Posted on 11/20/2007 10:17:40 AM PST by SmithL
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Supreme Court said Tuesday it will decide whether the District of Columbia can ban handguns, a case that could produce the most in-depth examination of the constitutional right to "keep and bear arms" in nearly 70 years.
The justices' decision to hear the case could make the divisive debate over guns an issue in the 2008 presidential and congressional elections.
The government of Washington, D.C., is asking the court to uphold its 31-year ban on handgun ownership in the face of a federal appeals court ruling that struck down the ban as incompatible with the Second Amendment. Tuesday's announcement was widely expected, especially after both the District and the man who challenged the handgun ban asked for the high court review.
The main issue before the justices is whether the Second Amendment of the Constitution protects an individual's right to own guns or instead merely sets forth the collective right of states to maintain militias. The former interpretation would permit fewer restrictions on gun ownership.
Gun-control advocates say the Second amendment was intended to insure that states could maintain militias, a response to 18th century fears of an all-powerful national government. Gun rights proponents contend the amendment gives individuals the right to keep guns for private uses, including self-defense.
The last Supreme Court ruling on the topic came in 1939 in U.S. v. Miller, which involved a sawed-off shotgun. That decision supported the collective rights view, but did not squarely answer the question in the view of many constitutional scholars. Chief Justice John Roberts said at his confirmation hearing that the correct reading of the Second Amendment was "still very much an open issue."
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
“Whether the following provisions — D.C. Code secs. 7-2502.02(a)(4), 22-4504(a), and 7-2507.02 — violate the Second Amendment rights of individuals who are not affiliated with any state-regulated militia, but who wish to keep handguns and other firearms for private use in their homes?”
Now flip the condition. If an individual is affiliated with a state-regulated militia, would that have any bearing on whether or not he could keep handguns or other firearms for private use in his home? Does affiliation with a state-regulated militia increase one's right to bear arms?
If the answer is yes, then the question is properly formulated, because it is testing the condition where the person is not affiliated with a state-regulated militia, which would, presumably, be the more restrictive case.
If the answer is no, and the right of the individual is the same whether or not he is affiliated with a state-regulated militia, then the question is improperly formulated because it specifies a condition which is not relevant.
Which means the answer must be yes. The right must be conditional on affiliation with a state-regulated militia, which means the right is collective.
I believe you are correct in it being Andy....who said words similar to those, or those very words.
Works for me, but I can’t see the relation to the post to which you reply.
Amendment 1
Or the right of THE STATES peacably to assemble
Amendment 2
The right of the STATES to keep and bear...
Amend 4
The right of THE STATES to be secure in their persons,houses,papers, and effects against unreasonable searches ans seizures....
Amendment 10
The powers not delegated to the united states by the constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states are reserved to the states respectively, or to THE STATES
?????
Any interpretation of the people meaning the states is complete idiocy.
Its phrased such because that's what DC is claiming, and what Heller is disputing.
They haven't "already decided" - the question is central to the case as presented.
Then why include anything about affiliation with state-regulated militias in the question? Does the District of Columbia permit people who are affiliated with state-regulated militias to keep handguns and other firearms in their homes?
I don’t think that your God-fearing, freedom-loving, well-armed patriots would stand for a unilateral grab of their right to defend themselves.
maybe we should e-mail the SC justices those qoutes everyday..
Logic doesn't quite work that way.
That a line was drawn in this question simply avoids questions that are relevant on that side of the line but not this side. The issue at hand plainly does NOT involve a state-regulated militia, and questions regarding a state-regulated militia are not relevant.
The specified condition may indeed not be relevant; so long as the question is built on that condition, questions of relevancy of that condition are not important to the issue at hand and can be avoided.
Stevens might not survive until next year - the man is 87. I guess that this would be a sort of recusal.
The citizens in question are not affiliated with a state-regulated militia. By making it clear that the issue does not involve a state-regulated militia, SCOTUS can avoid complications caused by the possibility of involving a state-regulated militia.
Or here on FR . . .
It always alarms me how many FReepers actually believe that US v. Miller was an anti-RKBA decision.
NEWS RELEASE
SAF EXCITED ABOUT SUPREME COURT REVIEW OF HELLER CASE
BELLEVUE, WA – For the first time in United States history, the Supreme Court will hear a case that should, once and for all, decide the meaning of the Second Amendment to the Bill of Rights, and the Second Amendment Foundation could not be happier.
“We are confident that the high court will rule that the Second Amendment affirms and protects an individual civil right to keep and bear arms,” said SAF founder Alan M. Gottlieb. “Previous Supreme Court rulings dating back more than a century have consistently referred to the Second Amendment as protective of an individual right, but the case of District of Columbia v. Heller focuses on that issue, and we expect the court to settle the issue once and for all.”
The court announced today that it will hear an appeal of the case, in which seven Washington, D.C. residents have sued to overturn the district’s 31-year-old gun ban. In March, the District of Columbia Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 that the ban is unconstitutional because it violates the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms. The court further ruled that the amendment does protect an individual right. The ruling set off a firestorm, in which gun control proponents, who had frequently claimed to support a right to keep and bear arms, dropped all pretenses and publicly acknowledged that they do not believe there is such a right protected by the Second Amendment.
