Posted on 12/11/2012 10:59:31 AM PST by JohnPierce
--EMBEDDED PDF HERE--
In an opinion issued today in the Illinois case of Moore v. Madigan, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals held that the Second Amendment “right to keep and bear arms for the purpose of self-defense … implies a right to carry a loaded gun outside the home.”
--IMAGE HERE--
The opinion is a joy to read as Judge Posner proceeds to shred the historical and public policy arguments against carry put forward by Illinois.
Here are some examples to warm your heart on this cold December afternoon:
Both Heller and McDonald do say that “the need for defense of self, family, and property is most acute” in the home, id. at 3036 (emphasis added); 554 U.S. at 628, but that doesn’t mean it is not acute outside the home. Heller repeatedly invokes a broader Second Amendment right than the right to have a gun in one’s home, as when it says that the amendment “guarantee[s] the individual right to possess and carry weapons in case of confrontation.” 554 U.S. at 592. Confrontations are not limited to the home.
….
Twenty-first century Illinois has no hostile Indians. But a Chicagoan is a good deal more likely to be attacked on a sidewalk in a rough neighborhood than in his apartment on the 35th floor of the Park Tower.
A woman who is being stalked or has obtained a protective order against a violent ex-husband is more vulnerable to being attacked while walking to or from her home than when inside. She has a stronger self-defense claim to be allowed to carry a gun in public than the resident of a fancy apartment building (complete with doorman) has a claim to sleep with a loaded gun under her mattress. But Illinois wants to deny the former claim, while compelled by McDonald to honor the latter.
That creates an arbitrary difference. To confine the right to be armed to the home is to divorce the Second Amendment from the right of self-defense described in Heller and McDonald.
The court has placed a 180 day stay to allow Illinois a chance to put together a shall-issue legislative solution in the state. But anyone familiar with Illinois politics can expect that the courts will be involved again before this issue is finally resolved in a constitutional manner.
In the meantime, this holding may be the first link in a chain that will finally put an end to the racist and discriminatory may-issue permitting schemes that still exist in a few less-enlightened states.
Merry Christmas America!
To ask the question is to answer it. Of course they do! they're just careful how they say it.
Posner has confused me on more than one occasion as well. But he was dead on the money with this one. :)
There should be bring your gun to work everyday.
Can we do this in MA next? Can we please, huh? Can we?
The only difference is the later group tend to have much more education, and can do you much more financial harm, than the former.
This preamble in no way limits the right to keep and bear arms to only defense of the state.
Some State constitutions have this same language. Others use language such as "in defense of themselves and the State" (Florida, Texas and others) which explicitely spells out collective and individual defense, but hunting isn't mentioned. (Are we to conclude that there is no right to hunt?) But leave it to gun grabbers (and others) to exploit silence. This is fallacious reasoning.
Fair enough; I’m in favor of the 2nd Amendment for all the foregoing reasons.
I don’t like the judge’s limited focus on 1:1 threats. While perhaps true, that’s too narrow a basis for a permanent and wide justification. IMHO.
Kel-tec .380
Amex card
BTTT
I’m more of an XD guy myself. But a tragic canoe accident, yada yada....
I already do. You only have to get mugged once here in Chicago when you finally decide its better to break the law and keep yourself safe than to obey it and wind up dead.
I’m an HnK bigot myself, btw I had a canoe accident too. We’re we on the same river? (Chicago River that is. So murky and green they’ll never be found!)
Bookmark.
well duh
Individual rights do not just apply at home.
I think most second graders should already know this
It will take several court instructions to the state of Illinois and Chicago as they are populated in government by progressive mental defectives. You’ve got to talk and write slowly, using simple short words and sentences, for these people to understand.
The last comma is not in the original writing. Be that as it may, the first clause does not limit the second clause:
[Schulman:] “(1) Can the sentence be interpreted to grant the right to keep and bear arms solely to ‘a well-regulated militia’?”
[Copperud:] “(1) The sentence does not restrict the right to keep and bear arms, nor does it state or imply possession of the right elsewhere or by others than the people; it simply makes a positive statement with respect to a right of the people.”
[Schulman:] “(2) Is ‘the right of the people to keep and bear arms’ granted by the words of the Second Amendment, or does the Second Amendment assume a preexisting right of the people to keep and bear arms, and merely state that such right ‘shall not be infringed’?”
[Copperud:] “(2) The right is not granted by the amendment; its existence is assumed. The thrust of the sentence is that the right shall be preserved inviolate for the sake of ensuring a militia.”
[Schulman:] “(3) Is the right of the people to keep and bear arms conditioned upon whether or not a well regulated militia, is, in fact necessary to the security of a free State, and if that condition is not existing, is the statement ‘the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed’ null and void?”
[Copperud:] “(3) No such condition is expressed or implied. The right to keep and bear arms is not said by the amendment to depend on the existence of a militia. No condition is stated or implied as to the relation of the right to keep and bear arms and to the necessity of a well-regulated militia as a requisite to the security of a free state. The right to keep and bear arms is deemed unconditional by the entire sentence.”
[Schulman:] “(4) Does the clause ‘A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State,’ grant a right to the government to place conditions on the ‘right of the people to keep and bear arms,’ or is such right deemed unconditional by the meaning of the entire sentence?”
[Copperud:] “(4) The right is assumed to exist and to be unconditional, as previously stated. It is invoked here specifically for the sake of the militia.”
These are our dreaded days IMO.
Thanks to the Supreme court that protected a piece of the constitution for a change.
Good catch. I certainly didn’t think much of “handgun
in one hand and phone in the other” that was in Heller.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.