Posted on 06/04/2009 5:59:45 AM PDT by epow
On Wednesday, June 3, the National Rifle Association filed a petition for certiorari to the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of NRA v. Chicago. The NRA strongly disagrees with yesterday's decision issued by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, holding that the Second Amendment does not apply to state and local governments
The Bill of Rights is a set of declaratory restrictions on the powers granted to the federal government by the states.
Unlike some amendments within the bill of rights, the 2nd amendment does not contain the words "Congress" or any other language limiting its effectivity to the federal government. So while the courts have used the 14th amendment to incorporate other restrictions against the federal government onto the states, such incorporation of the 2nd amendment is not even necessary. What part of "SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED" is ambiguous to you?
The whole POINT of Heller is that DC was not giving citizens a constitutional right that **states** had to honor. It wasnt to grant DC some unique gun rights that don’t apply to states. I think you are 180 degrees off on this one.
At ratification,
some states DID have a “state religion”.
However, the first specifically states, wrt state religion, that CONGRESS shall establish no religion.
So I don’t think that’s a valid analog.
Apparently they're not the only ones.
That is absolute nonsense. Go read (among others) the Tenth Amendment. I believe it also says something about powers reserved to “the people”.
Shall not be infringed by the federal government. Leftist hate original intent.
Actually, what is shameful it the way the courts dance around the obvious intent of the Framers. It is obvious that the people who wrote "Congress shall make no law" in the first Amendment intended the first Amendment restrictions to apply only to the Federal government; and when they left that phrase out of the other Amendments restrictive on government power, they intended the restrictions to apply to the Federal Government and to the States as well. Marshall and Baron notwithstanding, it is pretty absurd to suggest that the various restrictions on how persons charged with a crime can be treated applied only to the Federal Government when the only Federal crime was treason and all those who actually were indicted were charged with violating State laws.
ML/NJ
You are obviously up to something a little *unusual* here. You don’t think 2nd amendment applies to the States,,and you think governments clearly had a right to set an official religion,, until someone looked in the 14th amendment, and irrationally “found” that government can’t organize an official church.
You mystify me.
Exactly. The leftists and their useful idiots would have those historic protections replaced by ad hoc legislation from the federal bench.
“original intent”
leaves no room for your average inferiority laden narcissistic leftist to “show his brilliance”.
In order to do that, you must provide “new insight”, IE, your own whims instead of original intent.
It did, but it also limited the states in some cases. The 2nd states that a militia is necesarry for a free state. If states disarmed the people, there could be no militia. I defy you to show me any evidence that the founding fathers thought the states had that power.
The Constitution and the Framers. In others words, the opposite of you.
You remind me of a kid I grew up with. He would constantly annoy other kids and get beaten up. I asked him why he did it, and he told me it was the only way to get attention.
Or the word "states."
Right on !
Then you argue that 2nd amendment is a “collective right”. It cannot be otherwise, if you argue that a state can pass a law that has the exact opposite effect. This argument means a citizen has no enforceable 2nd amendment right except on federal property.
MOLWN LABE!
If the 2nd only restricts the federal government from disarming state militias as the 7th's decision implies, then the Heller decision wouldn't have nullified the local D.C. government's handgun ban. The 7th circuit's decision is itself a violation of a right that was just upheld by the highest court in the land last year. As I said before, unbelievable!
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
The Constitution did NOT delegate the traditional state police powers over firearms to the federal government. Now we have various Constitution haters on these threads calling for the federal judiciary to assume those states' police powers for itself.
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