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Administration Rankles Some With Stance in Handgun Case (Presidential amicus brief on DC Gun Ban)
Washington Post ^ | 01/20/08 | By Robert Barnes

Posted on 01/20/2008 5:31:20 PM PST by Copernicus

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To: mbraynard

“Ok - so zero restrictions on who may own and what they may own? That’s a yes for you, right?”

How long before we need a permit for free speech, too?

Oh right - there was McCain/Kennedy/Thompson Campaign Finance Reform.

One right at a time... down the toilet.

Rah Rah USSA!


61 posted on 01/20/2008 7:37:35 PM PST by GovernmentIsTheProblem (We are not to expect to be translated from despotism to liberty in a featherbed. - Thomas Jefferson)
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To: mbraynard
Driftdiver said: "your post is the same as saying the 2nd amendment is what the government rulers says it is"

mbraynard said: :That's true of all laws, isn't it? "

God help you if you don't know the difference between a right as defined in the Constution and a law. I don't derive my rights from the government. My right to life and self-defense predate the Constitution.

62 posted on 01/20/2008 7:38:48 PM PST by 2nd amendment mama ( www.2asisters.org | Self defense is a basic human right!)
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To: mbraynard
 
Thanks for the heads up on the brief (isn't the internet great!). I have only been reading about this from various sources, not just the one on this thread or from some politician. The brief tries to settle things down, define and argue the original intent of the founders in a good and historical manner, but the part that throws me is "C. THE COURT SHOULD REMAND THIS CASE TO THE LOWER COURTS TO PERMIT THEM TO ANALYZE THE CONSTITUTIONALITY OF THE D.C. LAWS AT ISSUE UNDER THE PROPER CONSTITUTIONAL INQUIRY". I'm not sure what to think about what the grand strategy is on that move.
 

63 posted on 01/20/2008 7:48:45 PM PST by LastDayz
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To: mbraynard
How to Rent a Post Office box
64 posted on 01/20/2008 7:51:34 PM PST by elkfersupper
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To: umgud

For those of us who live and work in D.C. it has a really bothersome “let them eat cake” quality. We note that the Pres would undoubtedly be upset if Crawford, Texas, adopted a gun ban. I have been three times assaulted in the District in situations where a sidearm would have been very useful.


65 posted on 01/20/2008 8:06:05 PM PST by AmericanVictory (Should we be more like them, or they like us?)
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To: elkfersupper
I own a bricks and sticks home that even UPS can’t find, and spend a lot of time in a RV.

OK, but I guess I've missed something - how does the Patriot Act stop you from having a PO box?

66 posted on 01/20/2008 8:11:26 PM PST by Celtman (It's never right to do wrong to do right.)
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To: mbraynard
Wow. What great friends you must make. Some guy at the Washington Post writes a story and quotes some half-cocked congressman and a failed candidate trolling for votes and you guys believe it without even so much as a second guess and suddenly think that President Bush is a gun grabbing Hitler socialist traitor.

You've taken a great leap of assumption her. I too have read the brief and have come to a different conclusion than you. I suspect the most the others here have too.

67 posted on 01/20/2008 8:11:32 PM PST by umgud
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To: driftdiver
But according to you I am equivalent to a child molester for thinking current gun laws are abusive and un-Constitutional.

You've lost your mind. Discussion over.

68 posted on 01/20/2008 8:22:37 PM PST by mbraynard
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To: padre35
Forget writing. This is about speech (the 1st amendment). There are some things that can and can't be said. I can't say that in my home to anyone unless it's for demonstration purposes (like it was on this board). Speech is a means of communication and it isn't speech if there is no one there to hear it.

The 2nd amendment is all about posession.

I am saying the solicitor (not me) is saying that there are limits to both that are reasonable and constitutional.

69 posted on 01/20/2008 8:24:57 PM PST by mbraynard
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To: 2nd amendment mama
My right to life and self-defense predate the Constitution.

Sure, I agree with you there. But this isn't about your rights, this is about a law (the Constitution) and what it applies to and how it is interpreted. IE - we have a government that rules by written laws and not what one person happens to think at any given moment.

70 posted on 01/20/2008 8:26:44 PM PST by mbraynard
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To: LastDayz
I think they want to re-write the two part test that was applied so that, if it were accepted by the SCOTUS, couldn't be interpreted as a defacto overturning of all laws restricting gun ownership. The two part test didn't take anything into consideration other than itself.

The court of appeals adopted a two-part test, under which a particular weapon is a Second Amendment "Arm[]" if it (i) bears a "reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia," and (ii) is "of the kind in common use at the time" the Second Amendment was adopted.

I don't even get the 2nd part of a test because the only weapons around back then were laughably inefficient, though I guess they did have 'handguns' and 'longguns.'

71 posted on 01/20/2008 8:30:26 PM PST by mbraynard
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To: mbraynard
Oh really?

From the brief:

History also supports that conclusion. Because Founding-era militia members were expected to procure their own firearms and to bring those guns when called to service, see p. 16, supra, the militia could not have been "well regulated" if individuals had unrestricted freedom to choose which "Arms" they would possess. Rather, it was essential to the effective operation of the militia as then constituted that government officials be authorized to specify the weapons that individual mem bers would be required to procure and maintain. The Amendment's text and history thus suggest that the substantive right secured did not guarantee an unfet tered choice of "Arms."

As those who have really studied American history in the 18th Century know, "well regulated" simply meant "well oiled; presice in form and function;" like a "Regulated clock," common at that time, not regulations (restrictions) of choice of firearms. That would have been unheard of at the time the 2nd was written: "No Daniel, you can't carry that .75 cal. musket, that theres illegal. You can only have an .58 cal or smaller rifle."

