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.
An accurate summation of your idiocy... Not surprising you run from it though...
Have you been following publiusF27's posts? Read them and learn something. That's how you argue your point. People can disagree, yet be civil.
No... We were having a cogent conversation until you showed up with your idiocy.
Have you been following publiusF27's posts?
Yes. He'll learn soon enough how full of sh*t you are...
You know... you keep "threatening" this, and yet you keep coming back. Can't you just go away and stay there?
And I'm asking you why the term "agent of the state" does not apply, particularly as nothing the person in question does is outside what the state deigns to allow - thus eliminating any semblance of a "right" existing, much less protected. A militiaman may bring his _own_ arms, which he has a _right_ to keep and bear _outside_ the direction & permission of a state; an "agent of the state" does nothing on behalf of himself, does not own his weapons, and does nothing with those weapons which the state has not approved, and if there is an "infringement" by the feds then it is the state which has grounds for complaint, not the individual.
I think the phrase is scaring you because it is absolutely applicable, and indicates the absurdity of your argument. Quit whining and explain otherwise.
Right. Because of a legal fiction. One Bobby actually approves of. The SCOTUS has a chance to peal back 70 years of bad juris dictum and stare decisis to restore to us our Right.
If they don't, then for many of us... there is only one recourse left. The original Right of self defense... against an out of control government.
We are of the opinion, then, that so far as the act of 1837 seeks to suppress the practice of carrying certain weapons secretly, that it is valid, inasmuch as it does not deprive the citizen of his natural right of self-defence, or of his constitutional right to keep and bear arms . But that so much of it, as contains a prohibition against bearing arms openly is in conflict with the Constitution, and void; and that, as the defendant has been indicted and convicted for carrying a pistol, without charging that it was done in a concealed manner, under that portion of the statute which entirely forbids its use, the judgment of the court below must be reversed, and the proceeding quashed.
Irony.
Are the Crips and the Bloods unorganized militia? Surely you're not ashamed of your so far hidden answer?
You left out "statist".
Robert Paulsen made the claim that concealed carry may not be protected under the 2A in his post 1111. Is he a Sarah Brady fan as well?
Article I, § 8(a) of the Florida Constitution provides: "[t]he right of the people to keep and bear arms in defense of themselves and of the lawful authority of the state shall not be infringed, except that the manner of bearing arms may be regulated by law."
Your right to carry concealed is protected by the State of Florida today. If the U.S. Supreme Court declares that "to bear arms" does not protect concealed carry, the Florida State legislature and the Florida State Supreme Court may revisit that same provision in the Florida State Constitution. They may come to the same conclusion as the highest court in the land. Hey, they may not.
That's all I'm saying. If you're not bothered by that, fine. I am.
THAT'S your argument? For well over 200 years the second amendment hasn't applied to the states and you're calling that "a legal fiction"?
Who, pray tell, is maintaining this legal fiction? Some secret club? The Masons? The Council on Foreign Relations? The Skull and Bones Society?
We've had Republican and Democrat Presidents, Republican-controlled and Democrat-controlled Congresses, conservative and liberal courts -- and for 200 years they all agreed to maintain this legal fiction that the second amendment only applies to the federal government?
You are out of your mind.
Oops. I think some clarification is in order.
I gave an example where the State of Tennessee Supreme Court ruled that "to bear arms" in the Tennessee State Constitution did not protect concealed carry (or even open carry) of weapons not suitable for a militia. You couldn't conceive of how such a ruling could be made -- I gave you one
My point is that some future "Sarah Brady" U.S. Supreme Court may look at this state ruling regarding a state law under a state constitution and get ideas at the federal level.
This case had nothing to do with the second amendment to the U.S. Constitution. I told you before that looking to the second amendment for protection from some state gun law was fruitless.
You're distorting his position. And after your holier than thou attacks on me.
Robertpaulsen has consistently held that the 2nd Amendment by itself should not be considered a replacement for state Constitutions and state laws protecting the right to keep and bear arms.
That stands in stark contrast to the yowling know nothings you've chosen to align yourself with.
You were mentioned in my previous post without a courtesy ping. My bad.
Exactly so. And we would be subject to their nationalized 2nd Amendment precedents long after the "dead corpse" of each of those justices had returned to the soil.
We’re already subject to a collectivist interpretation of the 2A, unless we live in the DC District or the 5th Circuit. That means that the 2A does exactly nothing for an individual like me. How is that going to get worse?
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