Posted on 11/09/2007 3:17:09 AM PST by cbkaty
Justices to decide whether to take up case on strict limits approved in D.C.
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court will discuss gun control today in a private conference that soon could explode publicly.
Behind closed doors, the nine justices will consider taking a case that challenges the District of Columbia's stringent handgun ban. Their ultimate decision will shape how far other cities and states can go with their own gun restrictions.
"If the court decides to take this up, it's very likely it will end up being the most important Second Amendment case in history," said Dennis Henigan, the legal director for the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.
Henigan predicted "it's more likely than not" that the necessary four justices will vote to consider the case. The court will announce its decision Tuesday, and oral arguments could be heard next year.
Lawyers are swarming.
Texas, Florida and 11 other states weighed in on behalf of gun owners who are challenging D.C.'s strict gun laws. New York and three other states want the gun restrictions upheld. Pediatricians filed a brief supporting the ban. A Northern California gun dealer, Russell Nordyke, filed a brief opposing it.
From a victim's view: Tom Palmer considers the case a matter of life and death.
Palmer turns 51 this month. He's an openly gay scholar in international relations at the Cato Institute, a libertarian research center, and holds a Ph.D. from Oxford University. He thinks that a handgun saved him years ago in San Jose, Calif., when a gang threatened him.
"A group of young men started yelling at us, 'we're going to kill you' (and) 'they'll never find your bodies,' " Palmer said in a March 2003 declaration. "Fortunately, I was able to pull my handgun out of my backpack, and our assailants backed off."
He and five other plaintiffs named in the original lawsuit challenged Washington's ban on possessing handguns. The District of Columbia permits possession of other firearms, if they're disassembled or stored with trigger locks.
Their broader challenge is to the fundamental meaning of the Second Amendment. Here, commas, clauses and history all matter.
The Second Amendment says, "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."
Gun-control advocates say this means that the government can limit firearms ownership as part of its power to regulate the militia. Gun ownership is cast as a collective right, with the government organizing armed citizens to protect homeland security.
"The Second Amendment permits reasonable regulation of firearms to protect public safety and does not guarantee individuals the absolute right to own the weapons of their choice," New York and the three other states declared in an amicus brief.
Gun-control critics contend that the well-regulated militia is beside the point, and say the Constitution protects an individual's right to possess guns.
Clashing decisions
Last March, a divided appellate court panel sided with the individual-rights interpretation and threw out the D.C. ban.
The ruling clashed with other appellate courts, creating the kind of appellate-circuit split that the Supreme Court likes to resolve. The ruling obviously stung D.C. officials, but it perplexed gun-control advocates.
If D.C. officials tried to salvage their gun-control law by appealing to the Supreme Court — as they then did — they could give the court's conservative majority a chance to undermine gun-control laws nationwide.
Agreed, because since our pro2nd SCOTUS judges can write dissent that will be read my millions thanks to Al Go...oops, I mean, the actual/real internet (you know the internet that owes more to it’s creation to Scott Adams than to Big ALGory), The gun grabbing SCOTUS judge’s type feet are being held close to the fire. They’ll have to do, in thier dissent, the equivalent of explaining what the meaning of the word “is” is. (What part of “Shall not be infringed” do you not understand!!)
I hope we Americans win, while the dissent that comes from the dummy judges on other side, surley to be posted on DU/KOS, hopefully will be too complicated and long winded for any of those DUmmie blogging liberal panzies to even bother actually reading or bookmarking. Either way, I think this is far from over. So none of US should let our guard down.
Not according to Dead Corpse. He constantly invokes a Georgia decision holding that concealed weapons may be barred pursuant to the 2nd Amendment.
States can either allow, or disallow, concealed carry. They CANNOT, under any guise, disallow carry altogether or mere ownership. Nor can they prohibit legitamate usage in defense of ones self, another person, or property.
I didn't. Don't pretend.
Right now, folks like Bobby and Roscoe think it's just peachy that states can prohibit ANY form of carry, much less ownership.
This, despite the clear language of the Constitutional Conventions legislation that the Amendments in the BoR were to be as if they were part of the Constitution's original language once ratified. This would have "incorporated" them under Art 6 para 2, and not required some fictitious judicial review power not found in the Constitution to "incorporate" them.
You know damn well what you were trying to do.
Sarah Brady wants you to believe that.
I think that regardless of the questionable history of the 14th amendment, which was basically shoved down the throats of the defeated South, it is here to stay, and the incorporation doctrine as well. We might as well use it to our advantage, as it’s not going away, IMO. That’s not always a bad thing.
