Posted on 07/16/2007 8:03:08 AM PDT by ctdonath2
Local government officials in Washington, D.C., decided on Monday to appeal to the Supreme Court in a major test case on the meaning of the Second Amendment. The key issue in the coming petition will be whether the Amendment protects an individual right to have guns in one's home.
Not exactly an argument to warm the cockles of any human being's heart who found himself under the incumbency of das Fuehrerprinzip. At some point you have to say, "they're deliberately getting it wrong."
....your running theme being that the decisions were made by know-nothing jerks.
Worse. They know what they're doing: disenfranchising the People and elevating the Government (themselves) to sovereignty.
Perhaps if you had a truer picture ....
Here we go again with the law degree. I've read the holding in Miller and the opinion in Presser. I took a whack at reading Cruikshank and stopped reading when I decided they were practicing to deceive, by ignoring 14A and proceeding as if it and its "privileges and immunities" clause did not exist, in order to throw their decision in favor of the Klan. If they meant to say that 14A was null and void because improperly ratified, they should have said so. Otherwise, the 1866 Civil Rights Act and the Force Acts were good law (as good as anything could be, with so many citizens off the rolls and original intent dead on the ground side-by-side with the Tenth Amendment), and SCOTUS had a duty to uphold them in the face of thuggery and nightriding. I finally decided that Cruikshank was actually the juridical implementation -- the Court following elections -- of the Tilden-Hayes election and its Devil's bargain.
(I defy anyone to read Cruikshank without falling asleep, or to say that it wasn't a cloud of squid ink written not to elucidate, but to obscure.)
I've seen the relevant law, and the holdings of the Court are uniformly bad, and traceable to a determination to abolish popular sovereignty and especially the means of its preservation.
“The Militia Act of 1792 applied during Hamilton’s time. I have no idea how the Texas State Guard is organized today.”
The current law comnes from the Militia Act or 1903
“”Militia: composition and classes
(a) The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age and, except as provided in section 313 of title 32, under 45 years of age who are, or who have made a declaration of intention to become, citizens of the United States and of female citizens of the United States who are members of the National Guard.
(b) The classes of the militia are—
(1) the organized militia, which consists of the National Guard and the Naval Militia; and
(2) the unorganized militia, which consists of the members of the militia who are not members of the National Guard or the Naval Militia.”
10 U.S. Code sec. 311:
Registered and taxed is a far cry from banned.
"and remove from their hands their ability to defend their freedoms whether politically, in the law-courts, or in the streets"
What's the statistic? 200 million weapons in the hands of 60 million citizens? I'd say we have the ability to defend our freedoms.
An all-volunteer, federalized state National Guard. Hardly the force a tyrannical federal government could use.
"The Militia was to be a counterweight, but it has been co-opted by a series of Presidents "
The Militia "co-opted" itself. It didn't work. The concept was disproved in 20 short years by the War of 1812.
Better we go with feelings and emotion? I don't think the U.S. Supreme Court is going to.
"Cruikshank and stopped reading when I decided they were practicing to deceive, by ignoring 14A"
It would be another 50 years before activist courts started "incorporating" the BOR under the due process clause of the 14th amendment.
Specific "privileges and immunities of citizens of the United States" were defined two years prior to Cruikshank by the Slaughterhouse Cases -- they didn't include the RKBA.
You have arrived at the only rational conclusion possible, given the totality of the arguments presented. -- "They are [the statist/socialists] deliberately getting it [our Constitution] wrong."
See Kates, Handgun Prohibition and the Original Meaning of the Second Amendment, 82 MICH. L. REV. 204, 246-50 (1983).
Kates provides strong arguments for the individual interpretation; but, more crucially, he points out the "false dichotomy between the exclusively state's right and the unrestricted individual right interpretations" that have inappropriately absorbed legal commentary.
"In fact," he adds, "the arms of the state's militias were and are the personally owned arms of the general citizenry, so that the amendment's dual intention to protect both was achieved by guaranteeing to the citizenry a right to possess arms individually."
I see you prefer the machinators and their dark victories.
I'll take that last remark as a demand for bar credentials as a precondition of further discussion and an appeal to (your own) authority. I've told you what was wrong with those earlier decisions Miller was predicated on, but you've waved aside my recounting -- what, did I forget to cite, quote, and footnote? How unprofessional of me. An obvious countryman, out of his depth discussing subjects reserved for members of the bar and other grownups. Piffle and rubbish, the man's not even a lawyer. How tedious, like watching children play dress-up, only without the charm.
Since you've all but confessed, or pretended, to being an attorney and have given notice of my disqualification (by you) from holding an opinion on this subject, I'd call that a conversation-ender.
History isn't the plaything of attorneys and neither is the law. Law is made all the time by persons who serve at the People's pleasure, it having pleased the People that the candidates are not attorneys. I say that n/w/s there have been attorneys in my family.
