[rollo tomasi]

Technically the 2nd Amend. has not been incorporated via the 14th Amend. which means local and State governments can put all kinds of restrictions on firearms.

Unless the Massachusetts Constitution has a "shall not be infringed" criteria in their document it citizens are at the mercy of the power whores who the electorate sent to represent the people of Massachusetts.

[TeleStraightShooter]

So your suggesting that not one of the the "Life, Liberty & Property" clauses of the 14th does not come into play in regard to owning a handgun in Mass?

[rottndog]

Article XIV.
Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.


I don't see where the 2nd amendment is carved out by the 14th. This seems to me a good case to use to reinforce that the 2nd amendment is covered by the 14th.

[jwalsh07]

Technically the 2nd Amend. has not been incorporated via the 14th Amend. which means local and State governments can put all kinds of restrictions on firearms.

The 2nd Amendment doesn't have to be "incorporated via the 14th Amendment", it's quite clear in acknowledging an individual "right of the people" to KABA's.

The phrase "right of the people" is not amibigous at all. Why are you having trouble with it?

[FreedomCalls]

Technically the 2nd Amend. has not been incorporated via the 14th Amend. which means local and State governments can put all kinds of restrictions on firearms.

"Incorporation" only matters when the amendment says "Congress shall not" do something since it refers to Congress only -- unless "incorporated" via the 14th Amendment to mean state legislatures as well. Since the Second Amendment nowhere mentions "Congress" at all, the phrase "shall not be infringed" places a restriction on all levels of government subordinate to the Constitution.

[robertpaulsen]

"Unless the Massachusetts Constitution has a "shall not be infringed" criteria in their document it citizens are at the mercy of the power whores who the electorate sent to represent the people of Massachusetts."

They don't.

Part I, Article XVII of A Declaration of the Rights of the Inhabitants of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts:

"The people have a right to keep and to bear arms for the common defence. And as, in time of peace, armies are dangerous to liberty, they ought not to be maintained without the consent of the legislature; and the military power shall always be held in an exact subordination to the civil authority, and be governed by it."

In Commonwealth v. Davis, 343 N.E. 2d 847, 849 (1976), the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court has held that the above does not guarantee individual ownership or possession of weapons. The supreme court reasoned that the right to “bear arms” contained in Pt. 1, Art. XVII concerned the custom of keeping arms for use in militia service and was “not directed to guaranteeing individual ownership or possession of weapons.”

[Jack Black]

I think that's a minority reading of the BoR. First ammendment rights have been upheld without regard to state desires for 100 years.