Supreme Court Urged to Take on Gun Rights

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court is being asked to overturn an appeals court ruling that said the Constitution does not guarantee people a personal right to own a gun.

The court's past rulings on Second Amendment gun rights — many in the 1800s — are a mess that should be straightened out when the justices return from their summer break, an appeal being filed Thursday at the court said.

The appeal relates to one of two closely watched cases from the liberal-leaning 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco. The high court will also decide later this year whether to review a 9th Circuit ruling that banned teacher-led reciting of the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools because of the phrase "under God."

The gun case includes an unlikely group of challengers — not the National Rifle Association or other organized groups, but some rugby teammates and friends. They include a police SWAT officer, a Purple Heart recipient, a former Marine sniper, a parole officer, a stockbroker and others with varied political views. They had sued the state over laws banning high-powered weapons.

"Citizens need the Second Amendment for protection of their families, homes and businesses," their attorney and rugby teammate, Gary Gorski of Fair Oaks, Calif., wrote in the appeal of a ruling that upheld California's assault weapons ban.

The Second Amendment states, "A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."

The 9th Circuit panel said the amendment's intent was to protect gun rights of militias, not individuals. A more conservative appeals court in New Orleans has ruled that individuals have a constitutional right to guns.

Eugene Volokh, a constitutional law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, said the Supreme Court's record on the Second Amendment is thin and odds are against the justices taking the case.

"The court hasn't jumped into it since 1939," he said. "At some point the Supreme Court will want to make sure it is interpreted consistently throughout the nation."

The case brings a politically charged issue to the court just before the presidential election. If justices agree to hear the case, it will be scheduled for argument next year.

Last year, gun-control advocates were dismayed by the Bush administration's endorsement of individual gun-ownership rights, in a filing at the Supreme Court that effectively reversed long-standing federal government policy on interpreting the Second Amendment.

The administration could weigh in now in this case. Mathew Nosanchuk, litigation director for the pro-gun control Violence Policy Center, said it's better strategy for the White House to steer clear of the issue. The California case involves a state assault weapons ban, and there is controversy over whether Congress should renew a federal assault weapons ban next year.

President Bush has said he supports extending the federal ban, but sentiment is strong in the GOP-controlled Congress to let the ban expire and Bush has not put much energy into efforts to extend it.

Some advocates on both sides probably want the justices to decline to review the 9th Circuit ruling, said gun rights attorney Stephen Halbrook. "It's a wild card. You really can't read where they'll go."

He also said the case is complicated because it involves questions about state authority to undercut gun rights and whether the challengers had standing to sue the state.

Justice O'Connor said in her recent tv interview that she does not normally refer to the original documents, etc. -- since things like DNA, night vison, thermal imaging. etc. were not known then.

I guess that the content of TV, radio, the Internet and anything printed on modern presses can be censored for political content by a government agency - after all, none of those things were known then.

I was disapointed,...

Disappointed doesn't begin to describe how I feel about such a statement coming from a sitting SC Justice - hasn't she ever heard of amending the Constitution? If something so desperately needs to be changed, the Congress will pass a resolution and send it out to the states, where it will be given a fairly quick thumbs up or thumbs down. No amendment = its not on our radar screen, Madame Justice, so leave the Constitution alone!

The old witch should be impeached. The only trouble is that the same Republican Snivelors, err, Senators that can't get a mere Appeals Court nomination to a floor vote will surely be unwilling to entertain this idea, let alone carry it out.

Cruikshank, and thus Presser which relies upon it, stand for the proposition that the intent of the 14th amendment was not to apply the guarantees of the first 8 amendments to the Constitution against the states but to protect something or other that was a unique attribute of United States citizenship against state infringement. The Court in those day said exactly the same thing about application of first amendment restrictions on state governmental action. In reality the entent of the 14th amendment was to do exactly what they said it wasn't. It's not really clear what they thought were the "priveleges and imunitites" of citizenship that the 14th reffered to, but they could have asked the authors and other Congresscritters who voted for it and their state legislative counterparts who voted to ratify it about that meaning, at least in the Cruikshank case.

