Justices Rule for Individual Gun Rights (Detail: NRA To Sue in Liberal Cities)

New York Times ^ | 06/26/2008 | David Stout

[Pyro7480]

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court declared for the first time on Thursday that the Constitution protects an individual’s right to have a gun, not just the right of the states to maintain militias.

Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for the majority in the landmark 5-to-4 decision, said the Constitution does not allow “the absolute prohibition of handguns held and used for self-defense in the home.” In so declaring, the majority found that a gun-control law in the nation’s capital went too far by making it nearly impossible to own a handgun....

The National Rifle Association and other supporters of rights to have firearms are sure to use the decision as a launch pad for lawsuits. The N.R.A. said it would file suits in San Francisco, Chicago and several Chicago suburbs challenging handgun restrictions there. “I consider this the opening salvo in a step-by-step process of providing relief for law-abiding Americans everywhere that have been deprived of this freedom,” Wayne LaPierre, executive vice president of the N.R.A., told The Associated Press.

[pyrless]

“This is from the Supreme Court ruling

the District must permit Heller to register his handgun and must issue him a license to carry it in the home.”

This wording is troubling. They snuck in the word “carry” to set the stage for stricter CCW laws. Gun-controllers will use this wording to limit carrying to inside the home instead of in public.

The case was supposed to be just about “keeping” arms, not about “bearing” arms in public which is a separate issue. I suspect this sentence was carefully/awkwardly worded like this in order to get consensus for the ruling.

I predict trouble for CCW rights.

[Blood of Tyrants]

Not Stevens, Breyer wrote about Scalia’s circular logic.

[WackySam]

Let's hope the NRA wins those suits as well. Huzzah! Huzzah!

The NRA had nothing to do with this case- they actually fought hard against it being brought to the Supreme Court.

[MileHi]

That is ANOTHER lawsuit.

Yes it is. Someone else will have to do though, I don't have a half million dollars to get my 50/50 shot at having my rights recognized.

Still, I'm happy about this.

[Pyro7480]

That wasn’t my implication. On that note, what’s your source for your assertion?

[Centurion2000]

Along with one making the SC clarify how the government can heavily tax, regulate, and force burdensome licensing of a machine gun and then ban it altogether and then declare that the REASON the ban is constitutional is because the guns are not commonly owned by citizens

Actually Scalia's words in that opinion are practically begging someone to bring them a good 2nd Amendment infringement case on machineguns.

[Centurion2000]

The case was supposed to be just about “keeping” arms, not about “bearing” arms in public which is a separate issue. I suspect this sentence was carefully/awkwardly worded like this in order to get consensus for the ruling.

I predict trouble for CCW rights.

Read the opinion. Scalia spends roughly 20 pages laying out the grammar and wording of the Amendment and Keep and Bear has a VERY special meaning to the SC now based on this plus Stare decisis. He also specifically cites that MG ownership and taxation was never challeneged in Miller and also cites additional ownership considerations based on the Miller deicision itself.

This has to be the best 64 pages of legal documentation I have EVER read and that includes my old divorce decree.

[My Favorite Headache]

Conservatives have been waiting for something...ANYTHING...to light the spark for the 2008 elections..this...just might be it.

Blind man ask me forgiveness
I won’t deny myself
Disrespect you have given
Your suffering’s my wealth
I feed off pain, force fed to love it
And now I swallow whole
I’ll never live in the past
Let freedom ring with a shotgun blast

Burn my fist to the concrete
My fear is my strength
Power, rage unbound because
Been pounded by the streets
Cyanide blood burns down the skyline
Hatred is purity
The bullet connects at last
Let freedom ring with a shotgun blast

[WackySam]

That wasn’t my implication. On that note, what’s your source for your assertion?

I remember reading about the NRA's objection of the case from multiple sources when the case was just getting off the ground. They did eventually get behind it, but it was late in the game, and only after it was inevitable that the case would be heard. From Wikipedia -

Attorney Alan Gura, in a 2003 filing, used the term "sham litigation" to describe the NRA's attempts to have Parker (aka Heller) consolidated with its own case challenging the D.C. law. Gura also stated that "the NRA was adamant about not wanting the Supreme Court to hear the case".[34] These concerns were based on NRA lawyers' assessment that the justices at the time the case was filed might reach an unfavorable decision.[35] Cato Institute senior fellow Robert Levy, co-counsel to the Parker plaintiffs, has stated that the Parker plaintiffs "faced repeated attempts by the NRA to derail the litigation."[36]

Wayne LaPierre, the NRA’s chief executive officer, confirmed the NRA's misgivings. “There was a real dispute on our side among the constitutional scholars about whether there was a majority of justices on the Supreme Court who would support the Constitution as written,” Mr. LaPierre said. Both Levy and LaPierre said the NRA and Mr. Levy’s team were now on good terms.