Whether you're an attorney or not, you are far too predisposed, I think, to defend the status quo as agreeably corrupted by interested parties in the past. (The "personhood" of corporations is a notorious example, never adjudicated much less held, but improperly inserted into the syllabus of a Supreme Court case by an interested and activist chief clerk and an equally interested and activist associate justice.) You like to intone "stare decisis" in cases that cry out, as Plessey once did and Roe does now, for redress of right order, the illumination of fictive penumbras and fanciful interstices, and the vindication of the authentic and original rights of citizens. I am entitled to appeal for my rights, and for those of others, to the intentions of the fathers of the country -- all of them, by the way, and not just Hamilton!
Too much Harvardthink and not enough patriotism. Too much absorption with relative power, relative position, coveting distinctions and advantages and discretions and power. Fish rot from the head.
Fish rot from the head.
Chickens rot from their guts. :)
Who needs case law and "activism" when the Amendment itself spells it out in black letters?
"No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States......"
Sigh - why is it that conservatives simply cannot understand that 'the people' have no priviledges or immunities from democratic majority rule?
'We, -as a society', decide which rights we will protect --- And if 'We' choose not to protect your right to do [whatever], so be it.
And what are the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States versus citizens of a state? Why, you need to read the link I gave you. The court defines them.
"Activism" is defined as destroying a federated republic and turning it into a centralized government.
Yeah. I believe you called it a "put-up job and a lie". Based on ... what?
Your opinion. Which is based on what? Oh, some conspiracy theory of yours no doubt ("They're out to disarm us ... and the Negroes, too).
No facts from you. Just a bunch of tin foil hat rantings and bumper sticker slogans. Since your underlying theme is "Power to the people" you think that makes you a patriot.
Sorry, but I heard enough of that slogan from the SDS, the SLA, the Black Panthers and the Weathermen in the 60's to know it's not one in the same. An anarchist better describes you and your ilk.
The decisions of the Supreme Court are beautifully thought out works of logic and reason (usually). In exquisite detail, the highest court of the land has interpreted our rights under the Second Amendment—and while some people have taken lately to belittling those freedoms, the High Court has recognized an individual right to arms in America for more than two centuries.Here's the bottom line: the Supreme Court has upheld the legal tradition and historical record of private gun ownership, self defense, and armed self defense, since the country began.
They have not been quiet on the subject, and they have not disparaged individual rights—the days of saying that are now over. The High Court could change it's mind of course, but only by rejecting a record built up for hundreds of years. Don't take anyone's word for it any longer—see for yourself what the Supreme Court has said.
Registered and taxed is a far cry from banned.
When they put a $200 tax on a $10 firearm, as they did when that law was passed, it's not a far cry from banned. And in the 80's, they did ban newly-manufactured machine guns - presently buyers must choose from an ever-shrinking supply of guns that existed prior to the cutoff date.
Bushwah. I pointed you to the relevant case law. Based on that.
Oh, some conspiracy theory of yours no doubt ("They're out to disarm us ... and the Negroes, too).
Cruikshank didn't involve 2A at all. You didn't pay attention to what I wrote, obviously.
In Presser, I TOLD you, and it's true, that the State of Illinois attempted to disarm their citizenry by restricting the Militia rolls and passing restrictive gun laws. Go read the case file, stop acting like a hammerheaded idiot.
No facts from you. Just a bunch of tin foil hat rantings and bumper sticker slogans.
Bull. I gave you case cites. What, they weren't in the right law-school format for you? Boo hoo. Go look up your own case files.
Since your underlying theme is "Power to the people" you think that makes you a patriot.
You wouldn't know my "underlying theme" if it bit you on the ass, you're so busy kicking dirt on it because I won't roll over for a big-government power junkie like you.
An anarchist better describes you and your ilk.
I have an "ilk", all right. It's called the United States Navy. Take your bracketing nastiness kit and take it back to the guys who sold it to you. Your ad-hom calling about the SLA and SDS won't work with anyone who's seen my posts. How dare you compare me to scum like that.
Count #2 and count #10 of the indictment dealt with the second amendment. The court responded:
"The second and tenth counts are equally defective. The right there specified is that of 'bearing arms for a lawful purpose.' This is not a right granted by the Constitution. Neither is it in any manner dependent upon that instrument for its existence. The second amendment declares that it shall not be infringed; but this, as has been seen, means no more than that it shall not be infringed by Congress."
You said Miller relied on Cruikshank. Cruikshank was about 2A. Miller was about 2A.
"In Presser, I TOLD you, and it's true, that the State of Illinois attempted to disarm their citizenry by restricting the Militia rolls and passing restrictive gun laws."
I know what you TOLD me. A wild-assed conspiracy theory unsupported by any, I repeat, any, documented evidence. Disarming their citizenry? Restricting the Militia rolls? Passing restrictive gun laws? Get a friggin' grip.
Presser was about an Illinois law against parading a privately-formed, armed group down public streets without authorization. The court ruled that the second amendment protected no such thing.
Hell, you can't even parade a privately-formed, UNarmed group down public streets without authorization. I think your tin-foil hat is letting in some evil rays. Better put on another layer.
"No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States......"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
From an 1875 'activist [Jim Crow] court' comes the long since refuted answer:
"-- The second amendment declares that it shall not be infringed; but this, as has been seen, means no more than that it shall not be infringed by Congress."
Cruikshank
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.