Posted on 07/15/2008 12:23:50 PM PDT by JZelle
The District, rebuffed by the Supreme Court last month in a landmark decision on its 32-year-old gun ban, could soon be headed back to court over a new gun law that could take effect as early as Wednesday.
The D.C. Council will vote Tuesday on emergency legislation that will require handgun owners to keep their weapons disassembled or under lock and key in what gun rights advocates see as direct defiance of the Supreme Court ruling.
That ruling said the District could not bar residents from "rendering any lawful firearm in the home operable for the purpose of immediate self-defense."
Some interpreted that language at the time as prohibiting any requirement for gun locks.
"They're doing everything that they can to not comply with the Supreme Court ruling," said Chris Cox, chief lobbyist for the National Rifle Association, who dismissed the proposed legislation as "a joke."
"Unless the criminal calls you beforehand and lets you know he's coming over ... you're going to be left defenseless," Mr. Cox said.
D.C. interim Attorney General Peter J. Nickles acknowledged that officials expected strong reactions to the emergency legislation, which will be in effect for only 90 days.
"We expect a lot of public input, [and] we probably expect also a lawsuit," he said. "We will learn from what it is we see, and it may be appropriate to change some of the measures."
In the majority Supreme Court opinion that struck down the District's gun ban, Justice Antonin Scalia wrote that "the District´s ban on handgun possession in the home violates the Second Amendment, as does its prohibition against rendering any lawful firearm in the home operable for the purpose of immediate self-defense."
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
They might, then they might not.
From the original decision, it seems likely they will, if Heller files a complaint.
And as to when - when they decide to, frankly. Who knows.
Lets if we can get Silverman and Jantice Rogers Brown on that panel. That would be some good times.
Better than being shot, and disabled or dead.
And the more people that take that position...the better, IMO.
MOLON LABE
I would LOVE to see Heller try to register a semi-auto pistol of the most common type - e.g. a Colt .45 pattern, a Beretta 92, a Glock, S&W 59 series, etc. Better yet, whatever is standard issue for the DC PD. Let them deny him and THEN see what the Court says.
I can imagine that the DC Circuit Court, having made a ruling in Heller's favor that far surpassed the Supreme Court, would probably be receptive to an emergency appeal from Heller to the effect that the new DC regulations, temporary though they may be, are a violation of the Supreme Court's decision.
The Circuit Court could simply mandate that specific provisions of DC regulations shall be without effect and shall not be enforced. Pending the passing of permanent legislation, the Court can effectively mandate that there are NO regulations of guns in DC until the Court approves regulations that are consistent with the Heller decision.
Failing to conform to the orders of a court are a simple, though painful, way to lose control over all of one's affairs.
My concern in all this has to do with the de facto elimination of FFLs to serve the DC population. I don't see how those who should be buying guns in DC will be able to do so legally.
It's a well established historical fact that the first gun control laws were specifically racist in their intent because they only applied to freed slaves. And now the areas that have the tightest gun control are those areas where you have a sizable minority population ruled over by an elite (predominantly white) political class. We look at that result and say that it's caused by the ruling class not trusting the peasants because conservatives don't really notice any issue of race. but liberals dont' think like us. To the liberals running the big cities, identity politics is everything. Your race is central to who you are. And they look at their constituency and see a bunch of dangerous "others" that they're ruling over.
If a wealthy white man wanted to get a gun permit in New York city he can just pay the right people, make the right political contribution and presto... a gun permit. That's how Rosie O'Donnell got hers. Liberals didn't set up the law to keep them from having a gun because wealthy and white is enough like them to make them comfortable. But even if a black man had a real need for self defense he's not getting a permit... no way no how.
Up to now we've always seen gun control as an assault on everyone not in the ruling class, but that isn't how the ruling class has seen it. and we've been giving them a pass on it becasue we feel threatened too.
If we can simply make it clear that only a racist can continue to support gun control, their inner city support will fall away.
You think about gun control as an assault on you and your rights... but the truth is, for liberals it's never been about banning "our guns" it's always been about banning "their guns". But at the core of their "us and them" idea is race.
It may seem like I'm stating the obvious at first, but you see gun control as a very different thing than a liberal does. Not that their way is rational at all, but you need to try to understand it if you're going to counter it effectively.
