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To: beltfed308
Article [II.]
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.


Yep, it seems pretty cut and dried to me. Hasn't SCOTUS already ruled that you cannot require a license or fee for the exercise of a protected constitutional right?
18 posted on 11/26/2005 1:01:40 PM PST by rottndog (WOOF!!!!)
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To: rottndog

Yup.

Murdock v. Pennsylvania, 319 US 105, a case heard in 1943 where a town tried to make people distributing religious literature obtain a license.

The state got slapped silly on that one.


22 posted on 11/26/2005 1:09:17 PM PST by djf (Government wants the same things I do - MY guns, MY property, MY freedoms!)
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To: rottndog
Unfortunately, the Supreme Court has taken an absolutist view of the First Amendment, extending it to areas such as pornography, an area the framers would have not considered an area of political, religious, and philosophical speech, areas that the First Amendment was supposed to protect. On the other hand, the Federal judiciary has ignored the original intent of the Second Amendment, that all free adult men (who were members of the militia by cause of that status) had the right to keep and bear arms.

The question is: will Roberts, Scalia, Thomas, and (if approved) Alito return to the doctrine of original intent in this matter? If they do, and if conservatives can replace Kennedy or Ginsburg with a like minded justice, firearms ownership restrictions on state and local level could go the way of anti-pornography laws and blue laws. However, these are very big "ifs" and Scalia and especially Thomas are strong advocates of states rights.

29 posted on 11/26/2005 1:16:16 PM PST by Wallace T.
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