[tpaine]

libstripper wrote:

Until we get a few more SCOTUS justices who are willing to enforce the Constitution, we should be very cautious about taking any Second Amendment case to SCOTUS. Remeber, Justice OConnor has gone over to the dark side.

As the article mentioned, Scalia & Thomas did NOT support hearing the case at hand. Are they on the 'dark side'? Your idea of 'waiting' is not working, in any case.

She was the deciding vote in gutting the First Amendment and supporting the blatantly unconstitutional Campaign Finance Reform Law. She's also bought into Justice Ginsberg's vile idea that SCOTUS should look to other nations' legal views in interpreting U.S. law, even when U.S. precedents, the constitution, and statutes are clear on the issue in question (death penalty cases).

Yep; -- OConnor is a classic case of a rogue Justice. -- Which is the best argument against your claim that we can control a future Court if we just wait.

If a Second Amendment case got to SCOTUS with its present makeup I deeply fear they'd gut the Second Amendment just as they have gutted the First Amendment.

That scenario could be a good thing, in that it assuredly would backfire into a full blown Constitutional crisis. The gun owners of America would NOT lose such a battle. -- Bet on it.

The NRA has done and is doing an excellent job of advancing Second Amendment causes by pushing for shall issue CCW wherever it doesn't exist. The Republicans are also moving on the legislative front by pruning back the D.C. gun ban. All of this is an essential salami strategy to erode gun control and finally establish a basis for taking a case to SCOTUS once we have a majority of justices who are willing to enforce the Constitution. Sometimes it pays to wait on one front and fight on another.

I've been hearing that "wait" fallacy since 1968, when the NRA folded the first time on gun control.
It didn't work then & it won't work now.

[libstripper]

Scalia and Thomas probably voted against granting certiorari precisely because they support the Second Amendment and feared the majority would disagree with them, creating a devastating precedent where the Court actually adopted the so-called "collective right" theory.

We gun owners would be outraged by a "collective right" interpretation of the Second Amendment, just as we were outraged by the CFR decision gutting the First Amendment. However, the chance of getting a constitutional amendment to change either is between minuscule and nil. By taking a Second Amendment case to SCOTUS now without a more favorable makeup, we fundamentally jeopardize the Second Amendment.

The incremental approach advocated by the NRA has actually been working quite well. About two thirds of the states in the country now have shall issue CCW; ten years ago it was less than half of that. Being able to argue for these laws on the basis of the Second Amendment is one reason we were able to pass them. A current "collective right" interpretation by SCOTUS would seriously jeopardize our efforts to pass these laws.

The bottom line is we need to reelect President Bush and enough Republican Senators to break the DemonRats' judicial filibuster. Then he needs to appoint solidly conservative lower court judges and SCOTUS justices who can be counted on to rule in favor of the Second Amendment. The time to take a Second Amendment case to SCOTUS will be when we have that makeup, not before. With some good fortune, it might come sooner than we think, like in the next two or three years. Until then, we need to hang on and keep chipping away.