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To: Dan from Michigan
It's now precident, and that's what we need.

That's the point. It is not precedent, it is dicta. The court did not need to reach the issue of whether the right to bear arms is a mere collective right. The case is wholly disposible on bad boy grounds. Thus the court's musing about collective rights is merely officious expostulation, ie dicta.

Sometimes if dicta is well reasoned, it can be influential. And if a case can be resolved in one direction on a couple of different grounds, the court addressing both when they need only address one is something more than dicta; rather it is a holding on both grounds that is subject to distinguishment in the future. But here you have a party that lost. So the court's discussing how he would have won as it were if he were not a bad boy is pure dicta, and will not in any way I think constrain a future court.

33 posted on 10/16/2001 3:51:18 PM PDT by Torie
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To: Torie
I'm not a lawyer. I have to send this decision to a 2a lawyer I know.
35 posted on 10/16/2001 3:54:44 PM PDT by Dan from Michigan
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