Those early 14th amendment cases led directly to today's abuse of the "due process" and for that matter "equal protection" clauses of the 14th amendment. Latter, the Court, unlike the activist Court of today, didn't want to directly overrule the "Slaughterhouse" cases, and so had to come up with some other reason for applying those portions of the Bill of Rights that they favored, against the states.

Barron vs. Balitimore predates the 14th Amendment. Cruikshank and thus Presser rely in part on it. They are equally defective on that account. All of these cases point to the doctrine that the states do not need to obey the restrictions of the Bill of Rights. That doctrine has been overturned, but only for "favored" rights, by use of the due process and occasionally equal protection clauses of the 14th amendment, leaving the "priveleges and immunities" clause as an unwanted bastard, whereas in reality it was intended as the heart of the 14ths amendment's first section.

"... sophistry."

Which the state and federal courts, and particularly the Supreme Court, have proven themselves quite good at, don't you think?

Yes sir, I do.

A Supreme Court that rules a State may violate the 14th Amendment, for the benefits of diversity, is a scofflaw court.

The USSC gave the Second Amendment the same contemptuous treatment in Cruikshank.

"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." -- US Supreme Court, U.S. v. Cruikshank, 92 U.S. 542 (1875), Presser v. State of Illinois, 116 U.S. 252 (1886)

Really? Try demanding a jury trial in small claims court or a grand jury indictment in a case where a state provides for bringing a prosecution by information.

My point exactly. If the Supreme Court had enforced the restrictions of the first 8 amendments against the states, you would be able to have a jury trial in small claims court..assuming you were willing to wait long enough and states would have to employ grand juries for all indictments, at least felony indictments. (Amendment 5 says "infamous crimes"); In fact that's a very good example of "selective incorporation" via the due process clauss. Parts of the 5th amendment have been "incorporated" against the states, i.e. Miranda rights to not incriminate oneself (right to an attorney is in the 6th amendment, also partly incorporated)

Hitler came to power by turning the working class, unemployed, and academic elite against the conservative republic. After Der Fuhrer's election ceased being a political conspiracy and was transformed into a fashionable social phenomenon, party membership was especially popular with educators, bureaucrats, and the press.
Being a Nazi was "politically correct". They called themselves "The Children of the New Age and looked down at everyone else. As Hitler acquired more power, he referred to his critics with Hatred". Anyone who questioned Nazi high-handedness in the German press was branded a "Conservative ReactionaryThe Nazi reign of terror began with news reports on the Jews, Bohemians and Gypses who were said to be arming themselves to overthrow Hitler demanded that all good people register their guns so that they wouldn't fall into the hands of "terrorists and madmen".Right-wing fanatics of the "Old Order" who protested firearms registration were arrested by the S.S. and put in jail for "fomenting hatred against the Government of the German people".
When the Policia Bewakken, or local police, refused to take away guns from townsfolk, they themselves were disarmed and dragged out into the street and shot to death by the S.A. and the S.S.. When several local ministers spoke out against these atrocities, they were imprisoned and never seen again.
The Gestapo began to confiscate and seize the homes, businesses, bank accounts, and personal belongings of wealthy conservative citizens who had prospered in the old Republic. Pamphleteers who urged revolt against the Nazis were shot on site by national law enforcement and the military. Gypsies and Jews were detained and sent to labor camps. Mountain roads throughout central Europe were closed to prevent the escape of fugitives into the wilderness, and to prevent the movement and concealment of partisan resistance fighters.
Public schools rewrote history and Hitler youth groups taught the
children to report their parents to their teachers for anti-Nazi remarks. Such parents disappeared. Pagan animism became the state religion of the Third Reich and Christians were widely condemned as "right wing fanatics".
Millions of books were burned first and then people. Millions of them burned in huge ovens after they were first gassed to death. Unmarried women were paid large sums of money to have babies out of wedlock and then given medals for it. Evil was declared as being good, and good was condemned as being evil. Order was coming to the German people.
Is history repeating it self with the new-left?

-Red Barr-

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