Posted on 03/21/2008 6:29:24 AM PDT by Pistolshot
I have spent a lot of time surfing some of the other discussion threads on the hearing before the US Supreme Court of DC v Heller. A lot of comments have been about the testimony about machine guns, rifles, Miller, and a host of zealousness that makes gun-owners look as bad as the most strident anti-gunner. It does NOT serve us well.
Heller is about handguns, and the ownership, use and ability to protect ones self in the home.
It is not about NFA ‘34
It is not about GCA ’68.
It is not about Hughes.
It is narrowly defined by the SCOTUS to handguns.
Now, there are pie-in-the-sky zealots who want everything put in order, the way it was, in one-shot. The bad news is that is NOT going to happen.
Now that we have gotten that out of the way, lets look at what we can get.
We get a definitive ruling that the restrictive law of DC is in direct violation of the individual right to own a firearm, specifically a handgun, and that the restrictive DC law is overturned, affirming the lower courts decision. The DC City Council will have to come up with something that will pass judicial muster. Most likely a complete reversal of the 'secure' weapons in the home provisions along with opening of registration of handguns in the city, as the law read before the Council banned all handguns.
We get the perception from the courts that they would like to correct Miller. Justice Kennedy – “Miller may be deficient.” The translation here is : “Bring us a case we can rule on.”
Heller opens this door.
What else do we get?
We get the chance to find the correct case to bring to the justices to roll back Hughes, which will roll back the restrictions on new machine guns.
We get the chance to bring the correct case to roll back GCA ’68 and the importation of surplus weapons
All of these are dependent on how the Supremes rule in Heller, but it will not signify that a total revolution in gun control and gun laws has taken place
It only means we have won one battle, and there are many, many more to come.
The right of ‘the people’ has been taken incrementally, a bit at a time. The only way will get that right completely restored is in the same fashion.
Incrementally, one piece at a time.
No apology was necessary but it is certainly accepted.
As to the rest of your post—I dunno.
I could argue either side if I step back and think about it, but whether or not there should have been a Bill of Rights, the fact is that there is one and we have to deal with it and its good, bad, intended and unintended consequences.
At the founding, if they could have done any better than they did, I’m sure they would have.
They accepted slavery in order to give birth to a new nation so to fight the BoR and kill it in it’s infancy would have been a waste.
They did the best they could with what they had at the time and it was a damn fine job they did, despite some weaknesses.
All the anti-gun zealots I know are salivating at the ‘registration argument from the hearing. So far, they do not realize their ‘collective’ argument is about to vanish like a mist in the wind.
Right. The Declaration of Independence already stated it, and with great clarity. A Constitution is not expected to have a blatant statement amounting to “and if this all doesn’t work out, you can just terminate everyone trying to implement it”. Between the DoI and 2ndA, it’s pretty darn clear for something that shouldn’t need saying.
It looks like Heller may not be the only gun rights question to go before the Supremes. SCOTUS takes new gun case ... is this a Heller tea leaf?
Kennedy also agreed with the dissent opinion written by Clarence Thomas and seconded by Scalia in the Gary Small case, in which those justices would have given foreign courts the powerr to strip US citizens of their econd Amendment rights.
Most particularly telling: that they wanted to use the *reasonableness* of foreign legislation as a guide as to the applicability of the statute, rather than any constitutional authority.
Either that, or the Bill of Rights that protects them will.
Good post.
Fact still remains that unless the SC dances around the point as it did in Miller, it can’t rule flat out against the second amendment.
If it does it will have effectively nullified its own authority by throwing out the concept of natural rights which is the authority for the constitution which is the basis of its own existence.
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