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.
And yes Francis... they do apply. Once an Amendment is ratified by the States and Congress, Art 6 para 2 comes into play. Your idiot judges need to take a remedial reading class.
Not only the idiot judges, but idiot Presidents, Congresses, state legislators, federal and state attorneys, special interests -- all of them, for 150 years, living the big lie. Right?
Power protects itself. Do you think the British aristocracy just went bad over night?
About time you caught up with the rest of us...
>>?”If these are fundamental rights, endowed to man by our creator why would the states be allowed to violate them?”
Fundamental rights, on the other hand, may or may not be protected in a constitution by government (society), depending on the will of the majority of the people. The Founders were creating a federated republic — they wanted each state to be free to set up their own constitution and their own Bills of Rights.<<
Very interesting distinction. . I always enjoy talking to you whether we agree or not - you make me think.
Now, thinking about this... inalienable rights include life liberty and pursuit of happiness but are not limited to those, yes. And in English law and in some of John Locke’s writings some property rights are not alienable ( which I guess mean inalienable)...
Doesn’t the bill of rights restate some these inalienable rights in more detail?
One of your emanations within a penumbra?
What thing is that, Jesse?
There goes females and anyone over 45. Oh, and there goes your "unconvicted" dodge as well.
That's exactly what the Nunn case was about. Try to keep up.
And once again, state laws, NOT the 2nd Amendment, protect the right to keep and bear arms against state infringements. If you ever come up to a federal court case to contrary, ping me.
I was talking about the guys in the pictures you post, but I don’t see any reason women should be excluded. I was just quoting the law, which doesn’t always mean I support it.
So what about those scary guys in your pictures? Are they somehow excluded from the militia? Can they vote?
Your pictures look a lot to me like attempts to promote the racist gungrabber line that gun control disarms criminals, especially those dangerous, non-white kinds of criminals. Meanwhile, the guys with the longest rap sheets in those photos probably have the largest arsenals, because gun control doesn’t work.
You were talking out of both sides of your mouth. The "unconvicted" caveat you inserted is contradicted by the "17 to 45" standard you reverted to later.
The District of Columbia is a state? Trippy.
Starve.
Interesting observation. Yes they do. That happens to be the way the U.S. Supreme Court has been incorporating some of them through the 14th amendment and making them applicable to the states.
The 14th amendment says: "... nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law. So, if some right in the Bill of Rights is found to be a component of life, liberty, or property, then the state must protect that right, also.
As an example of this, the first amendment incorporation decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in Gitlow v. People of State of New York, 268 U.S. 652 (1925):
"For present purposes we may and do assume that freedom of speech and of the press -- which are protected by the First Amendment from abridgment by Congress -- are among the fundamental personal rights and 'liberties' protected by the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment from impairment by the States."
Now, by saying that freedom of the press, for example, is a fundamental right, this means that no government in the United States can abridge the press, even the foreign press (more on this below).
The U.S. Supreme Court may decide that the RKBA is indeed an individual right. But will they find that it's a fundamental right (meaning every person -- foreign visitor, illegal, children, the insane, felons, etc.)?
Yes, we can "reasonably regulate" fundamental rights (though some posters say that shouldn't be allowed -- "What part of 'infringed' don't ...), but the law would have to pass the "strict scrutiny" test, not simply "rational basis". Under that new standard, I think foreign visitors can make an excellent case in front of the U.S. Supreme Court why their fundamental RKBA should be protected!
Art 6 para 2, the 2A, the 9th A, and the 10th A....<p.
You call those “emanations within a penumbra”? No wonder you are having so much trouble with this.
William Rawle said is was a restraint on both. So did Gallatin. And Henry. And Coxe. And... oh... never mind. Yo udon't care what the truth is. You are just happy to have someone to piss off with your idiocy.
All you gotta do is answer YES or NO. Why are you so afraid of this simple question:
Are the Crips and Bloods militias?
William Rawle said regulation wasn't infringement.
Anyone expecting substance from you would.
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