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To: longtermmemmory
"The first act of the Bush Attorney General was to hold that the second amendment is an individuals right."

Yes, he did. His opinion and 10 cents will get you a cup of coffee.

What if Hillary is elected and her AG says it's not. What then? Will you then say this "upper case" opinion is the law of the land?

"The lower cases are just judges who are anti gun."

Perhaps. But it is these lower court opinions that the U.S. Supreme Court looks to when forming their opinion. If 99 cases are decided as a collective right and one case is an individual right, how do you think the USSC would vote. (Not how do you hope -- how do you think?)

34 posted on 07/13/2006 8:28:36 AM PDT by robertpaulsen
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To: robertpaulsen

>>>If 99 cases are decided as a collective right and one case is an individual right, how do you think the USSC would vote.<<<

Since anti-gun, "living constitution" liberals currently hold the majority of the seats on the Supreme Court, I would think they would rule the 2nd to be a collective right. However to do so they would have to ignore numerous contrary statements by our founding fathers, and one very important historical fact that occurred during the debates:

On September 9, 1789, during the Senate debate on the Bill of Rights, there was a proposed amendment to the 5th Article (the 2nd Amendment) which would have inserted the words 'for the common defence' next to the words 'bear arms'. This attempt by some senators to make the right to keep and bear arms a 'collective right' failed.

See: http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?hlaw:2:./temp/~ammem_QuYH::

Note that one of the earliest proposals (if not the earliest) on the RKBA, which occurred in the House on June 27, 1788, read as follows: "That the people have a right to keep and bear arms; that a well-regulated militia, composed of the body of the people trained to arms, is the proper, natural, and safe defence of a free state; that standing armies, in time of peace, are dangerous to liberty, and therefore ought to be avoided, as far as the circumstances and protection of the community will admit; and that, in all cases, the military should be under strict subordination to, and governed by, the civil power."

Note also the Right to Keep and Bear Arms is the first clause, and distinct from the others.

http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?hlaw:10:./temp/~ammem_QuYH::


252 posted on 07/29/2006 7:10:53 AM PDT by PhilipFreneau
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