Posted on 05/07/2003 2:32:28 AM PDT by Happy2BMe
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Blaming guns for crime is like blaming the shot glass because Ted Kennedy is a drunk Which reminds me, Ted Kennedy's cars have killed more people than my guns Criminals prefer unarmed victims - Politicians prefer unarmed subjects The next time Democrats talk to you about gun control, |
Apparently, then, under the Second Amendment, the federal government can limit the keeping and bearing of arms by a single individual as well as by a group of individuals, but it cannot prohibit the possession or use of any weapon which has any reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia. However, we do not feet that the Supreme Court in this case was attempting to formulate a general rule applicable to all cases. The rule which it laid down was adequate to dispose of the case before it and that we think was as far as the Supreme Court intended to go. At any rate the rule of the Miller case, if intended to be comprehensive and complete would seem to be already outdated, in spite of the fact that it was formulated only three and a half years ago, because of the well known fact that in the so called "Commando Units" some sort of military use seems to have been found for almost any modern lethal weapon. In view of this, if the rule of the Miller case is general and complete, the result would follow that, under present day conditions, the federal government would be empowered only to regulate the possession or use of weapons such as a flintlock musket or a matchlock harquebus. But to hold that the Second Amendment limits the federal government to regulations concerning only weapons which can be classed as antiques or curiosities, -almost any other might bear some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia unit of the present day,-is in effect to hold that the limitation of the Second Amendment is absolute. Another objection to the rule of the Miller case as a full and general statement is that according to it Congress would be prevented by the Second Amendment from regulating the possession or use by private persons not present or prospective members of any military unit, of distinctly military arms, such as machine guns, trench mortars, anti-tank or anti-aircraft guns, even though under the circumstances surrounding such possession or use it would be inconceivable that a private person could have any legitimate reason for having such a weapon. It seems to us unlikely that the framers of the Amendment intended any such result. Considering the many variable factors bearing upon the question it seems to us impossible to formulate any general test by which to determine the limits imposed by the Second Amendment but that each case under it, like cases under the due process clause, must be decided on its own facts and the line between what is and what is not a valid federal restriction pricked out by decided cases falling on one side or the other of the line.
IOW, "we didn't like the implications of the Supreme Court's decision, so we'll ignore it and press on"
I think this not so much a liberal/conservative issue as it a statist/non-statist one. While liberals tend to be statist on many issues, conservitives tend to be so on some issues. We know about liberals wanting to increase the power of the state to tax, spend and regulate, but some conseratives can get pretty statist when it comes to "law and order" issues.
If the court stoops to hear this case, we will have some interesting times ahead, between the time they agree to do so, and the time decision is issued. Depening on that decision, things could get real "interesting" afterwards too, no matter which way the decision goes.
But it's not the 9th circuit that will make the next move, it's out of their hands now, rather it will be the Supreme Court of the United States. Four of the Justices thereof can decide to hear the case.
Only the Congress can clean house at any federal court, not the Attorney General. Check your Constitution.
Of course - thank you, sir!
Had the 9th Circus handled it properly, it would be exactly where it should be - in some liberal's wetdream.
I believe you are correct. These events seem to have been strategically orchestrated to perpetuate the controversy in an attempt to mitigate the reaction that will follow the inevitable government decree.
EDITORIAL • May 10, 2002
The individual right to bear arms
This week, Solicitor General Theordore B. Olson went before the U.S. Supreme Court and began making the federal government's case that the Second Amendment does, in fact, protect an individual right to keep and bear arms. "The current position of the United States," Mr. Olson wrote in briefs filed with the court, "is that the Second Amendment more broadly protects the rights of individuals, including persons who are not members of any state militia or engaged in active military service or training, to possess and bear their own firearms." (Italics added.)
Many people likely do not realize that the linchpin of gun-control efforts for decades has been the exact opposite of Mr. Olson's position — that the Second Amendment guarantees only the corporate right of "the militia," not private individuals unconnected to the armed forces, to keep and bear arms. Indeed, the government itself has taken that very position for years as well.
It is a patently ridiculous argument, however, that the Second Amendment does not protect an individual right to keep and bear arms. To accept it, one must take the position that the Founding Fathers, who led a war against an oppressive government, endorsed disarming every citizen who wasn't somehow connected to "the militia," or another branch of the armed services — obvious historical evidence to the contrary notwithstanding. Most colonial Americans, as any school child knows, possessed firearms openly, even though most had little or nothing to do with any formal branch of the armed services or "militia." And why bother writing a Second Amendment guarantee to protect a government right?
In point of fact, the Bill of Rights was written explicity to protect individual rights against government encroachment. It is a near-certainty that the Constitution — which spells out the authority of the federal government in relation to the states and to individuals — would never have been ratified absent the Bill of Rights. And had the Founding Fathers attempted to disarm the average citizen, it is equally certain there would have been another revolution in short order.
Those familiar with the colonial era know, furthermore, that "the militia" was synonymous with what we might today call a "citizen's army" — that is, a potential force comprised of every able-bodied man who might be called upon to defend the fledgling nation in the event of an outside threat. It did not mean a formal "army" as we understand the concept today. Finally and most telling of all as regards the "intent" of the Founders, there is abundant, highly specific written evidence that they sought to guarantee the average person's right to keep and bear arms as a means of keeping the government itself in check. The security of a "free state" depended upon an armed citizenry, they said. So it does.
Mr. Olson's — the federal government's — refreshing return to an honest reading of the Second Amendment is to be cheered.
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