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.
laughing AT your SILLY response.
it must be TOUGH to be "the leader of the DY coven"!!!
free dixie,sw
free dixie,sw
No argument here. Funny how things work out, they felt a sawed off shotgun was not appropriate for the military, now the 14” barrel is preferred by law enforcement.
So you're saying that if the people of Virginia voted against secession, they'd still have been out of the union because of the actions of the secession convention?
“broke with all other federal circuits by holding that a gun-control statute violated the Second Amendment.”
I’m not sure this is correct. While courts have upheld certain gun control laws, I don’t think they ever addressed the issue of banning handguns. DC’s law is more extreme than everywhere else.
One also wonders how many dead the south would have considered it worth sacrificing if they had won their rebellion. How many people was independence worth killing?
No, it means that your post on this subject is as idiotic as your posts always are. That once again you are pulling stuff out of your butt and presenting them as fact.
18" or 20" inch barrels are the rule, when i comes to RIOT GUNS.
make mine an Ithaca Featherweight Model 37 pump-gun, with 20" barrel (loaded with 2 3/4" short magnum,#1 Buck) & 8 shot mag!!!
free dixie,sw
fyi, VA at the time had it's own army (small), marine corps (small= 2 company size units) and navy (really small = less than 5 SMALL vessels total).
COL Robert E. Lee was CIC of the Virginia military forces & would have likely remained so, had Virginia chosen NOT to become a CSA state.
MAJ Thomas " (NOT yet, "Stonewall") Jackson was, FIRST, the "Superintendent of Instruction" for the VA military forces,ably assisted by the faculty & entire cadet corps of VMI.
free dixie,sw
tell us how many THOUSAND innocents would YOU have slaughtered to "preserve the union" of the UNWILLING,(if you were POTUS in 1861) "bubba, the TROLL"???
free dixie,sw
free dixie,sw
Maybe they’re just more popular north of Charlotte.
You really need to learn to read. The referendum held on May 23 was NOT over whether to join the CSA. It was over whether or not to ratify secession. But the fact that the citizens of Virginia had not yet voted on secession didn't stop the rebels from joining the confederacy. In other words, acording to their own secession document, they were still in the union when they entered into a confederation, kept troops and ships of war, and generally violated a number of provisons of Article 1, Section 10 of the United States Constitution.
Oh woe is me! How can I live with your scorn? </sarcasm>
when i was stationed in WI & in northern NY (BRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!) the state police were using 18-20 inch barreled riot-guns.
free dixie,sw
in your opinion, though NOT in the opinion of everyone else, you're an acknowledged EXPERT on ALL subjects.
it's called being a "know all".
free dixie,sw
nobody here is surprised that you have a thinking/reading comprehension "problem" and/or that you're a clueLESS little TROLL.
can you tell us all EXACTLY how long VA was OUT of the union before they actually/officially joined the CSA???
free dixie,sw
can you tell us all EXACTLY how long VA was OUT of the union before they actually/officially joined the CSA???
You've got it backwards. Ask how long Virginia was in the CSA before the citizens ratified secession and the answer is 16 days. Virginia joined the CSA on May 7. Its citizens voted to ratify secession on May 23.
In fact, in the OR you can find the agreement between Virginia and the CSA government that puts Virginia's armed forces under CSA command before they'd formally seceded.
First: Until the union of said Commonwealth with said Confederacy shall be perfected and said Commonwealth shall become a member of the said Confederacy according to the consitutions of both powers, the whole military force and military operations, offensive and defensive, of said Commonwealth in the impending conflict with the United States shall be under the chief control and direction of the President of said Confederate States... (Approved by the VA Secession Convention, April 25, 1861 Source: OR, Series IV, Vol. 1, pg. 243)So, ask how long Virginia's armed forces had been under Confederate command before its citizens were allowed to vote on secession and the answer is "nearly a month."
Oh I have no problem admitting I'm wrong. But to date you have never been able to produce anything to show where I'm incorrect.
now, BUZZ OFF back to DU, TROLL.
free dixie,sw
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