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.
Remember, we were talking about prior restraint? Have you tried to buy a firearm in California without a Basic Firearms Safety Certificate? Have you tried to buy a rifle or shotgun in Chicago without a Firearms Owners Identification Card?
Got a Basic Internet Safety Certificate for your Free Republic account?
It’s the segment of the phrase “well-regualted” that gives the other side the ability to litigate on the basis that means the National Guard, as 5000 guys just showing up with their guns would not be “well-regualted.”
Sad thing is by the time Americans wake up we will all be disarmed and incapable of rising up against the machine.
This is exactly what they want.
If “they” win, the country will be divided into gun and no-gun zones. If would be hard to travel from place to place.
But then, who would WANT to travel through a zone where only the bad guys have guns?
Liberal cities will go way down the dumper as the criminals take over totally. The gun people will soon move to smaller cities that allow guns or to states that allow them.
It will become two countries. And, of course, the people with guns will be expected to give money to the no-gun hell-holes to keep them afloat.
And, if they ever do manage to round up all the guns even from the bad guys, the bad guys will have plenty of other weapons to use. Will the average citizen be allowed to carry around a combat knife for protection? I doubt it.
http://www.city-journal.org/html/17_4_skid_row.html
“They” (activists and ACLU) just want to keep society off-balance and hope it will totally fall. Just like they did in that incredible story in City Journal magazine (linked above) about Skid Row in SF. That was amazing and made my blood boil. Acivists and ACLU. Recipe for disaster.
My point exactly!
The problem is that Militia means exactly what atleast 5 members of SCOTUS want it to mean.
Drat! What's the right answer, professor?
""Sacred is correct, but they werent 'won', they were given Graciously by Him, and cannot be retracted by 'them'...""
True, but I'll accept that what he said was close enough, for what good are rights if you have not carved out an environment to practice them?
Protecting the government’s power to decide who gets what arms under what conditions is hardly a protection of an uninfringed right of the people to keep and bear arms.
So long as you hold that I can’t have a new M4 even though I’m an able-bodied male citizen aged 17-45, unanimously declared by Congress to be a member of “the militia”, registered thereto under the Selective Service System, trained therefor under the DCM program, and living in a state with no restrictions on citizens owning machineguns, and being completely unaware of a single citizen of this nation who actually gets to enjoy the right protected by the 2nd Amendment per your interpretation, I must consider that your interpretation of the 2nd Amendment does, indeed render it null and void.
I know YOU were. And, as far as I know, prior restraint only applies to first amendment issues.
But hey! Don't let that stop you from trying to apply it to other amendments. It may work with other posters.
But not with me.
That the government fails to exercise its power to organize those 5000 guys, and that their state does not appoint officers and provide training, does not nullify the right that those guys have.
To flip that argument and still get the same conclusion:
The government organized those 5000 guys to the degree it saw fit by requiring them to register with the Selective Service System, and their state has deferred their training to optional/voluntary participation in the DCM/CMP program, making those 5000 guys showing up with their guns exactly as "well-regulated" as the various levels of government cumulatively see fit.
Just because you (generally speaking) don't agree with the government's (by practical exercise of delegated powers) determination of what constitutes "well-regulated" doesn't make it "not well-regulated". The government has the power to achieve "well-regulated"; if 5000 guys just showing up with guns is what Congress and your state deem sufficiently "well-regulated", then so be it.
edit “unanimously” to “unilaterally”.
Yes, I've read that. Also saw the program on TV about it. Was impressed. How ironic it would be if the end of the world was precipitated by a confrontation between gun owners and tyrants right here in the good ol' U.S. of A.
Geez. You'd think the gummin and tyrants would back down instead of throwing more gasoline on the fire if they knew what the ultimate consequences were going to be for trying to re-institute slavery.
So prior restraint against a fundamental right is okay with you?
True. But as I said, the second amendment was never meant to do that. State constitutions protect the individual right to keep and bear arms.
"unanimously declared by Congress to be a member of “the militia”
You may meet the qualifications to be in a well regulated state militia, but that's about it. Hey! I meet the qualifications to be President. So every time I post are you going to salute and hum Hail to the Chief?
Congress cannot infringe on your right to keep and bear your M4 as part of your state militia. If they did, your state could challenge that law in federal court as a violation of the second amendment.
Is that true, Robert? I'm surprised.
Hey, Michael! Haven’t heard from you in a while. How goes it?
I think you’re missing his point - he is already a member of the Militia of the United States, as am I. That fact is set forth under the provisions of 10 USC 311.
Further, the California state constitution does not, in fact, protect the individual right to keep and bear arms.
If it comes down to it, remember this: They can't live at gestapo HQ, or on firebases, or in bunkers, for the rest of their lives. In the end, they'll want to live normal civilian lives, go shopping at Walmart, golfing and fishing. And that would be pretty tough in a nation with millions of scoped deer rifles.
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