Posted on 12/11/2002 1:35:54 PM PST by an amused spectator
Elitist judicial snob Stephen Reinhardt, of the Ninth District Court of Black-Robed Clowns, last week agreed with the assessment of Chief Justice Roger Brooke Taney, author of the Dred Scott decision.
Reinhardt wrote, and I quote: "...the Second Amendment does not confer an individual right to own or possess arms". Therefore, it follows that Reinhardt would categorically deny the Right of an American black to possess firearms.
Taney wrote a similar opinion denying black Americans the Right to Keep and Bear Arms: "...[citizenship] would give to persons of the negro race, who were recognised as citizens in any one State of the Union... ...the full liberty of speech in public and in private upon all subjects upon which its own citizens might speak; to hold public meetings upon political affairs, and to keep and carry arms wherever they [blacks] went."
A Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court affirmed in writing [1857] that citizens of the United States have the Right to Keep and Bear Arms.
Federal "Judge" Stephen Reinhardt (who of course enjoys an unrestricted 'Right To Carry Firearms', granted to Reinhardt and his fellow jurists by Congress in 2000 [HR 1752]) declared that all Hispanic, Oriental, Native American and White Americans are also denied the Right To Keep and Bear Arms, unilaterally stripping them of United States citizenship.
Perhaps California , Land of Fruits and Nuts, has finally decided to let her inhabitants know that they are "subjects", and not citizens.
It follows from Reinhardt's declarations that California might be considered one of the last Slaveholding States, as described by Chief Justice Taney:
More especially, it cannot be believed that the large slaveholding States regarded [its subjects] as included in the word citizens, or would have consented to a Constitution which might compel them to receive them in that character from another State. For if they were so received, and entitled to the privileges and immunities of citizens, it would exempt them from the operation of the special laws and from the police regulations which they considered to be necessary for their own safety.
It would give to [subjects of the State of California], who were recognised as citizens in any one State of the Union, the right to enter every other State whenever they pleased, singly or in companies, without pass or passport, and without obstruction, to sojourn there as long as they pleased, to go where they pleased at every hour of the day or night without molestation, unless they committed some violation of law for which a [citizen] would be punished; and it would give them the full liberty of speech in public and in private upon all subjects upon which ...[true] citizens might speak; to hold public meetings upon political affairs, and to keep and carry arms wherever they went.
And all of this would be done in the face of the [other] subject[s]... of the...[State of California], both free and slaves, and inevitably producing discontent and insubordination among them, and endangering the peace and safety [and tax collecting] of the State [of California].
"The first, which we will refer to as the “traditional individual rights” model, holds that the Second Amendment guarantees to individual private citizens a fundamental right to possess and use firearms for any purpose at all, subject only to limited government regulation. This view, urged by the NRA and other firearms enthusiasts, as well as by a prolific cadre of fervent supporters in the legal academy, had never been adopted by any court until the recent Fifth Circuit decision in United States v. Emerson, 270 F.3d 203, 227 (5th Cir. 2001), cert. denied, 122 S. Ct. 2362 (2002).Except for the United States Supreme Court in 1857, under Chief Justice Taney.
Apparently, if the decision happened long enough ago, and you dislike the Justice that uttered it, you can just drop the body into the river at the dark of the moon, and make up your own interpretations.
Right, "Judge" Clownhardt?
"The second and tenth counts are equally defective. The right there specified is that of 'bearing arms for a lawful purpose.' This is not a right granted by the Constitution. Neither is it in any manner dependent upon that instrument for its existence. The second amendment declares that it shall not be infringed; but this, as has been seen, means no more than that it shall not be infringed by Congress. This is one of the amendments that has no other effect than to restrict the powers of the national government,..."
"Until such time as Cruikshank and Presser are overturned the Second Amendment limits only federal action, and we affirm the district court's decision "that the Second Amendment stays the hand of the National Government only."
That's a damn sight less sweeping than Reinhardt's ill-conceived and wrong conclusion; and the above statement which more than suggests that the 2nd is about an individual right to keep and bear, was from the same rotten 9th Circuit, just 10 years ago.
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