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.
Ping me when it gets here.
I wouldn’t miss your reaction for the world. ;-)
Meanwhile, the Hughes amendment and the NFA are issues which are unaffected by the whole incorporation issue...
Have a happy old age.
1. 9th Circuit, not USSC.
2. Even under the partial incorporation invented by the court, the gun owners lost.
While liberal judges love incorporating things into the Constitution that aren't there, the 9th Circuit is the most overturned and least followed in the country.
The 2nd amendment is coming soon to a state or local government near you.
The bastardized version of the 9th Circuit? The right to bear arms under the 2nd Amendment applies in your home, but not in public?
Somehow the prospect of state laws being swept away and that invented 9th Circuit standard holding sway nationwide enforced from the federal bench isn't very reassuring. Advocates of centralized power should be pleased however.
THIS POST IS FROM November 09, 2007 .
THAT CASE HAS ALREADY BEEN DECIDED. THE DC GUN BAN WAS DECLARED UNCONSTITUTIONAL,
Non sequitur.
Where's the conflict? The persons who comprised the militias and were drawn from the populations of their states had individual rights against being disarmed by the federal government. If the federal government had the right to disarm individuals not in the militia, militias could be prevented from even being formed.
There was a recognized individual right to keep and bear arms that the federal government could not transgress. I've never said otherwise.
As anxious as you are for the courts to amend the Constitution by fiat, that day is not yet here.
Not at all odd to see such an transparent lie from you. The decision you're defending limited 2nd Amendment rights to the home.
The 9th, like you, misrepresents the meaning and intent of the 2nd Amendment and spits on centuries of precedent. The 9th, like you, longs for the day when states are stripped of their historic role regulating and defending the right to keep and bear arms in favor liberal judges redefining the 2nd Amendment to fit their agenda. If anything, your hatred of our Constitution and the the intent of the Founding Fathers exceeds theirs.
Do you agree with the 9th Circuit that the right is fundamental, or is it some lesser right?
Quote the Constitution.
Do you agree with the 9th Circuit that the right is fundamental, or is it some lesser right?
The Constitution says nothing about “fundamental” rights being incorporated and and you refuse to define the term with respect to your incorporation demands.
Give me the language from the Constitution regarding your claim that “fundamental rights”, which you haven’t defined, are automatically incorporated under the 14th amendment.
You invoked the term, you define it. With cites.
The Constitution says nothing about any rights being incorporated, yet we’re talking about incorporation for some reason.
The 9th Circuit invoked the term, I just asked a question about it, the question you are afraid to answer:
Do you agree with the 9th Circuit that the right is fundamental, or is it some lesser right?
I'll ask you again, define it.
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