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
OOPS....
The response was intended to be to “epow” not Mojave. Sorry.
Welcome to FR.....
The US Constitution is superior to state law and always has been. The Bill of Rights is part of that. The states can not restrict the right to keep and bear arms because Article VI says that can’t.
Law of the land so to speak.
You have to read the whole Constitution, not just the parts you want to read.
True. That "rightful resource" being the power to call "forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions" in Section 8.
You seem to be saying what I’ve always understood: The RKBA is granted by God, not the 2nd Amendment. 2A is codification of the same as well as a “don’t do it or else you’ll receive any such infringement in bullets-first format” to the federal government?
Pretty much. However, I think this is a case that at least four justices will want to hear to put an end to any question about the Second Amendment being an individual right.
I agree with your premise that the Second Amendment isn't self-incorporating, and I also agree with your premise that incorporation isn't really all that great of an idea in the scheme of things, but it is here, and it's certainly not going away anytime soon.
So since we have to live with it, might as well make the best of it.
By discovering another emanation from a penumbra and inserting it into the Constitution?
No, the 2nd was simply a declaratory restriction clarifying the powers delegated (and not delegated) to the federal government.
In the hands of the federal judiciary, the right of free speech has become legalized porn trumping state law as well as federal judges silencing prayer in local schools and removing manger displays from town squares.
I don't think that placing the 2nd Amendment on that same path is making the best of it.
I don't think so. If the Supremes don't take this appeal the people of any state or city in the 7th circuit's district can be screwed out of a constitutionally protected right simply by an ordinance of any local jackleg board or commission.
However, since the 5th and 9th circuit courts have previously opined that the 2nd is a right of the people not the states, and the USSC itself confirmed that opinion by protecting the people of the D.C from infringement of the right to keep and bear arms by their LOCAL, NOT FEDERAL, government, I think it's likely that the Supremes will grant certiorari to the NRA appeal.
It's only common sense that the 1789 Congress that added the BOR to the original document intended the 2nd of it's 10 BOR amendments to apply to the people and not to the states, or else that Congress would not have put the words "right of the people" into the language of the amendment.
The 1st, 4th, 9th, and 10th amendments all specify "of the people" the same as does the 2nd, and none of those rights are in question by modern day courts. AFAIK only the 2nd has been interpreted to apply only to a right of the states as a corporate body but not to the people of those states, and that interpretation has only come from liberal modern day jurists who are hostile to the 1789 Congress's obvious intent to guarantee the people's right as individuals to keep and bear arms.
Article VI's supremacy clause be damned, huh?
Thanks. I couldn't answer DesertRhino's question because I'm not a lawyer and I don't play one on TV.
No, but it is the supreme law of the land. So when it says a right of the people shall not be infringed, it restricts not only the federal government but state government as well.
Article VII infer from your assertion of state powers to abrogate enumerated rights of the people that you also supported the SCOTUS Kelo decision allowing states to expand "public use" to mean "any public benefit" under the takings clause of the fifth amendment?
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This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.
The Framers universally understood that the "supremecy clause" did NOT impose the Bill of Rights' restrictions on the states, your "Framers be damned" attitude notwithstanding.
As the Supreme Court held in Barron in 1833:
Had the framers of these amendments intended them to be limitations on the powers of the State governments, they would have imitated the framers of the original Constitution, and have expressed that intention. Had Congress engaged in the extraordinary occupation of improving the Constitutions of the several States by affording the people additional protection from the exercise of power by their own governments in matters which concerned themselves alone, they would have declared this purpose in plain and intelligible language.But it is universally understood, it is a part of the history of the day, that the great revolution which established the Constitution of the United States was not effected without immense opposition. Serious fears were extensively entertained that those powers which the patriot statesmen who then watched over the interests of our country deemed essential to union, and to the attainment of those invaluable objects for which union was sought, might be exercised in a manner dangerous to liberty. In almost every convention by which the Constitution was adopted, amendments to guard against the abuse of power were recommended. These amendments demanded security against the apprehended encroachments of the General Government -- not against those of the local governments.
Disarming the Law-abiding only empowers the criminals and the government.
There is NO other reason to Disarm the Law-abiding than to empower the government, It has been shown time after time that it does not reduce crime.
There is only one reason the Statists want Disarm the Law-abiding either through Registration and then Confiscation, Taxation, restricting ammo sales, treaties or Judicial fiat.
In this case, a restriction solely on the federal government. Just as the Framers intended.
Your skill at discerning the framers' intent, contrary to their clearly written words, is amazing.
Backwards. You leftists want to insert an expression that was never made. As the Supreme Court noted in 19833:
"In compliance with a sentiment thus generally expressed, to quiet fears thus extensively entertained, amendments were proposed by the required majority in Congress and adopted by the States. These amendments contain no expression indicating an intention to apply them to the State governments."
As the Supreme Court noted in 1833:
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