“2. Homicide is enjoined, when it is necessary for the defence of one’s person or house. “With regard to the first, it is the great natural law of self preservation, which, as we have seen, cannot be repealed, or superseded, or suspended by any human institution. This law, however, is expressly recognised in the constitution of Pennsylvania. “The right of the citizens to bear arms in the defence of themselves shall not be questioned.” This is one of our many renewals of the Saxon regulations. ‘They were bound,’ says Mr. Selden, ‘to keep arms for the preservation of the kingdom, and of their own persons.’ “With regard to the second; every man’s house is deemed, by the law, to be his castle; and the law, while it invests him with the power, enjoins on him the duty, of the commanding officer. ‘Every man’s house is his castle,’ says my Lord Coke, in one of his reports, ‘and he ought to keep and defend it at his peril; and if any one be robbed in it, it shall be esteemed his own default and negligence.’” – James Wilson (one of only six signers of both the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution, and one of the most influential members of the Constitutional Convention), Collected Works of James Wilson, edited by Kermit L. Hall and Mark David Hall, PART 3.: Lectures on Law 1142 (2007)
Posted on: Mon, 22 Dec 2014 05:32:20 +0000
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