“An affirmative ruling by the Supreme Court will probably not be the death knell for the extremist citizen disarmament movement,” Gottlieb said, “but it will properly cripple their campaign to destroy an important civil right, the one that protects all of our other rights. The insidious effort to strip American citizens of their firearms rights, while at the same time permanently harming public safety must end.
“The Washington, D.C. gun ban has been a monumental failure and the crime statistics prove that,” Gottlieb said. “For almost 70 years, gun banners have deliberately misinterpreted and misrepresented the high court’s language in the U.S. v Miller ruling in 1939. It is long past the time that this important issue be put to rest, and the Heller case will provide the court with that opportunity.”
-END-
Second Amendment Foundation
James Madison Building
12500 N.E. Tenth Place
Bellevue, WA 98005 Voice: 425-454-7012
Toll Free: 800-426-4302
FAX: 425-451-3959
email: InformationRequest@saf.org
So being associated with a State militia would give one enhanced rights? Sounds like discrimination to me. Which would be a violation according to the 2nd.
Wouldn’t it be reasonable to assume that Joe Blow is not affiliated with a state-regulated militia, because there is no such thing as state-regulated militias?
Firearms Industry Applauds Supreme Court
Decision to Hear Second Amendment Case
NEWTOWN, Conn. — The National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) — the trade association of the firearms industry — applauded the decision by the United States Supreme Court to determine authoritatively whether the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution provides an individual right to keep and bear arms.
The U.S. Supreme Court granted a review of a decision from March by the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia in Parker, et al., v. District of Columbia (Circuit docket 04-7041) — a case that upheld the striking down of the District’s ban on private ownership of handguns while asserting that the Second Amendment provides an individual right to keep and bear arms. The case is now known as District of Columbia v. Heller. The mayor of Washington, D.C., Adrian M. Fenty, filed the appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, setting the stage for the high court to rule. According to FBI statistics, Washington D.C., with its gun ban, ranks as one of the most dangerous cities in the United States and maintains one of the highest per-capita murder rates in the country.
“The firearms industry looks forward to the Supreme Court putting to rest the specious argument that the Second Amendment is not an individual right,” said Lawrence G. Keane, NSSF senior vice president and general counsel. “This intellectually bankrupt and feeble argument has been used by gun control advocates to justify laws and regulations that deny Americans their civil right to own and lawfully use firearms for protection, hunting, sports shooting and other lawful purposes.
“The firearms and ammunition industry is unique in that our products are the means through which the Second Amendment right is realized,” continued Keane. “If there were no firearms and ammunition manufacturers, than the Second Amendment becomes an illusory right.”
While the Heller case will be the first time since 1939 that the Supreme Court has addressed the Second Amendment (U.S. v. Miller), the nation’s leading historians, legal scholars and constitutional experts are on record as having concluded that the Second Amendment provides an individual right. Such renowned scholars as Lawrence Tribe of Harvard, Akhil Reed Amar of Yale, William Van Alstyne of Duke and Sanford Levinson of the University of Texas have been vocal in their assertion that the Second Amendment secures an individual right to keep and bear arms.
“The government has powers, not rights,” added Keane. “The contention that the Second Amendment is a collective right of the government is completely without merit.”
BACKGROUND:
In March, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, in striking down the District’s gun ban, held in Parker, et al., v. District of Columbia that “The phrase ‘the right of the people’ . . . leads us to conclude that the right in question is individual.” This was the second time in recent history that a federal circuit court upheld the longstanding belief that the Second Amendment was an individual right. In 2001, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled in the case of U.S. v. Emerson that “All of the evidence indicates that the Second Amendment, like other parts of the Bill of Rights, applies to and protects individual Americans.”
###
We already have one. The 2nd. No child should be promoted beyond the 4th grade without the ability to understand sentence structure well enough to understand the 2nd Amendment.
Does not address carry outside of the home, unfortunately.
"Firearms stand next in importance to the Constitution itself. They are the American people's liberty teeth and keystone under independence. To secure peace, securely and happiness, the rifle and the pistol are equally indispensable. The very atmosphere of firearms everywhere restrains evil interference - they deserve a place of honor with all that is good." --George Washington
"No government power can be abused long. Mankind will not bear it. There is a remedy in human nature against tyranny, that will keep us safe under every form of government."---Samuel Johnson
"The tree of liberty needs to be watered from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."---Thomas Jefferson
"If ever time should come, when vain and aspiring men shall possess the highest seats in Government, our country will stand in need of its experienced patriots to prevent its ruin" ~ Samuel Adams
"I hold it, that a little rebellion, now and then, is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical."--Thomas Jefferson
"It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religions, but on the gospel of Jesus Christ. For this very reason peoples of other faiths have been afforded asylum, prosperity, and freedom of worship." --Patrick Henry
"And that the said Constitution be never construed to authorize Congress ... to prevent the people of the United States, who are peaceable citizens, from keeping their own arms.... "--Samuel Adams
"A government that does not trust it's law abiding citizens to keep and bear arms is itself unworthy of trust." -James Madison
" Freedom was never lost through a brutal assault; it was lost due to sloth, lack of vigilance, and apathy. Gradually more restrictions were imposed to make life seem safer, orderly and more fair. Freedom has been ravaged, now we must suffer the consequences!" author unknown"
Bears constant repeating...
Well, this is a very craftily written question — it can be read both ways. Doubtless, this is why it took so long for the court to issue this.
I’m not optimistic about this, but it’s game on, now.
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