Don’t worry, I’ve learned that Mojave exaggerates and distorts things. If he provided a link quoting you as saying concealed carry violates the 2A, I would believe you said it. Without evidence and with your denial, his assertion means nothing.
The First 10 Amendments to the Constitution as Ratified by the States December 15, 1791
Preamble
Congress OF THE United States
begun and held at the City of New York, on Wednesday
the Fourth of March, one thousand seven hundred and eighty nine.
THE Conventions of a number of the States having at the time of their adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added: And as extending the ground of public confidence in the Government, will best insure the beneficent ends of its institution
RESOLVED by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled, two thirds of both Houses concurring, that the following Articles be proposed to the Legislatures of the several States, as Amendments to the Constitution of the United States, all or any of which Articles, when ratified by three fourths of the said Legislatures, to be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of the said Constitution; viz.:
Articles in addition to, and Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America, proposed by Congress, and ratified by the Legislatures of the several States, pursuant to the fifth Article of the original Constitution.
IOW, when they ratified them, they became part of Art 6 para 2's "Supreme law of the Land" the "Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding".
What Roscoe/Mojave is talking about is an old argument about Nunn V State. Some of Roscoe's fellow gun haters didn't like it that Southern blacks were carrying concealed "coach guns" to protect themselves from lynch mobs and such. I agreed that a State could mandate that it's militiamen bear their arms in certain ways, either concealed, or openly, but they they could not prohibit carry altogether. Since then, he uses that argument to try and paint me into a corner. It never works, but he keeps trying...
"No free government was ever founded, or ever preserved its liberty, without uniting the characters of citizen and soldier in those destined for the defense of the State. Such are a well regulated Militia, composed of the freeholders, citizen, and husbandman; who take up arms to preserve their property, as individuals, and their rights as freemen." - James Madison, United States Congress, Bill of Rights Ratification, 1779 (NOTE: also attributed to Richard Henry Lee, State Gazette (Charleston), September 8, 1788)
Some smart old guys those Founders. They would have drummed people like Roscoe out of town while coating them liberally in tar and feathers...
Why would she want that? It would negate EVERY victim disarmament law she has fought so hard to get enacted.
Have you been sniffing glue again?
Not violate. Simply that to "bear arms" concealed is not protected by the second amendment.
"The words "bear arms," too, have reference to their military use, and were not employed to mean wearing them about the person as part of the dress. As the object for which the right to keep and bear arms is secured is of general and public nature, to be exercised by the people in a body, for their common defence, so the arms the right to keep which is secured are such as are usually employed in civilized warfare, and that constitute the ordinary military equipment. If the citizens have these arms in their hands, they are prepared in the best possible manner to repel any encroachments upon their rights by those in authority."
"They need not, for such a purpose, the use of those weapons which are usually employed in private broils, and which are efficient only in the hands of the robber and the assassin. These weapons would be useless in war. They could not be employed advantageously in the common defence of the citizens. The right to keep and bear them is not, therefore, secured by the constitution.
-- Aymette v. State, 21 Tenn. (2 Hump.) 154, (1840)
That's how the U.S. Supreme Court could do away with concealed carry.
Hardly - it is perfectly descriptive, and I challenge you to explain otherwise.
If someone is selected by the state, equipped by the state, and carrying out state orders per the powers of the state, and their only redress in a grievance against the feds' hinderance is by the state bringing suit, then are they not an "agent of the state"?
Where is the "right" when every factor is state-controlled and needs state approval?
Where are the "people" when only a select few may, at state discretion, act under the alleged "right"?
Your arguments lead to nonsense, justifying only abject statism.
OK, so they find that having our CWP scheme here in Florida is not protected. That just means we don’t HAVE to have it. It doesn’t mean we CAN’T have it, does it?
No, I'm being very precise with the conclusions reached by your arguments. If that makes you uncomfortable, then perhaps you should reconsider your arguments.
You don't have to. With that as a starting point, the rights - and who enjoys them - is very clear and simple, requiring no response. ...just as the Founding Fathers intended.
You sure you want to get personal? That didn't work out very well the last time, as I recall.
Correct. All it would mean is that your right to carry concealed is not protected. The Florida legislature would stil have to get enough votes to pass a law prohibiting it. If they do nothing, the existing law stands.
Bull$hit! Stop your trolling. All you're doing is taking my term "member of a well regulated state militia" and renaming it "agent of the state" in an attempt to get a reaction from me. There's no "conclusion".
Get your act together or we are done on this thread. Comprende?
Then you aren't thinking about this from principle. The individual Right to self defense is what is at stake here. They destroy that, and things will go downhill quickly...
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