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To: robertpaulsen
robertpaulsen said: "The U.S. Supreme Court has been mute. But, every lower federal court in every case (save the 5th Circuit in one case) has said it's a collective right. I would imagine that the U.S. Supreme Court would take note of that on any future second amendment ruling."

Perhaps you can clarify for the rest of us whether you believe that the failure to "incorporate" the Second Amendment is judicial error. Do you believe that the "priveleges and immunities" of citizens of the United States includes the immunity from infringement of their right to keep and bear arms?

141 posted on 08/03/2006 2:23:12 PM PDT by William Tell (RKBA for California (rkba.members.sonic.net) - Volunteer by contacting Dave at rkba@sonic.net)
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To: William Tell
"Do you believe that the "priveleges and immunities" of citizens of the United States includes the immunity from infringement of their right to keep and bear arms?"

The privileges and immunities of (small c) "citizens of the United States" have been defined over the years by the courts and they do not include the immunity from infringement of their right to keep and bear arms.

When an amendment has been incorporated by the U.S. Supreme Court, the court has ruled that the right was fundamental to liberty, and that due process clause of the 14th amendment compelled a state to protect it.

In Gitlow v. New York, 268 U.S. 652 (1925), the court stated that the rights of freedom of speech and freedom of the press were "among the fundamental rights and 'liberties' protected by the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment from impairment by the states."

154 posted on 08/03/2006 2:49:50 PM PDT by robertpaulsen
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To: William Tell
Just a bit of follow up on how "mute" the Supreme court has been on the subject of the right to keep and bear arms...

"More especially, it cannot be believed that the large slaveholding States regarded them as included in the word citizens, or would have consented to a Constitution which might compel them to receive them in that character from another State. For if they were so received, and entitled to the privileges and immunities of citizens, it would exempt them from the operation of the special laws and from the police [60 U.S. 393, 417] regulations which they considered to be necessary for their own safety. It would give to persons of the negro race, who were recognised as citizens in any one State of the Union, the right to enter every other State whenever they pleased, singly or in companies, without pass or passport, and without obstruction, to sojourn there as long as they pleased, to go where they pleased at every hour of the day or night without molestation, unless they committed some violation of law for which a white man would be punished; and it would give them the full liberty of speech in public and in private upon all subjects upon which its own citizens might speak; to hold public meetings upon political affairs, and to keep and carry arms wherever they went."

Chief Justice Taney for the majority in Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. 393 (1856)

Anyone who can doubt that the meaning of "privileges and immunities" as contained in the 14th Amendment includes an individual right to keep and bear arms protected by the Federal Constitution over and above the powers of the States is willfully ignorant of the plain facts. Of course that description would fit rp to a "t."
161 posted on 08/03/2006 3:18:24 PM PDT by RKV ( He who has the guns, makes the rules.)
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