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.
So you’ve returned to your Crips and Bloods are militia nonsense. Scalia would be amused.
Scalia just finished showing that the right to keep and bear arms had nothing to do with such crackpot theories.
Extreme short term memory loss?
I think Roscoe’s just PO’d about the ruling and want’s to make it go back to arguing like it never happened.
Unconvicted Crips and Bloods have 2nd Amendment rights, just like the rest of us who have not been convicted of any crime
One underlying point about "unconvicted Crips" is the presumption that they are criminals who just have not yet been convicted of any of the crimes they have surely performed, particularly since it seems that committing a crime is part of the gang initiation process
The solution is to catch, convict, and incarcerate or execute them. The bottom line is that anybody who is too dangerous to be allowed to own a gun, is too dangerous to be loose on the street
How does one definitively prove that a particular black male is or is not a member of a gang?
Or should 2nd Amendment rights be withdrawn from all inner-city black males, based on their race and residence?
There are different versions of the five stages of grief, but in all of them the first one is denial. ;)
Easy with the FRiendly fire, PB. I was turning Roscoe’s silly and irrelevant militia question into one with relevance on a firearms thread. I agree with you on the answer to the question.
You called me to the thread.
By quoting Scalia denying such relevance.
Shoot that foot!
Because someone with a foot fetish who thinks black is white is endlessly amusing to me. ;)
OK, so I just wanted to let you know that your favorite question was finally rendered moot.
Poor you...
Give up your hate of the Constitution. Come on... we'll forgive you.
You think black is white? That would explain a lot.
No examples, naturally.
Dream on, Walter Mitty.
Your favorite question is now moot, and your denial makes it that much funnier. ;-)
Backwards. Your favorite false assertion is now moot. And still absurd.
Forwards. And still no cites, no answers, natch.
Extreme short term memory loss. Scalia spanked you.
Poor Roscoe... still trying to spin even though the wheels have come off his little apple cart...
Give it up. Come back to reality. We won't hold it against you. Seriously...
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