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.
The thing that scares me, and I hate to say it, is that I think she could very well be right about Dems taking the Prez, House, and Senate this coming election.
The thing that should scare her is that passing these laws will precipitate a civil war.
In regards to “yelling fire in a theater”...
This is a very misunderstood subject. Anyone has the ability to yell fire in a theater. The right to do so has not been taken away. Abusing the right resulting in panic or harm to another ending up in jail time is what the consequenses of doing so are. There is nothing stopping anyone from yelling “fire” in a theater.
Mike
Yeah. I got it. You told me that in your post #138 and #139.
The state shall not infringe its own militia. /s
or
the people to be part of the militia shall be infinged. /s
or
the right of the people to keep and bear arms to be part of the militia shall not be infringed?
Indeed! Ironic that the second amendment would have to serve its purpose defending the very INDIVIDUAL rights guaranteed by itself.
Yeah, and you said the right of the people as part of the militia. I am a part of the militia by law. Try to keep up.
I’m part of the well regulated militia of the United States as written by the Founding Fathers. All of my gear is in proper working order and functional for the defense of the nation. I am NOT a part of the national guard, nor any government.
You need to understand the English language at the time of the writing of the Constitution, not todays definitions.
Mike
“Washington, DC is not a state, nor does it have a “state” militia. Yet its residents cannot be totally disarmed by the federal government, no more than a state government can totally disarm it’s citizens — this would leave the country with no organized protection other than federal troops, something the Founders feared.”
You may believe that. I’m fairly certain that at the time, after the blood sweat and tears shed by the Founders and their families their primary fear was something else entirely. They knew their human frailties and the new government may not turn out to be perfect. The deep fear of our Founders was that an appropriate uprising to form a new government if necessary could never happen if said government disarmed its sheeple. The liberties held sacred by our Founders will only remain liberties if the sheeple can AT ANY Time restore commonsense order by appropriate uprising. Uprising without guns is like taking a knife to a gun fight....
Then they have to collect them.
Liberals need to play more chess, where a stupid move will get you killed.
My comment and this sentence are more closely related than anyone expects.
Isn’t that what Randy Weaver said? Or was that David Koresh?
I get the two confused.
I don’t.
“...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.”
sure looks familiar somehow...ie, not a forecast, that’s well-stated status quo. Note that I’m not disagreeing with you.
If the 2nd Amendment protects states and not the people, can you then show me where in the Constitution it states a definition of the “people” different for the 2nd vs. the other Amendments?
The people means one thing and one thing only... you and me and every other person who is a citizen of the US. If you disregard “people” in the 2nd, you disregard it in all others.
Sorry, the 2nd is an individual right no matter how badly you may wish otherwise, and anyone who wants to try to deny me the right to keep and bear arms can come and try to take them can do so but they better be prepared for the unintended consequenses of their attemp.
Mike
What was the intent or what is the wording of the amendment will not matter a bit. If the court steps into this, they will do whatever they desire, regardless of the Constitution, just as htey did in the Campaign Finance decision or Kelo.
We little folk will either be happy or dismayed but our Robed Masters will care less. Look at their web site.they do not even list an address to contact the divine ones. As Jefferson noted:
“This member of the Government was at first considered as the most harmless and helpless of all its organs. But it has proved that the power of declaring what the law is, ad libitum, by sapping and mining slyly and without alarm the foundations of the Constitution, can do what open force would not dare to attempt.” —Thomas Jefferson to Edward Livingston, 1825. ME 16:114
As to those ‘from my cold dead hands’ sorts, all I can say is Katrina. Not a single person resisted the illegal gun grab in a very gun friendly state.
In your state, that would be the Virginia State Defense Force. If you are part of that, your arms are protected from federal infringement.
So quit harping on a limitation that doesn’t exist anymore.
What makes you say that? The Militia Act of 1792, written by those same founders, makes it pretty clear that the ‘militia’consists of all abled bodied male citizens. I suspect the modern world would expand that to all able bodied citizens period, which is pretty much the same as ‘the people’
regulated != organized
And as you just noted that Parker noted, the 14th Amdnement eliminated that limitation.
And before you respond to that one, RP, remember that you just noted that the 14th Amendment expanded “the people” to include pretty much (if not absolutely) everyone.
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