Gun control started out as a race issue, and it's still a race issue today. Not because we see it that way, but because they mean it that way.
That's exactly the point I was going to make about NYC handgun licensing laws if the thread went any further.
There was a list of CCW holders in NYC published some months ago. Every holder was wealthy and white: Donald Trump, Robert DeNiro, Rosie O'Donnell, etc.
Anyone who thinks that gun control activists aren't primarily concerned about nearby lower class minorities being in possession of firearms simply hasn't been paying attention. They just mask their racism by calling for ALL guns to be banned and trying to turn the tables of racism by saying that all they want to do is keep minorities from being the victims of gun violence.
The truth is that they feel a need to ban guns because the fact remains that in our major American metro areas, no matter how wealthy you become you'll still always be within smelling distance of the poor.
And the DC politicians are ripe for a smackdown and an appointment of a Special Master by the court. If federal judges can decide to take over school systems, they can take over DC's gun administration
My concern in all this has to do with the de facto elimination of FFLs to serve the DC population. I don't see how those who should be buying guns in DC will be able to do so legally.
My hope is that the federal judges will decree that the absence of FFLs in DC means that DC residents may buy what they want in some other state, with federal law to the contrary being null and void.
Try this scenario:
Actually, the Supreme Court simply affirmed the lower court’s ruling (gave lots of reasoning behind the affirmation, but the upshot is that the lower verdict rules). DC will have to deal with Judge Silverman, who months ago made it clear he’s tired with DC’s shenanigans. DC got their stay of Silverman’s ruling, SCOTUS affirmed the ruling, and now in defiance of Silverman’s crystal-clear verdict DC is re-enacting 85% of what they were doing in the first place.
Upshot: it doesn’t have to reach SCOTUS again. The circuit judges will take care of this.
Uh ... that makes you the minority under discussion.
Correction: The DC Circuit Court ordered DC to give Heller permission, and SCOTUS affirmed that order.
That would be a distinction without a difference - but still, I'm quite sure that Scalia's opinion explicitly and unambiguously mandated that DC give Heller a permit to have an operable gun in his house (absent any showing by DC that Heller was a felon or some such disability).
1. You annoy some member of the power structure
Not likely.
2. They know you own a gun
Not likely.
3. An anonymous tip is made that you're dealing drugs.
The cops would laugh...Another not likely.
4. The cops raid your home, fail to find drugs, but find an unlocked gun
Again, the cops raiding my home...is not likely.
5. You go to jail
Once again not likely.
Your scenario doesn't work for me.....
MOLON LABE
It would be a wholesome thing for the DC Circuit to hold DC to "strict scrutiny", but I'm not sure that you are correct regarding the Circuit Court decision. I think the Supreme Court decision was narrower and avoided applying any particular level of scrutiny. I will re-read Heller to see if this is made clear or not.
Somebody else observed (don’t recall where) recently that the bulk of a SCOTUS verdict is basically dicta, explaining why they come to the conclusion they do; interesting as this is, it’s not the absolutely legally binding part. It’s the “Holdings” (or “Held”) part that is the binding core of the verdict, and the pinnacle thereof is the word “affirmed” (or “vacated & remanded”); we can nit-pick the rest, but the final word is in the “holdings”.
Read the footnotes.
If I understand it correctly, "dicta" is anything said in the decision that is not directly relevant to making the specific decision made. Comments in Heller regarding registration, felons, and even "bearing arms" aren't relevant to that part of the scope of the Second Amendment which applies to Heller.
What is less clear to me is whether the Heller decision renders much of Parker to be dicta. Since any level of scrutiny protects Heller's expressed interests, is the decision in Parker regarding "strict scrutiny" simply dicta, now that the Supreme Court has affirmed the lower court, using different reasoning to reach their decision?
Even if much of Parker is now dicta, DC runs a serious risk by flouting the Supreme Court's decision. It seems to me that the DC Circuit Court could, as a result of misbehavior by DC, rule that any ordinances must be approved by that court prior to passing. That would put the DC Circuit Court in the position of enforcing not just Heller, but the Second Amendment as ruled in Parker. That court would not find itself obligated to approve unConstitutional legislation.
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