Posted on 03/30/2007 5:09:20 PM PDT by neverdem
Earlier this month, in the case of Parker v. District of Columbia, a three-judge panel of the Federal Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia broke with all other federal circuits by holding that a gun-control statute violated the Second Amendment.
In a split decision, the court found that the District of Columbia's ban on handguns and a companion law that requires that legally owned firearms be stored disassembled could not be reconciled with the text of the amendment.
The amendment reads, "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." The only modern Supreme Court case to look at the issue, United States v. Miller, found that the Second Amendment was designed to preserve the effectiveness of the organized militia.
The Parker case breaks from this precedent by finding that the militia purpose is but one among a laundry list of other individual uses of arms protected by the Second Amendment, including hunting, self-defense, and protection from the "depredations of a tyrannical government."
This last claim, that individuals have a right to take up arms against representative government, was last tried out by the Confederate States of America.
When Abraham Lincoln was elected president in 1860, many Southerners, fearing that Lincoln would abolish slavery, felt they had no obligation to accept the results of the election. Southern attempts to withdraw from the union quickly led to individuals taking up arms to fight what they perceived as federal tyranny.
As president, Lincoln acted on his belief that violence against the government was illegal and unconstitutional. In his first inaugural address he stated, "It is safe to assert that no government proper ever had a provision in its organic law for its own termination."
As he asked the nation to go to war to protect its sovereignty, Lincoln added, "And this issue embraces more than the fate of these United States ... It presents the question, whether discontented individuals, too few in numbers to control administration ... can always ... break up their government, and thus practically put an end to free government upon the Earth."
Lincoln made it clear that individuals or even states did not have the authority to determine what was "just cause" to wage a war against the union. As much as it pained him to send young men off to die, he did so to vindicate the idea that the Constitution and its amendments did not create some kind of national suicide pact.
Following the Civil War, the Supreme Court, in the case of Texas v. White, adopted this view and held that the Constitution did not countenance armed rebellion against the federal government.
The Parker court, by implicitly reviving Confederate constitutional theory and wrapping it in the authority of the federal courts, takes the ideals of conservative judicial activism in a lunatic direction.
The case is likely to be appealed. Let's hope that the rest of the D.C. Circuit knows enough history to recog´ nize that Lincoln, not Jefferson Davis, is the guiding spirit behind our system of constitutional government.
Horwitz is the executive director of the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence and a visiting scholar at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
How were spies viewed in colonial times?
In a bedroom shootout a sawed-off shotgun is at least comparable in effectiveness to an M-16. What's gonna matter in such conditions is who gets the first shot off.
Look up the ballistics for a 12 gauge slug at 10 feet. It'll do the job.
Here's an interesting article about the first effective mechanical cotton picker. 1936.
http://eh.net/encyclopedia/article/holley.cottonpicker
If you have another reference, please post it.
The declarations were not the official documents of the state conventions that declared secession?
I assumed the secessionists were trying to follow the precedent of the Declaration of Independence and show a decent respect for the opinions of mankind. I guess they didn't care about stuff like that.
Reference please.
Journal of the Convention of the People of South Carolina, Held in 1860, 1861, and 1862. Together with the Ordinances, Reports, Resolutions, etc. (Columbia, S.C.: R. W. Gibbes, Printer to the Convention, 1862), 461-466.
Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union
The people of the State of South Carolina, in Convention assembled, on the 26th day of April, A.D., 1852, ...
We, therefore, the People of South Carolina, by our delegates in Convention assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, have solemnly declared that the Union heretofore existing between this State and the other States of North America, is dissolved, and that the State of South Carolina has resumed her position among the nations of the world, as a separate and independent State; with full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent States may of right do.
Adopted December 24, 1860
[Committee signatures]
Well, if we are going back to 1787 for our permissible standards, then single shot breach loading rifles would be about as sophisticated as would be permitted.
Barf.
I have never heard anybody claim before that the "Declarations" were not official documents.
I am very interested to see your reference for this claim.
I certainly wouldn't want to misrepresent a document in any way.
I don't care how they law tries to excuse itself or explain away it's stupid rulings. Our laws regarding firearms are pure idiotic nonsense.
The most sensible "militia" weapon would be the standard battle rifle issued by the US army to the standard infantry. That is the 3 round burst M16 with long barrel and non telescoping butt stock, iron sights and a compensator of some kind on the end of the barrel would be nice.
So why are we, the militia, denied ownership of such a weapon??
The Second Amendment exists, in significant measure, so that if the citizens ever had to form together for the collective defense, they would have the tools necessary to do so. Although governments hire spies for a variety of reasons--some good, some bad--I doubt the Founding Fathers would have considered the tools of spies to be worthy of the same protection as the tools of soldiers.
Spies have been part of the military force since Biblical days, and the usage of spies was certainly known by the drafters who were familiar with the Revolutionary War, so your attempt to carve out a second amendment exception on those grounds is a strained reading of the Constitution.
Congress never voted to suspend the habeas corpus as required by the Constitution.
OK, every year then. Or 18 months. Or whatever, the point is that slave property offered a returned on the investment in many diffent ways.
Milligan was arrested while planning to steal guns from the army and assault a POW camp.
Seems like I'm the one who has been citing Supreme Court cases and naming names, you are the one who hasn't been able to come up with much in the way of facts.
Then there seems to be a lot of that going on around here. Witness your posts for example.
The Constitution is silent on who may suspend habeas corpus, and the Supreme Court has never ruled on the matter.
Haven't had the pleasure. Twenty four years of marriage this June and the possibility of divorce has never crossed my mind. Homicide, yes. But divorce? Never.
any serious reading of the intentions of the founding fathers will reveal that they were talking about MILITIA weapons. (YES, including MGs & artillery pieces. may i remind all readers of the Richmond Howitzers, who fought with honor throughout the WBTS???)
as for banning certain sorts of weapons OR of banning those which are NOT affordable, let me say that, for a long time, i have favored the US military services sending the assigned weapon of a soldier,sailor, coastie, airman or marine home with him/her, with appropriate ammunition, as a THANK YOU GIFT, for services rendered the nation. (after just a FEW years, can you imagine any hostile group, foreign or domestic, that would CHOOSE to "cause trouble" for such a well-armed nation???)
free dixie,sw
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