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.
free dixie,sw
Neither is true.
SORRY, but it doesn't work that way.
was the DAMNyankee controlled Congress legitimate because the southern states had lawfully seceded and a quorum existed without those states??? OR
was the 1961-65 Congress totally ILLEGITIMATE & all the actions of that "congress" FRAUDULENT???
so PICK ONE. (there are NO other acceptable answers.)
free dixie,sw
OK, I pick Congress was legitimate. What makes you say it wasn't?
Again you seem incapable of asking the right question. The secession of the southern states was illegal, but since a quorum of congress is a simple majority, they were fully capable of having a quorum without the southern representatives.
Here are the numbers:
Size of congress, as determined by 1860 census: 241
Number necessary for a quorum: 122
Number of southern representives; 63
Remaining congressmen: 178.
On the senate side, 22 senators walked out leaving 48. 36 would be enough for a quorum.
thank you for "straightening that out".
free dixie,sw
of course, yoyu wouldn't know that answer, any more than you know any other answers, as you're just a TROLL.
free dixie,sw
of course, you wouldn't know that answer, any more than you know any other answers, as you're just a TROLL.
free dixie,sw
That is probably the most idiotic of a seemingly never ending stream of idiotic posts that have poured out of your keyboard. What in your crazed mind brought you to the conclusion that the Congress was illegitimate?
Check what? The numbers are the numbers. It's you who needs to check your facts if you believe that the absence of the delegations of the 11 rebellious states meant that the other 24 couldn't muster a simple majority for a quorum.
ONE of the many complaints of the REVISIONIST LEFT was that the Congress (without the south) was made ILLEGITIMATE.
You seem to be the only one making that claim. But if you want to admit to being in agreement with the revisionist left, fine by me.
Exactly. Oh, and btw we should repeal the 16th amendment while we're at it.
5.56mm
You forgot Kansas. There were 50 senators left. And 183 Congressmen.
it is ONE of THEIR thesis and COMPLAINTS against the south's LAWFUL secession.
meanwhile, i'll just laugh AT you DYs, who don't even know your side's SILLY arguments.
free dixie,sw
posting your STUPIDITIES, TWICE, does NOT make them magically become either TRUE or INTELLIGENT. the comments remain STUPID & FALSE, despite each re-posting.
My apologies to our resident Kansan.
furthermore, they are TOO IGNORANT of the FACTS to know that that is PRECISELY the position they quote!!! (that's why i laugh AT them.)
when confronted with the TRUTH, all they KNOW how to do is:
1.send complaints to "management" saying that they are being RIDICULED,
2. try to change the subject,
3. LIE about what they/you said in other posts,
4. whine that they are being "misunderstood" and
failing that
5. they POUT like spoiled children.
"bubba", at least you don't whine & pout. thus you are better than the "coven members" are (less N-S, of course.)
before you say too much more, go read what they RADICAL schools classic complaints about secession were. then you won't LOOK as dumb as the "coven" IS!
free dixie,sw
i didn't know it "posted". OUR system said, "sorry, but this failed document to send".
so i hit the send again. happens occasionally, with old/tired/badly maintained systems.
free dixie,sw
DU awaits your return, with bated breath.
free dixie,sw
Name a book and I'll look for it. I'd love to see how someone gets from "secession is illegal" to "once the southern delegations walked out, the rest of the US government became illegitimate."
In US v Miller, the Court found that the militia clause is a guide to which types of weapons are "arms", not a limitation upon the right to keep and bear arms.
That's a single sentence. What do you find to distrust in it?
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