In the days of muzzle loading firearms, an armed miltia had to regulate how they would load and fire their weapons without shooting each other. The back row would be loading while the front row would fire. That is the true meaning of "regulated" in the 2nd. NOT restriction of choice of weapons.

72 posted on 01/20/2008 8:33:15 PM PST by Inyo-Mono (If you don't want people to get your goat, don't tell them where it's tied.)
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To: elkfersupper
According to the post someone else made here, it just requires three forms of ID that anyone ought to have - especially someone with an RV - your birth cert, your social security card, and your drivers license. You can write down your address - doesn't matter if UPS can find it or not.

Sorry, I read your post and get the impression of someone too cranky to co-operate with the incompetent desk clerk at the local post office. I really don't see the problem with demonstrating who you are in able to get a post office box.

73 posted on 01/20/2008 8:34:02 PM PST by mbraynard
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To: Inyo-Mono
Ok - good point.

So is any restriction on choice of arms unconstitutional? How do you reconcile this right with the increasingly potent choice of arms that are available today versus during the revolution?

I'm not trying to be advasarial with you, just thoughtful. My biggest concern is that the Constitution becomes either a death pact or wholly discarded if either a lot of wisdom doesn't come out of the decisions here.

74 posted on 01/20/2008 8:37:47 PM PST by mbraynard
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To: driftdiver
More likely all these Big government folks fear free citizens would hamper their agenda for a global socialist utopia.

THAT, my FRiend, is the far more likely scenario.
I fear...yes. That is the likeliest of scenarios.

75 posted on 01/20/2008 8:38:39 PM PST by Bloody Sam Roberts (Bureaucracy is a parasite that preys on Free Thought and suffocates Free Spirit.)
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To: Inyo-Mono
I might add that there were no "government officials" in the late 1700s..."authorized to specify the weapons" that a miltia member might carry." There were no "government officials" in charge of militias back then, they were all members of a community, county or state that felt compeled to protect their home.

If my hometown were attacked tomorrow, the local miltia, all armed members of the community, would grab their arms and repell the enemy, without some "government official" telling them what type of weapon they could use.

76 posted on 01/20/2008 8:44:44 PM PST by Inyo-Mono (If you don't want people to get your goat, don't tell them where it's tied.)
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To: Copernicus

I am sick of tilting at windmills. Is there anything we the base can do to force Bush to do our budding? Can we block his “legacy” issues in the Congress, such as denying a penny of aid to the Palestinian nazis? How about Republican Senators blocking his every appointment until he backs down on this?


77 posted on 01/20/2008 8:46:58 PM PST by montag813
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To: mbraynard
Ok - good point.

So is any restriction on choice of arms unconstitutional? How do you reconcile this right with the increasingly potent choice of arms that are available today versus during the revolution?

I'm not trying to be advasarial with you, just thoughtful. My biggest concern is that the Constitution becomes either a death pact or wholly discarded if either a lot of wisdom doesn't come out of the decisions here.

The 2nd never has been a "death pact." If some gang banger pulls out a fully automatic weapon and fires on a neighborhood, shouldn't those residents have the right to return fire with similar weapons? And if we all were armed, with no restrictions, don't you beleive that the bad guys would have second thoughts about shooting first?

In the early 1900s, before state and Federal gun laws, when anyone could carry arms without restrictions, the crime rate was really low, something like 200 murders per year in the entire U.S.

78 posted on 01/20/2008 8:59:02 PM PST by Inyo-Mono (If you don't want people to get your goat, don't tell them where it's tied.)
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To: mbraynard

“Forget writing”?

Hmm methinks you may have found yourself on the losing end of the discussion and now wish to redefine the discussion.

Okay we can do that.

The problem with reducing even the availability of spoken words resides in the assumption that spoken words carry the promise of “action”:

For example:

I am going to drive over to your home and kick your dog.

An action is implied.

The mere posession of a arm does not also carry with it the use of the arm in an illegal manner, for example:

I bought a .50 cal Barret rifle this weekend. (No I did not..just sayin’)

What possible action could be derived from such a purchase?

Is there some promise of violence in merely posession?

And that is where the “reasonableness” argument falls down due to be reduced to simple possesion eqauting to actual usage in an illegal manner.

If we say “you can not say X Y and Z” the reasonableness argument would be forced to stipulate that the thought of such words being used is powerful enough to Ban them before they are even used, IE it would be a crime to even think of those words because they “might” be used.


79 posted on 01/20/2008 8:59:14 PM PST by padre35 (Conservative in Exile/ Isaiah 3.3)
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To: Copernicus
Sanford Levinson, a liberal constitutional scholar at the University of Texas who believes that the Second Amendment protects individual rights, called the administration's position "a gift to the Democratic Party" and urged his party's presidential candidates to embrace it.

The view that the amendment guarantees gun ownership subject to reasonable government restrictions is one that most voters would endorse, Levinson said.

No, not "reasonable restrictions. What part of "shall not be infringed" allows "reasonable" restrictions. This brief calls for "height ed scrutiny" of gun control laws. But the very least that the other rights protected by the Bill of Rights is "strict scrutiny". The difference is that in the former, the government would only need to show some legitimate "governmental purpose" for the restriction. They would not have to show that the restriction was effective in addressing that government purpose. Nor would they have to show that the restriction was the minimum possible to address the "governmental purpose".

Very few gun control laws could pass the "strict scrutiny" test. Most could and cording the governments brief, all current federal ones would.

A pox on both the "No individual right" and "resonable restrictions" bastids.

80 posted on 01/20/2008 9:27:20 PM PST by El Gato ("The Second Amendment is the RESET button of the United States Constitution." -- Doug McKay)
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