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.
He said militia membership had nothing to do with the right to keep and bear arm. Your "Crips are militia" theory of gun rights is now both absurd and meaningless.
Poor you.
Back to the Crips again. I’m sorry, but you seem to be stuck on stupid.
I admit enjoying your "Crips" stupidity.
The 2nd Amendment applies to and restricts the federal government.
Read a book.
Just weird. I think reading Scalia's ruling has completely unhinged what was left of your mind...
Poor you...
Which has nothing to do with the Bill of Rights.
Nice foot shot!
Backwards. But what else is new?
Held: 1. The Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia, and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home. Pp. 2–53.
Does the federal government have individual rights? Do Crips in Chicago?
Do you have multiple individual voices in your head?
The 2nd Amendment restricts the federal government. It did not create the right protected.
Read a book.
But none of that answers the question. I don’t care about where the right came from, nor who it restricts. I just want to know if you think it applies to Crips in Chicago, or is the 2a like § 311, having some secret exemption for Crips?
It doesn't come from the Crips imaginary militia membership, your inane claim to the contrary notwithstanding.
Try to take your defeat like a man.
1. You made the claim twice that militia membership was relevant to gun rights, I made it zero times, so it’s your cross to bear, not mine.
2. Your favorite question, in case you’ve forgotten, is now irrelevant, and we’ve moved on to a new one:
Do Crips have 2nd amendment rights, or not? Why are you afraid to just answer yes or no?
CONGRESS of the UNITED STATES,
Begun and held at the City of New-York, on Wednesday, the
Fourth of March, One Thousand Seven Hundred 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.
Yer' still stupid after all of these years Roscoe. You'd think you would at least remember this one. I've used it how many times in exactly this conversation? The BoR "applied" as part of the "Supreme Law of the Land" as soon as it was passed by Congress and ratified by the States.
You are acting like a child willfully denying reality.
There comes a time in every conversation when poking the troll with a stick naturally morphs into wanting to beat him with a baseball bat.
I think we’ve finally encountered the previously only theoretical “anti-truth” which is analogous to anti-matter.
If one of his anti-truth arguments comes into contact with the truth, there will be a massive explosion of logic and nothing in the world will make sense any more.
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