Posted on 03/20/2007 4:04:15 PM PDT by neverdem
On March 9, the Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia issued a groundbreaking ruling. It declared in a 2-1 decision that the Washington, D.C. ban on handgun possession in private homes, in effect since 1976, is unconstitutional. The court reached this conclusion after stating unequivocally that the Second Amendment's right to keep and bear arms applies to individuals and not just "the militia."
It is quite likely that this ruling will be appealed to Supreme Court, which hasn't offered an interpretation of the Second Amendment since 1939.
Appalled by the District Court ruling, the Washington Post editorialized that it will "give a new and dangerous meaning to the Second Amendment" that, if applied nationally, could imperil "every gun control law on the books."
The Post accused the National Rifle Association and the Bush administration's Justice Department of trying "to broadly reinterpret the Constitution so as to give individuals Second Amendment rights."
But actually, to argue that the Second Amendment does not apply to individuals is a reinterpretation of the Constitution and the original intent of the founders.
One of the major concerns of the anti-Federalists during the debate over the Constitution in 1787 was the fact that the new document lacked a Bill of Rights. In order to get the Constitution ratified, the framers promised to pass a Bill of Rights during the First Congress as amendments to the Constitution. The Second Amendment with its right to keep and bear arms became part of that package.
What was the original intent of the Second Amendment? Was the right to bear arms a collective right for militias, or an individual right for all citizens? The "Dissent of the Pennsylvania Minority," from the debates of 1787, is telling. This document speaks...
(Excerpt) Read more at realclearpolitics.com ...
Humans are humans. Whether in the country, or in a City. The false sense of security in being around so many other people is what created an atmosphere of personal protection complacency. Decades worth of incremental gun control didn't help either.
Instead of making more helpless victims, places like NYC should set up public shooting ranges and encourage the law abiding to carry arms for personal protection.
Spears? Of course they do. They are a weapon aren't they? They even showed us how to make an improvised spear in boot camp. Not just affixing the bayonet to the M-16, but how to use a spare boot lace to tie a knife to a stick for a bona fide spear.
A bit early to be drinking isn't it?
Try to understand how communities 'rule' in the USA. Morton Grove can decide what "arms" they will protect.
Handguns are out, spears are OK.
It's barely debatable whether the RKBA's ~could~ be 'amended away'.
The Bill of Rights and the 14th Amendment make it clear that the peoples rights to life, liberty, or property are not to be infringed, abridged or denied, -- by any level of government in the USA.
Marshall made much the same point in Marbury, back in 1803:
"-- The question, whether an act, repugnant to the constitution, can become the law of the land, is a question deeply interesting to the United States; but happily, not of an intricacy proportioned to its interest.
It seems only necessary to recognize certain principles, supposed to have been long and well established, to decide it.
That the people have an original right to establish, for their future govern-ment, such principles as, in their opinion, shall most conduce to their own happiness, is the basis on which the whole American fabric has been erected.
The exercise of this original right is a very great exertion; nor can it, nor ought it, to be frequently repeated.
The principles, therefore, so established, are deemed fundamental. And as the authority from which they proceed is supreme, and can seldom act, they are designed to be permanent. --"
Thus, - as we see, the fundamental principles of personal liberty in our Constitution are permanent.
Any amendments that violated those principles would be null, void, and repugnant.
Of course, which is why it would be such an important debate. Imagine an actual nation-wide initiative to repeal/amend one of the BoR! Perhaps then Americans would have to finally come to grips with the fact that this is the country we live in, not some liberal fantasy concocted to assuage metros & women.
"I'm saying -- you either put this decision in perspective or we're gonna lose, big time."
Why don't you say what you mean: You gun-grabbers will lose big time. You are anything BUT a 2A supporter. In fact you are anything but a supporter of the Constitutional Republic the Founding Dads handed off to us. So please stop trying to insinuate that YOU are some sort of Conservative, limited government advocate when your own words blow that notion out of the water every time you post. Your disdain for things Constitutional drips out of every character you post here.
It is easy to explain. If the people of DC are able to own weapons they will make it difficult to buy them and state if someone is found carrying a weapon from another state will be considered a criminal.
Nice selective quote. And it is from the Syllabus, not the actual decision, it has no force of law whatsoever. (That's the clerk's summary of the decision
What the clerk actually wrote was:
The Court can not take judicial notice that a shotgun having a barrel less than 18 inches long has today any reasonable relation to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia; and therefore can not say that the Second Amendment guarantees to the citizen the right to keep and bear such a weapon
Note : any reasonable relationship" is not the same as "must be issued to state militia units". But as I said, that language was not the court's and has no legal force.
