Posted on 07/29/2008 2:00:44 PM PDT by neverdem
The man who successfully challenged the D.C. handgun ban before the U.S. Supreme Court filed a second federal lawsuit yesterday, alleging that the District's new gun-registration system is burdensome and continues to unlawfully outlaw most semiautomatic pistols.
Dick A. Heller, a 66-year-old security guard who lives on Capitol Hill, and two other plaintiffs allege in the lawsuit that the D.C. government violated the letter and the spirit of the landmark Supreme Court decision, issued June 26, that struck down the District's decades-old handgun ban.
The 5 to 4 ruling concluded that the Second Amendment grants individuals the right to possess guns for self-defense but said governments may impose reasonable restrictions. The lawsuit filed yesterday in U.S District Court says the District's restrictions go too far.
The suit urges U.S. District Judge Richard M. Urbina to toss most of the District's new requirements, which include ballistics tests of registered handguns. It also asks him to eliminate restrictions on semiautomatic handguns and to order D.C. police to approve the handgun applications of the three plaintiffs.
The suit could take months, if not years, to resolve. Until then, the new regulations remain in place. The District's top litigator said yesterday that he expects "a long fight" over the rules.
The District's handgun registration is limited almost entirely to revolvers; a previous D.C. law bans machine guns and includes a broad definition of such weapons, encompassing most semiautomatic pistols. Such magazine-loaded semiautomatic pistols -- the kind of...
--snip--
That rule flouts the Supreme Court decision, making it virtually impossible for a gun owner to legally use a weapon in self-defense, said Heller's attorney, Stephen P. Halbrook.
"Under the D.C. [law], a robber has to make an appointment with you so you can get your gun ready for him," Halbrook said in an interview...
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
The fact that SCOTUS voted 5-4 on the Second Amendment ought to send chills down your spine, folks.
It is thoroughly befuddling how allegedly intelligent, well educated, individuals can be so determindly stupid.
That's what JFK and Bobby did to southern states in the sixties. But now we play nice. Supreme Court rulings only matter if liberals win. Then they are universal and applicable everywhere.
Exactly. I’m sure that is their game plan.
“Sanctuary” cities disobey federal law regarding illegels, so I guess DC figures that they can disobey the SC.
Bull? I think you misunderstand both my comments and the situation. They've already thumbed their noses at the supreme court and have demonstrated willingness to send men with guns to take care of anyone who might attempt to break this unconstitutional law. Resist and you will be met with lethal force, which is the ultimate threat behind all laws.
They are counting on their ability to keep this tied up in legal proceedings for as long as they desire. If a court strikes their newest law down, they will change a word and continue doing exactly what they have in the past because there are no consequences to them. They don't have to pay for the lawsuits.
*****You're forgetting that the Bush Justice Dept's brief was in favor of the D.C. law.*****
Does your statement above mean that the President does not have to obey the decision of the SC? I will see the beginning of a civil war. The military will be divided—for many members support the RTKABAs.
I am a veteran who had two important responsibilities: 1. To swear allegiance to the Const., etc., and 2, To respect the decisions of my officers; particularly, the CIC.
Given that the Const. supercedes all, I would fight to support it even if it meant to go against my CIC.
You’re definately my kind of guy, but I was just pointing out where Jorge stands on this.
For refrence note how our border patrol officers have been treated: imprisoned for 10 years for doing their duty.
Yes it is.
Starting on page 62 of The Opinion:
JUSTICE BREYER moves on to make a broad jurisprudential point: He criticizes us for declining to establish a level of scrutiny for evaluating Second Amendment restrictions. He proposes, explicitly at least, none of the traditionally expressed levels (strict scrutiny, intermediate scrutiny,rational basis), but rather a judge-empowering “interestbalancing inquiry” that “asks whether the statute burdens a protected interest in a way or to an extent that is out ofproportion to the statute’s salutary effects upon otherimportant governmental interests.” Post, at 10. After an exhaustive discussion of the arguments for and against gun control, JUSTICE BREYER arrives at his interest-balanced answer: because handgun violence is a problem,because the law is limited to an urban area, and because there were somewhat similar restrictions in the foundingperiod (a false proposition that we have already discussed), the interest-balancing inquiry results in theconstitutionality of the handgun ban. QED.
We know of no other enumerated constitutional right whose core protection has been subjected to a freestanding “interest-balancing” approach. The very enumeration ofthe right takes out of the hands of government—even the Third Branch of Government—the power to decide on acase-by-case basis whether the right is really worth insisting upon. A constitutional guarantee subject to futurejudges’ assessments of its usefulness is no constitutional guarantee at all. Constitutional rights are enshrined withthe scope they were understood to have when the peopleadopted them, whether or not future legislatures or (yes) even future judges think that scope too broad. We would not apply an “interest-balancing” approach to the prohibition of a peaceful neo-Nazi march through Skokie. See National Socialist Party of America v. Skokie, 432 U. S. 43 (1977) (per curiam). The First Amendment contains the freedom-of-speech guarantee that the people ratified,which included exceptions for obscenity, libel, and disclosure of state secrets, but not for the expression of extremely unpopular and wrong-headed views. The Second Amendment is no different. Like the First, it is the very product of an interest-balancing by the people—which JUSTICE BREYER would now conduct for them anew. And whatever else it leaves to future evaluation, it surelyelevates above all other interests the right of law-abiding,responsible citizens to use arms in defense of hearth and home.
They had by this point mentioned execeptions and went on to say:
JUSTICE BREYER chides us for leaving so many applications of the right to keep and bear arms in doubt, and for not providing extensive historical justification for those regulations of the right that we describe as permissible. See post, at 42–43. But since this case represents thisCourt’s first in-depth examination of the Second Amendment, one should not expect it to clarify the entire field,any more than Reynolds v. United States, 98 U. S. 145 (1879), our first in-depth Free Exercise Clause case, leftthat area in a state of utter certainty. And there will be time enough to expound upon the historical justificationsfor the exceptions we have mentioned if and when thoseexceptions come before us
No, you only need their acquiesene, that is non interferance. That Obammie will have. It's Tradition! After all, it's not the Turkish military, with a long history of making the politicians conform to their Constitution.
Fake Politically appointed Police Chief
Real, mobilization assistant to the Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance, HQ USAF.
Immediate means "right now" not some indeterminate time in the future, even if that time is not far away at all. Wouldn't wash.
But neither will the mooning of the Supreme Court of the United States by the pissants of the DC Council.
Thanks for the link.
Number one post on this thread.
The City went to hell in a handbasket faster than ever when the place got home rule again.
Breyer’s dissent on this case proves he's a raving idiot who is Constitutionally illiterate.
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