Posted on 11/21/2007 6:33:25 PM PST by neverdem
The Supreme Court will rule on the scope of the Second Amendment's right to bear arms for the first time in nearly 70 years after deciding yesterday to hear arguments on whether D.C. residents can keep handguns in their homes.
The court's decision marks the first time it has weighed in on the Second Amendment since 1939. The decision is expected to change how localities and states across the nation approach gun regulations.
D.C. Mayor Adrian M. Fenty, a Democrat, yesterday called the court's decision to hear the case good news for city residents.
"We welcome the opportunity to take our arguments to the Supreme Court," he said at an afternoon press conference.
Alan Gura, who represents the six D.C. residents who filed suit in 2003 to lift the ban, said he and his clients were "very pleased."
"This is a historic decision that is going to come out," he said.
Mr. Gura said laws keeping guns out of the hands of felons and "crazy people" won't be affected by the ruling. However, he added, "The many laws that have no useful purpose other than to deprive people of their rights are going to be examined more."
Legal briefs in the case are due by January. Arguments are scheduled for March. A decision is likely by June, according to D.C. Attorney General Linda Singer.
D.C. officials said they plan to argue that the right to bear arms in the Constitution applies to militias, not city residents. Proponents of lifting the ban say the Constitution...
--snip--
The court said yesterday it will limit its ruling to one question: whether D.C. laws "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."...
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
The Congress shall have the power:
To provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the union, suppress insurrections and repel invasions;
To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States, reserving to the states respectively, the appointment of the officers, and the authority of training the militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;
regulated means trained and equipped as in the original framers intent.
“D.C. officials said they plan to argue that the right to bear arms in the Constitution applies to militias, not city residents.”
Here I always thought militias were made up of the citizens, to protect themselves from an overreaching government.
I do not believe there is a limit to Justice Kennedy’s applying foreign laws to limit the keeping and bearing arms to al-Qaeda.
It's a start in the right direction. I won't be surprised if it is a 9 - 0 decision on handgun bans and safe storage laws.
Where did the "state" regulated come from????? This is worrisome.
Yes, this could be worrisome. Before the advent of the "state", individuals were assumed to be "well regulated". Thus, as a precursor to our Second Amendment, King Henry II's proclamation that all citizens were required to be armed for mutual protection. Even in the 16th century, it was recognized that "government" couldn't be relied upon to protect the individual ( e.g. people).
It's white-knuckle time in America. I know that they know what I have. But do they know if I will willingly give up what I have? Who will blink?
Agree........loaded question indeed !....we’re screwed.
BLOAT !......CACHE etc etc as applicable ......:o)
Sure demonstrates how screwed up the courts can be!
They removed prayer and God from our schools. Hardly anyone made a peep.
They borrowed a phrase, “separation of church and state,” and proceeded to pretend that it was somewhere in the Constitution, using this clever invention to drive God from the public square. This went largely unchallenged.
They ruled that babes in the womb are not persons, and therefore fair game to be butchered and killed, leading to the gruesome deaths of more than fifty million of the most helpless among us. Only a ripple of protest from a very few.
They ignored the law and our constitutions and said that men could “marry” men, and women could “marry” women. The people yawned at this abomination before God, rolled over, and went back to sleep.
Blatantly ignoring our constitutions and the clear provisions of our laws, they issued a literal death warrant for an uncharged, untried, and unconvicted disabled woman, and proceeded to torture her to death by dehydration, while the whole world watched. Only a few (that the arrogant elites overwhelmingly called crazy) protested.
Maybe if these judicial oligarchs, empowered as they are by cowardly oath-breaking politicians in the legislative and executive branches, take the guns, the people will wake up.
But I don’t know...
I'm actually surprise the SCOTUS took it up because they most likely will create a ruling that does not clear up the application of the 2nd to the states.
I don't think it is worrisome.
I think it is the reflection of what DC has stated in their submissions; that individuals who are not members of a militia are not protected by the Second Amendment.
And despite what some have stated, this "narrow" decision will be huge. It will invalidate every lower court decision which has claimed a "collective right" mis-interpretation of the Second Amendment.
Stating clearly that the right of the people to keep arms is a protected individual right ALSO establishes that the right of the people to bear arms is protected; it is the same sentence for both.
The coming decision will either be very, very bad for pro-gunners or very, very bad for anti-gunners.
To use the local vernacular, this is, indeed, both hugh and series.
I just thought you all should see this if you haven’t. Fred Thompson posted these comments just after the Supreme Court made the decision to hear the DC Gun Law case.
