The First Amendment does not preclude a person to have a permit or to have any kind of background check or to be limited in conversations. So why should the Second, or the rest of the first Ten?
Posted on 03/04/2010 12:50:14 PM PST by neverdem
Justice Antonin Scalia delivered the big laugh line of the hour at Tuesday’s Supreme Court hearings in McDonald v. Chicago. That case’s outcome will decide whether the Second Amendment rights vindicated in 2008’s D.C. v. Heller apply to states and localities. Scalia amused the crowd by asking a question that has perplexed some legal scholars and gun activists both for and against McDonald lawyer Alan Gura’s general goal of applying Second Amendment protections to all levels of American government.
To get the joke, such as it was, you first need the background about what was at stake. The Bill of Rights was originally interpreted to bind only the federal government. The framers of the 14th Amendment intended to change that, and bind the states as well in respecting Americans’ rights. This was in 1868, when recently freed slaves had their rights to work, own property, and bear arms widely abused and unprotected by state and local governments.
The history of the 14th Amendment's passage indicates that a certain part of the amendment was meant to bear the interpretive burden of applying—“incorporating” in the legal lingo—the Bill of Rights (and other restrictions on government power) to the states. That was the Privileges or Immunities Clause: “No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States.”
Since a controversial 1873 Supreme Court decision in a set of cases regarding a slaughterhouse monopoly in Louisiana, known as the Slaughterhouse Cases, the Privileges or Immunities Clause has been pretty much interpreted out of existence. The Supreme Court has instead used the vaguer and less textually sensible “due process of law" provision of the same amendment to incorporate certain rights against the states. Using that tool, the Court over the past century has already...
(Excerpt) Read more at reason.com ...
Great read even for non-law experts! (like me)
Reading the oral argument transcript at the Supreme Court site it would be astonishing of Chicago was upheld.
This is the reason the Socialists need and want to pack the court. It is hard to get around that document.
It was funny to read Bryer choking on Heller.
Heard elsewhere on FR: Obama moves to add three justices to SCOTUS (total of 12) to take control.
FDR tried it - he wanted to get it to 15. He thought that justices over 70 were too old to get the work done so he wanted to add younger justices to make-up for the old ones.
If zero gets 3 justices, we’re doomed as a country.
I say that because he expressed doubts about a right to self-defense existing ~ but we know better. It exists because rational people do attempt to defend themselves.
Show me. Heller and McDonald were handgun bans. The NRA had amicus briefs in both. The NRA had oral argument time in McDonald. Here's their fact sheet link about: Semi-Automatic Firearms and the “Assault Weapon” Issue
It is at once refreshing and inspiring to read about all the great people that make up this great country of ours. Here we have a man who at age 76 was looking forward to live out his life in obscurity. It is a wonderful thing that he is the catalyst to foment this case which hopefully results in all of us citizens realizing the safety and surity of the second amendment. This, IMO, is witness that God continues to provide guidance and protection to all who call America home.
God has a special providence for fools, drunks, and the United States of America.
The goa was the only group that asked the Supreme Court to take the “narrow” view on Heller. Thanks for nothing, goa.
“Obama is more evil, than he is stupid.”
I honestly have not seen anything to convince me that Obama is not painfully stupid.
It begins: House Dems backing away from Obama’s deadline for ObamaCare
Self-Esteem, Self-Destruction Excellent George Will!
Some noteworthy articles about politics, foreign or military affairs, IMHO, FReepmail me if you want on or off my list.
This just in! Scalia just stepped down from the bench an then blew away Ginsberg, Sotomayor, and Breyer with a Walther P99!
Oh I forgot its ‘ole 2.5, the GOA hating NRA member…
Here is a thread where you spewed your typical, and not very enlightened, rant without listening to a word someone else says… Typical 2.5 whining rant about the GOA.
and here you are in another thread and using your typical whining rant with me… 2.5 gets the real facts and then gets caught in a couple of, well let’s say factual distortions.
...and after getting your butt severely kicked to the curb, you then resorted to distortions, twisting everyone’s words and then out right lying about your actions in attempting to defend your weak bias.
Many people have answered your stupid questions MANY times; you just refuse to see it. Point is if you can’t have an honest debate fighting a common enemy, then do everyone else a favor… stay on the sidelines and argue with yourself, don’t try to distort the focus of this fight.
Every 2A group, no matter what you may think of them should be WELCOMED to the struggle we are facing, many former NRA members, myself included, who definitely have no love for the NRA leadership have been going back into the group because the stakes are so high, don’t let your petty bias cloud the big picture.
AOV sends with warmest regards.
Another lame copy and paste post from someone who hasn’t a clue. The truth about the goa hurts, doesn’t it? The only thing the goa has ever done is criticize the NRA and put together some program for CCW laws which they had hated and criticized the NRA for. THE goa DOESN’T WANT TO END GUN CONTROL BECAUSE THEY DON’T HAVE ANY OTHER PROGRAMS TO FALL BACK ON. THE GOA HASN’T FILED A SINGLE LAWSUIT LIKE THE NRA AND THE SAF.
I also see you never have the guts to defend the NRA when guys like HighlyOpinionated libel them.
Let me tell you something else about Otis McDonald (this 76-year-old man with a wife and eight kids) : If you are lucky enough to meet the guy, you’re going to love him. Really. In about a half hour of conversation, ... the guy was devastatingly charming, in a completely unstudied way. He’s compelling and convincing and real, telling quotidian stories about ... late-night fishing; ...of his life and the role he knows he’s playing in his country’s history. One minute laughing and light, the other giving a sincerely tear-jerking account of the pride and gratitude he feels toward everyone else,I think I already know Otis McDonald. Maybe not *this* Otis McDonald, but the other 'Otis McDonald's' of the Chicago I knew growing up.
The Otis McDonald who would get up before dawn and go Perch Fishing along Lake Michigan - where white and black fished together, just people fishing. Or the 'Otis McDonald' who stopped a purse snatcher from taking my mom's purse (the snatcher was Black) just because it was wrong and my mom needed help. Or the 'Otis McDonald' my buddies and I met met many times Carp fishing on Saturdays in the 'Dirty 'D' (Des Plaines River), us swapping some beer, or our Carp for their worms. Or even the 'Otis McDonald' who in the 80's asked if I needed help when my Caddy was overheating and I was parked on the street in a not very nice area.
Yes, there were many 'Otis McDonald's' who lived in Chicago. My family and I met a lot of them. And my grandmother who passed away in '63 at 85, told me of the many more 'Otis McDonald's' she met over her lifetime.
So I think I know 'Otis McDonald' of Chicago. And very I'm glad this one is still there.
I would for like someone to explain how it matters in a practical sense
whether the case is founded on the “privileges or immunities clause”
or on the “due process of law”.
I do not understand what difference it makes to John Q. Citizen.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.