Pardon me for being cynical, but you guys are gonna bust your butts for this and get it passed only to have the Ninth Circus rule it unconstitutional. Go for it!
Pardon me for being cynical, but you guys are gonna bust your butts for this and get it passed only to have the Ninth Circus rule it unconstitutional. Go for it!
It is California's last hope. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.
Also, that's why this is an initiative Constitutional Amendment, rather than an initiative statute. It is the people determining what's going to be constitutional in California.
How?
Perhaps, but this may be a good thing. The 9th. Circuit, I believe, can only raise the "Collective Rights" definition of the 2nd. Amendment in opposition to a California amendment, which the Bush Justice Dept. and the 5th. Circuit consider to be a bogus concept. A "collective right" is the same legal oxymoron as "separate but equal". The words may make sense to those with an agenda, such as segregation and gun control, but in reality a right is an individual prerogative and not collective. We don't vote collectively, nor are we secure in our persons, houses, papers, effects, collectively. Separate but equal, by definition, cannot be equal according to SCOTUS and Brown v Bd. of Ed. and rights cannot be rights if they are held to be collective by the state.
Should the 9th. make the bogus claim of collective rights, the next stop is SCOTUS. However, SCOTUS may hear it, then again it may not, which is in itself a form of decision. And that a decision to allow lower courts to nullify the power of the people of a state to amend their own state constitution to conform with the federal. That may be unconstitutional.
In other words, the 2nd Amendment has been the victim of a Mexican standoff. Neither side winning, neither side loosing. A state amendment that is declared unconstitutional on unconstitutional grounds may be just the way to have the 2nd. Amendment "incorporated" with the 14th. Amendment.
Bashing to death one of the original 10 Amendments of the Bill of Rights is not something that the government and legal establishment in Wash DC wants to do anymore than it wants to confront abortion. It has to be cornered. SCOTUS will have to declare the 2nd. Amendment as individual as all other "peoples rights" in the BOR, or declare the 2nd Amendment, unconstitutional, or ignore it. Which they can't do with a straight face because it's in the Constitution.
In all honesty, I am more concerned about it becoming an amendment in California, than I am about the consequences afterward.
The ninth circus is a federal court, and does not get the final say on a state constitution matter. If they decide to rule on it anyway, the US Supreme Court could overturn them (as they often have to do).