A Citizen’s Right
Posted on November 20th, 2007
By Fred Thompson: http://fredfile.fred08.com/blog/category/second-amendment/
“Here’s another reason why it’s important that we appoint judges who use the Constitution as more than a set of suggestions. Today, the Supreme Court decided to hear the case of District of Columbia v. Heller.
Six plaintiffs from Washington, D.C. challenged the provisions of the D.C. Code that prohibited them from owning or carrying a handgun. They argued that the rules were an unconstitutional abridgment of their Second Amendment rights. The Second Amendment, part of the Bill of Rights, provides, “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 District argued, as many gun-control advocates do, that these words only guarantee a collective “right” to bear arms while serving the government. The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit rejected this approach and instead adopted an “individual rights” view of the Second Amendment. The D.C. Circuit is far from alone. The Fifth Circuit and many leading legal scholars, including the self-acknowledged liberal Harvard law professor Laurence Tribe, have also come to adopt such an individual rights view.
I’ve always understood the Second Amendment to mean what it says – it guarantees a citizen the right to “keep and bear” firearms, and that’s why I’ve been supportive of the National Rifle Association’s efforts to have the DC law overturned.
In general, lawful gun ownership is a pretty simple matter. The Founders established gun-owner rights so that citizens would possess and be able to exercise the universal right of self-defense. Guns enable their owners to protect themselves from robbery and assault more successfully and more safely than they otherwise would be able to. The danger of laws like the D.C. handgun ban is that they limit the availability of legal guns to people who want to use them for legitimate reasons, such as self-defense (let alone hunting, sport shooting, collecting), while doing nothing to prevent criminals from acquiring guns.
The D.C. handgun ban, like all handgun bans is necessarily ineffectual. It takes the guns that would be used for self protection out of the hands of law-abiding citizens, while doing practically nothing to prevent criminals from obtaining guns to use to commit crimes. Even the federal judges in the D.C. case knew about the flourishing black market for guns in our nation’s capital that leaves the criminals armed and the law-abiding defenseless. This is unacceptable.
The Second Amendment does more than guarantee to all Americans an unalienable right to defend one’s self. William Blackstone, the 18th century English legal commentator whose works were well-read and relied on by the Framers of our Constitution, observed that the right to keep and bear firearms arises from “the natural right of resistance and self-preservation.” This view, reflected in the Second Amendment, promotes both self-defense and liberty. It is not surprising then that the generation that had thrown off the yoke of British tyranny less than a decade earlier included the Second Amendment in the Constitution and meant for it to enable the people to protect themselves and their liberties.
You can’t always predict what the Supreme Court will do, but in the case of Heller and Washington, DC’s gun ban, officials in the District of Columbia would have been better off expending their efforts and resources in pursuit of those who commit crimes against innocent people rather than in seeking to keep guns out of the hands of law-abiding citizens who would use them only to protect themselves and their families. And that is why appointing judges who apply the text of the Constitution and not their own policy preferences is so important.”
The more I look and listen the more I see of the plan. The plan was always staring the People and Citizens, in the face, but all Americans heard the confusion and said 'let it lie', that's best. When government take away, government never give back. This is government fundamental, govenment is mental, even when government is at its best.
Waiting for a modern court to rule on the plain meaning of words in the Constitution. Joy.
This is a group of people who don’t know what a “person” is.
They argue over what is an acceptable way to butcher a child in the womb.
They don’t say a word when the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments, and America’s most foundational principles, are trashed by the court-ordered dehydration death of a disabled citizen.
They don’t understand what free political speech is, and outlaw it, but consider burning our national banner and the production of the worst sort of porn to be protected as such.
And we expect them to correctly interpret the meaning of phrases like “well-regulated,” when the word “regulated” meant one thing, “trained,” in the eighteenth century, and something VERY different now??
Ping
Thanks for the citations, but a link would have sufficed.
xxxx
ok picky, i am in colombia and ipulled this from by data base on my computer. next time i will forgit
The Bill of Rights is about rights of THE INDIVIDUAL; states didn’t need permission from the Feds in the 18th century so the state militia arguement is silly.
I think this is a case that could establish the 2nd as protecting an individual right, but that it would still be up to the states to decide how to apply that. If it was a state law they’d have to follow the supreme court decision, but DC isnt a state.
This seems sort of like a way for the conservatives on the court to say the 2nd is about an individual right, but keep to their philsophy of states rights at the same time.
Instead of mandating the states to honor gun rights, this is sort of a way to push them in that direction. It still will leave it up to them though.
Thanks for the link & text.
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