"Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

Rest my case.

A MUST Read:

Get Ready to be VERY Pissed off. Very important to read the whole decision, if you want to discover the TRUTH concerning our Right:

"...It was aimed at restraining and checking the powers of wealth and privilege. It was to be a charter of liberty for human rights against property rights. The transformation has been rapid and complete. It operates today to protect the rights of property to the detriment of the rights of man. It has become the Magna Charta of accumulated and organized capital.' Collins, The Fourteenth Amendment and the States, (1912) 137, 138. That this feeling was shared, at least in part, by members of this Court is revealed by the vigorous dissents that have been written in almost every case where the Twining and Hurtado doctrines have been applied to invalidate state regulatory laws. [Footnote 13]

"Later decisions of this Court have completely undermined the phase of the Twining doctrine which broadly precluded reliance on the Bill of Rights to determine what is and what is not a 'fundamental' right...."

- Adamson v. People Of State Of California, U.S. Supreme Court, THIS DECISION, (Justice Black's Dissent), EXPLAINS EXACTLY WHAT WENT WRONG WITH OUR RIGHT(S), June 23, 1947

"...guerrilla fighters, and "werewolves" could require..."

"If the Fifth Amendment confers its rights on all the world except Americans engaged in defending it, the same must be true of the companion civil-rights Amendments, for none of them is limited by its express terms, territorially or as to persons. Such a construction would mean that during military occupation irreconcilable enemy elements, guerrilla fighters, and "werewolves" could require the American Judiciary to assure them freedoms of speech, press, and assembly as in the First Amendment, right to bear arms as in the Second, security against "unreasonable" searches and seizures as in the Fourth, as well as rights to jury trial as in the Fifth and Sixth Amendments."

- MR. JUSTICE JACKSON, U.S. Supreme Court, [JOHNSON v. EISENTRAGER, 339 U.S. 763 (1950). Decided June 5, 1950. Page 339 U.S. 763, 784]

Thoughts On Defensive War...

...I am thus far a Quaker, that I would gladly agree with all the world to lay aside the use of arms, and settle matters by negotiation; but unless the whole will, the matter ends, and I take up my musket and thank heaven he has put it in my power.

Whoever considers the unprincipled enemy we have to cope with, will not hesitate to declare that nothing but arms or miracles can reduce them to reason and moderation. They have lost sight of the limits of humanity. The portrait of a parent red with the blood of her children is a picture fit only for the galleries of the infernals. From the House of Commons the troops of Britain have been exhorted to fight, not for the defence of their natural rights, not to repel the invasion or the insult of enemies; but on the vilest of all pretences, gold. “Ye fight for solid revenue” was vociferated in the House. Thus America must suffer because she has something to lose. Her crime is property. That which allures the Highwayman has allured the ministry under a gentler name. But the position laid down by Lord Sandwich, is a clear demonstration of the justice of defensive arms. The Americans, quoth this Quixote of modern days, will not fight; therefore we will. His Lordship’s plan when analized amounts to this. These people are either too superstitiously religious, or too cowardly for arms; they either cannot or dare not defend; their property is open to any one who has the courage to attack them. Send but your troops and the prize is ours. Kill a few and take the whole. Thus the peaceable part of mankind will be continually overrun by the vile and abandoned, while they neglect the means of self defence. The supposed quietude of a good man allures the ruffian; while on the other hand, arms like laws discourage and keep the invader and the plunderer in awe, and preserve order in the world as well as property. The balance of power is the scale of peace. The same balance would be preserved were all the world destitute of arms, for all would be alike; but since some will not, others dare not lay them aside. And while a single nation refuses to lay them down, it is proper that all should keep them up. Horrid mischief would ensue were one half the world deprived of the use of them; for while avarice and ambition have a place in the heart of man, the weak will become a prey to the strong. The history of every age and nation establishes these truths, and facts need but little arguments when they prove themselves....

