A Slippery Slope on Guns (Hurl, you will)

Truthdig / The Washington Post ^ | October 5, 2009 | Marie Cocco

[P8riot]

"An armed society is a polite society. Manners are good when one may have to back up his acts with his life." - Robert A. Heinlein

We're just doing our part to restore civility to our society.

[2ndDivisionVet]

"All they have to do is sneak in a provision declaring gun control by the feds in some innocuous bill such like they’re doing with health care ... guns gone ...."

There would be that messy little task of collecting hundreds of millions of firearms from citizens, though. I predict that won't go well.

[cc2k]

SkyDancer wrote:

All they have to do is sneak in a provision declaring gun control by the feds in some innocuous bill such like they’re doing with health care ... guns gone ....

That won’t work. The Heller decision last year did away with that option. In DC v. Heller, SCOTUS ruled that “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms” as protected in the Second amendment is a right for individuals to keep and bear arms. So any federal law to outlaw individual ownership of firearms would run afoul of the precedent of DC v. Heller.

The case this year involves Chicago. And the main question is one of “incorporation.” That’s the principle that the 14th amendment, the language “No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States,"” means that the states can’t violate a person’s second amendment rights. The court in the past has ruled that the first amendment, the fourth amendment, the fifth and sixth amendments all apply to the state due to this language in the 14th amendment. They have never ruled whether that also means that the 2nd Amendment applies to the states.

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From the desk of cc2k:

Legislative Proposal: Federalism tax credit Term Limits from the Grass Roots The Two Million Frog March (Why 9-12-2009 spells trouble for Republicans and Democrats alike)

[PLMerite]

“Ms. Marie Cocco can write at length of her opposition to RKBA without mentioning the second amendment. It’s a unique ability of the Left to ignore facts.”

That’s because the Constitution is irrelevant to the Left. They look upon the United States as just another unfairly rich country for them to “convert” to socialism.

Molon Labe.

[AreaMan]

The gun lobby’s potency already has led Congress to abandon the 1990s-era ban on semiautomatic assault weapons, a prohibition that was broadly supported by law enforcement officials.

Actually it was law enforcement politicians which is what most police chiefs and county sherrifs are. As politicians they are MOSTLY risk averse and seek only the preservation of their political life.

[PackerBoy]

The ruling should look a lot like the Heller ruling if the Supreme Court finds that the Second Amendment is applicable to the states (and local governments).

[OldPossum]

“Owners of rifles used in hunting, for example, are unaffected by the local law.”

The editors at The Washington Post write this as kinda proof that Chicago recognizes some aspect of the Second Amendment.

News flash to those people: The Second Amendment never was about hunting.

[Pox]

All they have to do is sneak in a provision declaring gun control by the feds in some innocuous bill such like they’re doing with health care ... guns gone ....

As much as they desire to take our guns away from us, the real question is can they resist their inner voices and fascist impulses that relentlessly drive them to actually try something as dumb as this. I sincerely hope they don't try it.

[SkyDancer]

I’m trying to guess what is the one thing Barack Insane Obama’s administration will do that will have Americans hold their collective breath as in OMG!

[SkyDancer]

I’m trying to guess what is the one thing Barack Insane Obama’s administration will do that will have Americans hold their collective breath as in OMG!

[PackerBoy]

IMHO Scalia was playing 'possum for THIS case by being the master of restraint in Heller. He understands the Second Amendment and its historical significance.

[2ndDivisionVet]

In some ways Mr. Heinlein was a guide and maybe a prophet. Take his novel Starship Troopers: In the Terran Federation the rights of a full Citizen (to vote, and hold public office) must be earned through some form of volunteer "military" service. Those residents who have not exercised their right to perform this Federal Service retain the other rights generally associated with a modern democracy (free speech, assembly, etc.), but they cannot vote or hold public office. This structure arose ad hoc after the collapse of the 20th century western democracies, brought on by both social failures at home and military defeat by the Chinese Hegemony overseas. I really like that idea. If it were already enacted here, you'd have never heard of Barack Obama.

[Gay State Conservative]

Hey Marie,would you care to hazard a guess which side your fellow Washington Post alum (and anti fellow 2nd Amendment opponent),Carl Rowan,would take in this case?

For that matter,what do you think Rosie O'Donuts' bodyguards might say about this case?????

[300winmag]

I believe that men like Scalia are just as subject to the pressures of politics as any member of congress is.

Which is why I believe the WaPo and Slimes are written to reach a few thousand people in and near government power. They make it clear that they want a 5-4 decision that goes their way.

These are people who can send notes, emails, and phone calls to USSC justices, and expect to have them returned. They just have to remind a couple of fence-sitters how the wrong ruling will destroy life as they know it.

[Jack Hammer]

Marie Cocco can thank America’s civilian marksmen, who became the brilliant shooters of the European and Pacific theaters during World War II, that she’s got the freedom to blather on in English, rather than doing hard time in a German or Japanese penal colony. Clearly, she’s an empty-headed idiot.

[OpeEdMunkey]

...in an urbanized, mobile—and angry but eminently polite—society...

There. Fixed it.

[Doomonyou]

BLOAT

[Psalm 144]

We are simply reaching the point of irreconcileable differences on a host of critical issues in this nation. Dictatorship, dissolution, civil war are the only likely results. I advocate none of these - I am just doing the math.

I just don’t see the Constitution fairy coming in and restoring liberty. Not with the domestic enemies in the positions they hold.

[2ndDivisionVet]

The "Jesusland" (Red) and "United States of Canada" (Blue) that some wag offered up after Kerry's loss works for me:

[OpeEdMunkey]

Chicago will be depopulated as the gun war of all against all consumes the City and daily sweeps must begin to collect the bodies from the sidewalks.

Yeah...that's never happened before.

Al Capone