Posted on 01/20/2008 5:31:20 PM PST by Copernicus
If the justices accept that advice when they hear the case in the spring, it could mean additional years of litigation over the controversial Second Amendment and could undo a ruling that was a seminal victory for gun rights enthusiasts.
Some were livid. One conservative Web site said the administration had "blundered in catastrophic fashion," and another turned Clement, usually a pinup for conservative legal scholars, into a digital dartboard. Rep. Eric Cantor (Va.), the Republicans' chief deputy whip, called the brief "just outrageous," and Republican presidential candidate and former senator Fred D. Thompson (Tenn.) accused the Justice Department of "overlawyering" the issue.
David B. Kopel, an associate policy analyst at the libertarian Cato Institute, said that President Bush was elected in part because of the passion of gun rights activists and that "the citizen activists would never have spent all those hours volunteering for a candidate whose position on the constitutionality of a handgun ban was 'maybe.' "
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
If you were able to pass through the metal detector with it, it would never get X-rayed.
And I never asserted that such a gun existed but it seems entirely possible to make one and it may be that some US agencies have such weapons for good reason.
And no major manufacturer is going to try to make one - because they can't sell it (as, *cough* it is banned.)
I might agree with you with a second reading.
A better tact to defend the 2nd amendment is reason, not appeals to a static document. Kind of like saying not to be an adulterer because the Bible says so, without going into detail about what the real world consequencies of adultery are.
You had too high expectations. Me, I wasn't expecting much but no way could I stomach Gore or Kerry presidencies.
Actually, I've often found myself pleasantly surprised by him at times. The deciding vote to uphold the Constitution on Shelly Parker vs DC was by Thomas B. Griffith, a Dubya appointee.
Note: the dissenting judge, Karen Henderson, was appointed by his Bush I.
Let’s see - a CIA agent publishing names of other agents, drunk driving, and drug use by parents. I can come up with powerful arguments for prior restraint in those cases, and probably a few others.
But not for outlawing entire classes of firearms to law-abiding citizens...which is EXACTLY what the DOJ brief is asking the Supreme Court to allow, under the guise of “reasonable restrictions.” IOW, “Yeah, its a right, but we should be able to curtail when and to whatever extent we’d like to, so long as we can come up with a reasonable-sounding excuse.” IOW, a meaningless right that is, in fact, a mere privilege.
No thanks. I hope that Roberts & Co. stick that brief up the DOJ’s collective arse.
After reading the Brief, I am not opposed to its recommendation: remand the decision back to the lower court for further review.
“I’m turning 23 and I support every citizen’s right to own a bear a wide variety of arms.”
God bless you.
RPGs?
As someone else here pointed out, this isn't about 'firearms' so much as 'arms.'
Yes, that would be me.
I really don't see the problem with demonstrating who you are in able to get a post office box.
I really don't see the problem with demonstrating your body mass index in order to buy a hamburger.
MERELY more in keeping with a series of catastrophic blunders by a President who either presented himself as something he was not, or is lacking in certain reasoning capabilities, or both.
Merely the sight of this impostor turns my stomach.
His failure to punish the Fallujans for the butchery of American contractors back in his first term turned an up until then successful military operation into a catastrophe. The Muslims stared and he blinked.
He went on to demonstrate his lack of reasoning abilities, or fraudulent credentials - choose them as you will, with Harriet Miers, the Dubai Ports, failure to defend our southern borders, persecuting Ramos and Compean, stabbing Israel in the back, an idiotic experiment with missiles on Russia’s western borders, an irrational scheme involving Benazir Bhutto, selection of series of incompetent or left-leaning advisers - Norman Minetta, the FEMA wonderboy,
Chrissie Whitman, Tom Kean Senior, the former Attorney General, the present Secretary of Defense Gates (criticizing the few friends you have in public is tantamount to exemplary stupidity - even in an administration which has excelled in that area) - and now this.
Stabbing the gun owners of America in the back over the Second Amendment just as he stabbed all Americans in the back when he signed McCain-Feingold.
Bush has done some things write. Nobody is 100 % wrong even if they try as hard as possible. But most of those correct decisions do not outweigh the damage this man has done to the conservative movement in the Republican Party and, by extension, to the conservatives in general in America.
Bush II will ultimately rank right up there with his equally incompetent father, his predecessor of the many sexual adventures, the peanut planter Jimmah Cahtah, Lyndon Johnson, Rockefeller Republican Ford, the schizophrenic Richard Nixon and the “Prince of Camelot” John Kennedy, as the worst of American Presidents.
Tortured interpretations of the Second amendment cannot change the fact that both the letter of the amendment itself and the legislative history conclusively show that the Founders intended ordinary citizens to be armed. The notion that the Second amendment confers rights only upon organized state-run militias is preposterous; the amendment is meaningless unless it protects the gun rights of individuals. Georgetown University professor Robert Levy recently offered this simple explanation:
“Suppose the Second amendment said ‘A well-educated electorate being necessary for self-governance in a free state, the right of the people to keep and read books shall not be infringed.’ Is there anyone who would suggest that means only registered voters have a right to read?”
And I might add would this mean that that "high powered books" with dangerous intellectual ideas which might stir the people up should be banned?
Well, when the islamofascists start a laundering operation involving McDonalds, I won’t either.
And you’ve turned the constitution into a death pact since apparently the 2nd amendment allows high powered weaponry - like shoulder-mounted AA missiles to be owned by questionable Muslims. Because stopping them from loitering around the runway at Laguardia would be prior restraint.
The constitution is useless if you interpret in such a way as to destroy the country it is meant to govern.
The Constitution a death pact? Was it a "death pact" during the almost 200 hundred years before the 1930s when the first Federal gun laws went into effect?
All gun laws proir to the Miller case were local, i.e., no guns allowed in the saloon, or on the streets of Dodge, etc. The only reason any Federal gun laws were inacted was because of hard core criminals, Al Copone and his descendents; modern day gang-bangers etc. have been the root of ALL modern Federal gun laws.
Most citizens of this country are NOT the enemy. Those of us that own guns use them mostly for recreation and rarley, for self defense. There is no reason that "Laguardia" could not make it unlawful to carry "AA missiles," (whatever they are) near the airport, just like they do in many establishments in Texas where signs out side state: "No Firearms Allowed."
Crack down on hard core criminals, not law abiding American citizens.
Paranioa has no relationship to freedom and liberty.
Make that paranoia.
That shouldn’t be a problem. SCOTUS could take care of that concern and still do the right thing by saying “This 90% of existing firearms law is unconstitutional, and will be struck down. We will allow a 12 month grace period while state legislatures and Congress can try to come up with laws which implement their legislative objectives while meeting the following criteria for Constitionality. As of one year from today, the laws mentioned are null and void.”
Infantry weapon, right?
Please tell me the date on which a rulebook became necessary. I don't believe that such a rulebook was necessary when the Bill of Rights was ratified. How do you justify imposing a rulebook without the benefit of a Constitutional amendment?
Those of us who do not fear arms in the hands of the law-abiding, and who recognize that the non-law-abiding will ignore such laws, do not see the need for such a rulebook. There is no power on earth that can disarm evil people without destroying them.
The Supreme Court does not have the power to permit the enforcement of an unConstitutional law for even five seconds. There are already Court rulings that make plain that unConstitutional laws are to be treated as unenforcable from the time of their origin.
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