What the court wrote was:
In the absence of any evidence tending to show that possession or use of a "shotgun having a barrel of less than eighteen inches in length" at this time has some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia, we cannot say that the Second Amendment guarantees the right to keep and bear such an instrument. Certainly it is not within judicial notice that this weapon is any part of the ordinary military equipment or that its use could contribute to the common defense. Aymette v. State, 2 Humphreys (Tenn.) 154, 158.
BTW, that cite is to a *state* court case. Unlike the second amendment, that state Constitution had an RKBA provision that included the words "for the common defense" and still does. That the citizens of this State have a right to keep and to bear arms for their common defense". Article 1, Section 26.
The quote was contained in the opinion of Mr. Justice McReynolds in US v Miller.
"BTW, that cite is to a *state* court case."
Yes. And the Tennessee constitution at the time read, "that the free white men of this state have a right to keep and bear arms for their common defence."
Interesting that the Miller court would only cite one case, Aymette v Tennessee, and that case concerned a collective right. The state court concluded:
"If the citizens have these arms in their hands, they are prepared in the best possible manner to repel any encroachments upon their rights by those in authority. They need not, for such a purpose, the use of those weapons which are usually employed in private broils, and which are efficient only in the hands of the robber and the assassin. These weapons would be useless in war. They could not be employed advantageously in the common defence of the citizens. The right to keep and bear them is not, therefore, secured by the constitution."
"The legislature, therefore, have a right to prohibit the wearing or keeping weapons dangerous to the peace and safety of the citizens, and which are not usual in civilized warfare, or would not contribute to the common defence."
It's not surprising, since only the government was represented, and the court relied on the government's brief (well a tiny part of it), and even they could find no support for the notion that the Second Amendment itself protects only a collective right. However Aymette does not concern a "collective right" either. It concerns the scope of the right protected by the Tennessee constitution, that is to keeping and bearing arms "for the common defense", not "in the common defense".
As your quote indicates the Tennessee Constitution protects a right to keep and bear arms "for the common defense", No such limitation is stated in the Second Amendment.
The weapon in Ayemette was a Bowie Knife, which was considered not to be appropriate for use "in the common defense". (wrongly IMHO, in view of use of one or more at the Alamo by Bowie himself)
Applying the test of a state constitution, which as you've pointed out many times may be different than that of the federal Constitution, to the federal Constitutional provision is hardly appropriate, given that the "common defense" is not only not present in the Second Amendment, but the same "for the common defense" language was explicitly rejected, by the Senate, during the proceedings in Congress when the Bill of Rights was drafted. So to interpret the second amendment as implying a phrase or meaning that was explicitly rejected seems quite a feat of "interpretation".
My bad, it was, but it was still out of context. There was Many people read the syllabus to say that a short barreled shotgun has no relationship, while the Court said "In the absence of any evidence". Big difference, especially when one considers that Miller was not represented, and was killed before the "further proceedings" could be held. (His co-defendant (in the original indictment) pleaded guilty and got probation. What do you suppose a violation of the NFA will get you today?
Which is absurd, as we would not get any advancement in arms then. Only by developing new weapons and trying them out, typically well outside any explicit military setting, do we discover what works well enough to become formally adopted. Perfect example is the .50BMG rifle: initially developed as a coarse machinegun, a precision long-range rifle was developed around the ammo for sporting purposes, then the result was adopted by military snipers.
Gotta wonder why you're so he11-bent on keeping anything out of civilian hands.
Kinda hard to put it in perspective if you haven't read it - which, by all you've posted, it seems you haven't.
And by the looks of your reasoning, you're doing everything you can to ensure we lose, big time. Heck, your reasoning on SBSs won't come out of WWII.
Chuck, I am wondering myself, if and when SCOTUS agrees to hear this case, if we will see the States attempt to pass lefislation that would see laws in place upon a ruling by SCOTUS the @A is indeed an individual right.
Laws in the works concerning the confiscation of firearms in a ‘disaster’ may be a precursor to a rush of new laws.
I may be wrong but I have a very good feeling that SCOTUS is going to do the right thing here. I think that might be why the NRA is a bit nervous about this. They just might be seeing the bread and butter slipping away.
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