Posted on 03/09/2007 8:10:02 AM PST by cryptical
Edited on 03/09/2007 10:38:14 AM PST by Admin Moderator. [history]
BREAKING NEWS -- Divided three-judge D.C. Circuit panel holds that the District of Columbia's gun control laws violate individuals' Second Amendment rights: You can access today's lengthy D.C. Circuit ruling at this link.
According to the majority opinion, "[T]he phrase 'the right of the people,' when read intratextually and in light of Supreme Court precedent, leads us to conclude that the right in question is individual." The majority opinion sums up its holding on this point as follows:
To summarize, we conclude that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to keep and bear arms. That right existed prior to the formation of the new government under the Constitution and was premised on the private use of arms for activities such as hunting and self-defense, the latter being understood as resistance to either private lawlessness or the depredations of a tyrannical government (or a threat from abroad). In addition, the right to keep and bear arms had the important and salutary civic purpose of helping to preserve the citizen militia. The civic purpose was also a political expedient for the Federalists in the First Congress as it served, in part, to placate their Antifederalist opponents. The individual right facilitated militia service by ensuring that citizens would not be barred from keeping the arms they would need when called forth for militia duty. Despite the importance of the Second Amendment's civic purpose, however, the activities it protects are not limited to militia service, nor is an individual's enjoyment of the right contingent upon his or her continued or intermittent enrollment in the militia.
The majority opinion also rejects the argument that the Second Amendment does not apply to the District of Columbia because it is not a State. And the majority opinion concludes, "Section 7-2507.02, like the bar on carrying a pistol within the home, amounts to a complete prohibition on the lawful use of handguns for self-defense. As such, we hold it unconstitutional."
Senior Circuit Judge Laurence H. Silberman wrote the majority opinion, in which Circuit Judge Thomas B. Griffith joined. Circuit Judge Karen LeCraft Henderson dissented.
Judge Henderson's dissenting opinion makes clear that she would conclude that the Second Amendment does not bestow an individual right based on what she considers to be binding U.S. Supreme Court precedent requiring that result. But her other main point is that the majority's assertion to the contrary constitutes nothing more than dicta because the Second Amendment's protections, whatever they entail, do not extend to the District of Columbia, because it is not a State.
This is a fascinating and groundbreaking ruling that would appear to be a likely candidate for U.S. Supreme Court review if not overturned first by the en banc D.C. Circuit.
Update: "InstaPundit" notes the ruling in this post linking to additional background on the Second Amendment. And at "The Volokh Conspiracy," Eugene Volokh has posts titled "Timetable on Supreme Court Review of the Second Amendment Case, and the Presidential Election" and "D.C. Circuit Accepts Individual Rights View of the Second Amendment," while Orin Kerr has a post titled "DC Circuit Strikes Down DC Gun Law Under the 2nd Amendment."
My coverage of the D.C. Circuit's oral argument appeared here on the afternoon of December 7, 2006. Posted at 10:08 AM by Howard Bashman
Wrong!
The lower court never ruled that Miller's weapon was or was not suitable for militia use. They said the NFA violated the second amendment. They were no more specific than that.
"Short barreled shotguns, often double barreled ones, were common among horse calvary units"
The shotguns used in WWI were 20". Now if you want to make the argument that the Pilgrims used a 16" blunderbuss, fine.
A gunsmith? A military officer? A historian? Miller, if he lived? Sarah Brady?
Who is going to get on the stand and say, "This weapon is suitable for all state militias and this weapon is not", realizing that the U.S. Supreme Court will be relying on that?
Then, in that lefties mind, NONE of the Bill of Rights would extend to the District of Columbia.
A little lower velocity, maybe, although shotguns are not the same as rifles or handguns, they use a different sort of powder, and are lower velocity to begin with.
Secondly, spread is not affected to any detectable degree by barrel length, but rather by the amount of constriction, or lack thereof, in the muzzle end of the barrel. It's called choke. A long barrel with a cylinder choke will pattern pretty much the same as a shorter barrel with the same choke. (That's as open as you can get, it takes a special spreader barrel, sort of like a blunderbuss (the ancestor of the shotgun).