- Thomas Paine, Pennsylvania Magazine, July, 1775

"he must consult the dictates of self-preservation alone"

"Suppose likewise, that it should be a virtuous man’s fate to fall into the society of ruffians, remote from the protection of laws and government; what conduct must he embrace in that melancholy situation? He sees such a desperate rapaciousness prevail; such a disregard to equity, such contempt of order, such stupid blindness to future consequences, as must immediately have the most tragical conclusion, and must terminate in destruction to the greater number, and in a total dissolution of society to the rest. He, meanwhile, can have no other expedient than to arm himself, to whomever the sword he seizes, or the buckler, may belong: To make provision of all means of defence and security: And his particular regard to justice being no longer of use to his own safety or that of others, he must consult the dictates of self-preservation alone, without concern for those who no longer merit his care and attention."

- David Hume, Enquiries Concerning the Human Understanding and Concerning the Principles of Morals, ed. L. A. Selby-Bigge, M.A. 2nd ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1902).

THE GOOD MORAL PRINCIPLES OF THE GOVERNMENT OF THE UNITED STATES

...Upon this wretch, man, however wicked he may be, nature has unequivocally bestowed one boon. This blessing, the hereditary system proposes to deprive him of; our policy uses it as the principle of civil government; it is the right of self preservation. No other government, ancient or modern, has fairly provided for the safety of this right. In all others, it is fettered by compounds of orders or separate interests; by force or by fraud. Between governments which leave to nations the right of self preservation, and those which destroy it, we must take our stand, to determine on which side the preference lies. A coincident view of happiness and misery, will presently transform this line, into a wide gulf, on the farther side of which, we shall behold the governed of all other nations, expressing their agonies. Shall we go to them, because they cannot come to us? ....

...Let us return from this digression, if it be one, to the comparison we have undertaken. Mr. Adams’s system is incapable of a division of rights between a nation and a government. This idea is incompatible with hereditary, but conformable to responsible power. It is incompatible with natural orders, but conformable to natural rights. And it is incompatible with the opinion, that the people are no guardians, but conformable to the opinion, that they are the best guardians of their own liberty. Therefore his system annihilates that sacred effort of our policy, to withhold powers useless or pernicious; and to secure rights necessary for the preservation of liberty, or without the office of governments. Among these, the rights of bearing arms, of religion, and of discussion, constitute of themselves a measureless superiority in our policy, over any other, unable, by reason of different principles, to place them beyond the reach of government; as we shall presently endeavour to prove....

...To assert, without enforcing this doctrine, would be equivalent to its relinquishment. Even Mr. Adams is willing nominally to admit it, in his virtual representative quality of hereditary orders. This idea is an admission of national rights independent of government; but it confides them to the custody of the idea only. How far they have been actually secured by hereditary power, in discharge of its supposed representative duties, depends upon a fact, to which all history testifies....

...National rights and national opinion, cannot really exist, without powers for defending the one, and organs for expressing the other. The system of orders must shew these or confess that they have provided for neither, and that it uses the terms as decoy phantoms to delude nations within its grasp. The policy of the United States, exhibits its militia, its right of bearing arms, its rights retained, its right of instruction, and its inclusive right of abolishing the entire government....

- John Taylor, An Inquiry into the Principles and Policy of the Government of the United States, Section the Sixth, (1814).

John Taylor (born Dec. 19?, 1753, Caroline county, Va. — died Aug. 21, 1824, Caroline county, Va., U.S.) U.S. politician. He served in the Continental Army (1775 – 79) and the Virginia militia (1781) in the American Revolution. A strong advocate of states' rights, he opposed ratification of the U.S. Constitution. He was a member of the U.S. Senate (1792 – 94, 1803, 1822 – 24), and he introduced the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions in the Virginia legislature (1798). A supporter of Thomas Jefferson, he wrote essays on the importance of maintaining an agrarian democracy as a defense against the development of an overly powerful central government. - Britannica Concise Encyclopedia