Posted on 06/26/2008 9:32:22 AM PDT by JerseyHighlander
I'd like some assistance understanding the Majority opinion in the Heller vs DC case, specifically how it will affect States, especially a state like NJ which doesn't have a RKBA provision in the State Constitution. Here is a relevant quote, but I don't know what it means without background:
On the question of the Second Amendments application to the States: 23 With respect to Cruikshanks continuing validity on incorporation, a question not presented by this case, we note that Cruikshank also said that the First Amendment did not apply against the States and did not engage in the sort of Fourteenth Amendment inquiry required by our later cases. Our later decisions in Presser v. Illinois, 116 U. S. 252, 265 (1886) and Miller v. Texas, 153 U. S. 535, 538 (1894), reaffirmed that the Second Amendment applies only to the Federal Government.
(Excerpt) Read more at scotusblog.com ...
Every lefty is whistling past the graveyard on this one.
The right to keep and bear arms has been affirmed by this decision as an individual right.
Keeping and bearing imply owning (in your home) and carrying(outside your home). And this is followed by “shall not be infringed”.
There is no way that, in light of this ruling, the various municipalities’ bans can stand.
So, in a clever turn of the wrist while writing Justice Scalia turned America into Virginia where you may carry arms openly WITHOUT PERMITS OR LICENSES.
It's probably well worth all of us going back over that decision and noting every instance of Justice Scalia saying something could be legitimately regulated by law ~ because the exact opposite is something he is saying cannot be regulated by law.
This decision may well have smacked ATF around too by eliminating vast categories of regulatory standards they've developed over the years.
Although you may intend "laws" to be a shorthand for "statutes, regulations, ordinances, and other rules", I would suggest that the long form is more accurate when referring to most of the gun-control garbage on the books. Laws are by definition Constitutional; unconstitutional statutes, regulations, ordinances, and other rules are not law; unless they became unconstitutional as a result of a Constitutional Amendment, such pseudo-laws are void from the moment of inception.
Barring felons and the mentally ill from possessing firearms is a concept that fell into the common sense department back when the Second Amendment was passed, and this can be found in the writings of some of the framers. Nobody felt the need to mention it in the text of the amendment, and the basic concept will hold up.
What reference is there to the Framers supporting the disarmament of anyone who would reasonably be termed a "free person", bearing in mind that that category would exclude slaves, imprisoned convicts, fugitives, parolees, and people confined as a result of mental illness or disability. I am unaware of any.
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