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.
They're wrong. The decision was against the gun owners.
n., pl. obiter dicta.
Law. An opinion voiced by a judge that has only incidental bearing on the case in question and is therefore not binding.
Bzzzt. Wrong. The decision was against the gun owners.
n., pl. obiter dicta.
Law. An opinion voiced by a judge that has only incidental bearing on the case in question and is therefore not binding.
Looks like a plea for judicial legislation and for rewriting the Constitution.
Too funny. My assertion was:
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.
The 9th Circuit decision that you're praising protected nothing. The court ruled AGAINST the gun owners.
Yeah, I was sorry to see Gura slammed to the mat on P&I, and look forward to reading Thomas’ lone concurrence saying he was right. But that doesn’t answer my question. No matter, we’ll have the answer from Scalia himself soon enough. See you then.
Your question?
Scalia has already rejected the lunatic privileges and immunities ploy that liberals and libertarians are so enamored with as a tool for perverting the Constitution.
Regarding the substantive due process scam, Scalia has said that “The entire practice of using the Due Process Clause to add judicially favored rights to the limitations upon democracy set forth in the Bill of Rights (usually under the rubric of so-called “substantive due process”) is in my view judicial usurpation.”
If you’re asking if Scalia will find the specific law in question so arbitrary that it can’t be applied in a way that allows due process to take place, then he might yield to precedent. The RTKBA would then be the equivalent of the “Constitutional” right to loiter.
Against the federal government only.
isn't particularly "judicially favored" that I have noticed.
Really? I could have sworn that I read you making comments on the Ninth Circuit incorporation dicta.
Constitutional amendment by fiat.
TEOTWAWKI! Panic!
Substantive due process is a relatively slow moving cancer.
First reading. It appears that only Thomas didn’t drink the “due process” koolaid.
You’re ahead of me. Don’t spoil the ending!
You won’t be disappointed. His “minimum baseline” theory of rights is just as slippery and disingenuous as anything in Roe v. Wade or Lawrence v. Texas.
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