[kevkrom]

This means cities can license and regulate. This means you have a privilege that can be taken away and not a right. You can't be half pregnant and you can't have half a right.

The opinion went that way because it wasn't part of the case. Heller never argued against the registration requirement; the simplest remedy, therefore, was to direct the District of Columbia to isse the permit that Heller sought.

The ruling neither creates nor affirms any governmental authority to register arms.

[Blood of Tyrants]

“This has to be the best 64 pages of legal documentation I have EVER read and that includes my old divorce decree.”

Then you didn’t read deeply. Scalia holds that Miller was constitution on the basis that machine guns were not “in common use at the time” and defined common use to mean commonly possessed by the citizens. The circular logic is that the government can ban a certain gun and then declare that it is constitutional because the gun wasn’t commonly posessed by the citizens.

Also, there are probably in the are of 200,000 machine guns in the hands of private citizens and if not for the 1986 machine gun ban, that number would be over 1 million. If you have one of 200,000 ANYTHINGS, your item isn’t exactly “uncommon”.

This law begs a lawsuit to force the justices to reject this circular logic. It also begs to force them to recognize that your 2nd Amendment rights don’t end at your front door.

[goldstategop]

Gun rights activists have to fight for those rights. As Martin Luther King, Jr. said of the struggle for civil rights: "authority concedes nothing without a demand." We got the tools today to get those rights enforced. Liberals are not going to give them to us just because the U.S Supreme Court said: "behave." The thug in DC still doesn't get it. The battle to ensure the Second Amendment remains valid continues.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus

[CholeraJoe]

Hattori Hanzo: “You must have big rats, if you need Hattori Hanzo steel.”

The Bride: “Huge!”

[infowarrior]

With the liberal courts out here (CA) the NRA will probably have to take it almost all the way to the SC all over again.

Of course, and that is intentional. The Heller case, because it was in DC, could not address incorporation of the 2d Amendment under the 14th. This is the goal so it will have to go back to SCOTUS. Chicago cannot have the same kind of gun ban that was just stricken down in DC, and that is how it will be stricken down, as an equal rights under the law measure...

the infowarrior

[An Old Man]

"Even if they lose a hundred court fights, they'll still be quibbling and throwing up roadblocks."

For some it is the journey, for others it is the end that is desired. I believe that much more will come from smacking down the liberals at every opportunity we get, rather that dropping the big one on them and ending the game for all.

I'm even considering a vacation in the nations capital this Summer. Perhaps I will even bring my double action automatic pistol along for company. That should provide enough entertainment for some time to come. Would you care to accompany me in this endeavor?

Semper Fi
An Old Man

[infowarrior]

Actually Scalia's words in that opinion are practically begging someone to bring them a good 2nd Amendment infringement case on machineguns.

As were his words on licensing (the "arbitrary and capricious" particularly caught my eye), he has given the pro-gun rights side a number of levers to use in prying off the most onerous of gun restrictions, should we avail ourselves of them...

the infowarrior

[palmer]

I predict trouble for CCW rights.

This ruling only means that handguns cannot be banned or confiscated, nor can they be defacto banned or confiscated by overweening regulation (something that the DC weenies promised to do right away which will bring another case).

How someone uses the weapon can still be tightly regulated (i.e. it can't ever be fired unless you determine yourself to be in mortal danger, etc). That still would not rule out CCW. The right to own the property (the gun) has now been established along with the right to keep the property in an operable state. CCW is just one more step from that.

[palmer]

As were his words on licensing (the "arbitrary and capricious" particularly caught my eye),

Mine too. Just like zoning laws can regulate the use of property for specific safety reasons, they cannot restrict it to the point of nonuse. In Virginia for example, we have an absolute right to build a house to live in on our residential property. There are still plenty of zoning laws that can make that very difficult, but the laws cannot be used to arbitrarily or capriciously restrict that right to use the property as designed. A gun is simply property used to shoot thugs and the same logic applies.

[William Tell]

Roninf5-1 said: "This means you have a privilege that can be taken away and not a right."

You have to register to vote, also, but that does not mean that the government can deny you the right to vote except under certain very limited circumstances. There is a compelling government interest in maintaining fair elections. But voting is not a privilege that can be taken away for capricious or arbitrary reasons.

The registration and licensing of Heller's handgun will go forward unless there is something that makes Heller legally ineligible to exercise his right to keep his handgun at home.

[LibWhacker]

LOL, no, thank you! I’d better not. Besides, the first and last time I was there I swore I’d never return to that H___hole.