If anything the longer barrel might give more spread, because of it's slightly higher velocity with the same load. (And it would depend on the load, low base target loads would likely show the least difference, with higher speed, and higher recoiling, hunting or defense loads showing a bigger variation in velocity and spread. In any event the difference would be very small, as it's a secondary effect. The primary effect is the choke.
Justice Clarence Thomas: When Congress gathered to debate the Fourteenth Amendment, members frequently, if not as a matter of course, appealed to Corfield, arguing that the Amendment was necessary to guarantee the fundamental rights that Justice Washington identified in his opinion.
Nit picker... ;-)
If they are asking that question, then they are too stupid to sit as judges. A heavy rock can be an improvised militia weapon. Your bare hands can be.
If you had one shred of honesty left in you, you'd understand this without having to be told. As it is, your are nothing but a troll.
We're talking about a sawed-off shotgun here and you're talking about a choke?
Take the same shot shell and fire it through a 20" barrel and a 16" barrel and there's a big difference. Cool it with your equivocating with chokes and loads and powders.
Geez Louise.
Let's ask Justice Washington:
"The inquiry is, what are the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several states?" We feel no hesitation in confining these expressions to those privileges and immunities which are, in their nature, fundamental; which belong, of right, to the citizens of all free governments; and which have, at all times, been enjoyed by the citizens of the several states which compose this Union, from the time of their becoming free, independent, and sovereign."
The 14th was passed (as part of a trilogy of amendments) to give the slaves some basic privileges and immunities -- they were declared "citizens of the United States" and were entitled to those privileges and immunities that were part of the national government.
Do such privileges and immunities include those recognized in the Bill of Rights?
You're really Sarah Brady, aren't you? C'mon. Admit it.
I'm more interested in your answer to my post #1122.
No. That is what you are doing. I'm saying that ANYTHING can be a weapon therefor all "arms" are protected under the Second Amendments "shall not be infringed" clause.
If I want to pack an arming sword in a baldric, a pair of Colt .45 revolvers, and a HK MP-5kSD as my daily loadout... that that should be between me and my bank account. The government, any government, has zero legitimate say in the matter.
No you aren't. You are just trolling. As usual...
Wouldn't it be up to the defendant and plaintiff to provide expert witnesses? I would think any number would be suitable - military historians, for example.
"Do such privileges and immunities include those recognized in the Bill of Rights?"
Bits and pieces.
The privileges and immunities of "citizens of the United States" were those "which owe their existence to the Federal Government, its National character, its Constitution, or its laws". Meaning, of course, that these privileges and immunities had been available to United States citizens and protected from state interference by operation of federal supremacy even prior to the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment.
In the Slaughterhouse Cases the court defined these privileges and immunities as the right of access to the seat of Government and to the seaports, subtreasuries, land officers, and courts of justice in the several States, the right to demand protection of the Federal Government on the high seas or abroad, the right of assembly, the privilege of habeas corpus, the right to use the navigable waters of the United States, and rights secured by treaty.
In Twining v. New Jersey, the Court recognized ''among the rights and privileges'' of national citizenship the right to pass freely from State to State, the right to petition Congress for a redress of grievances, the right to vote for national officers, the right to enter public lands, the right to be protected against violence while in the lawful custody of a United States marshal, and the right to inform the United States authorities of violation of its laws.
Earlier, in a decision not mentioned in Twining, the Court had also acknowledged that the carrying on of interstate commerce is ''a right which every citizen of the United States is entitled to exercise.''
-- caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data/constitution/amendment14/02.html
Therefore, they decide.
Now you realize your own stupidity in making that statement and now you're backtracking. Figure out what you're trying to say and get back to me if you do.
Would you expect all state militias to equip themselves with the same weapons? As a state, would you accept some military historian telling you what you may have in the way of weaponry?
Have you been drinking? Again? Get help...
I said they were stupid if they didn't realize that damn near ANYTHING could be made into a weapon. For that matter, so are you...
You keep mentioning "the state militia". Where are these state militia's. I have never heard of one.
Where are they and what does the so called "state militia" have to do with private ownership of firearms?
Are you implying that the state is supposed to determine what we can own and do with private property?
You keep ignoring free individuals. Why?
What's that picture?
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