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Article published In:
Journal of Language and Politics
Vol. 15:2 (2016) ► pp.173–192

People’s right to keep and bear arms

Arguments on the meaning of the Second Amendment to the US Constitution in District of Columbia v. Heller

| University of Tartu

The article presents an analysis of the majority and minority opinions from the Supreme Court of the United States issued on District of Columbia v. Heller in 2008. The court case addressed the meaning of the Second Amendment to the US Constitution that establishes gun rights in a famously confusing wording. The analysis applies parts of Fairclough and Fairclough’s (2011, 2012) model of analysing argumentation and also discusses intertextuality to account for how the justices construct their arguments. The analysis shows how the justices shape their arguments on the basis of their values and beliefs, presenting contradictory readings of the amendment, sources of evidence and the preferred application of the amendment.

Keywords: critical discourse analysis, US Supreme Court, recontextualisation, practical reasoning, argumentation theory, gun rights, Second Amendment
Published online: 9 June 2016
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/jlp.15.2.03poi
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2018. A strange right to bear arms: District of Columbia v Heller as narrative. Griffith Law Review 27:1 ► pp. 51 ff. DOI logo

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