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.
It doesn't. The right is only protected by the second amendment when that person is acting as a member of the state Militia.
"In that light, name a single person who can buy (in their own name) an M4, and store it in their home (as their own)."
None that I'm aware of. There's a federal law against non-Militia members owning such weapons.
But why stop at the M4? What's wrong with an M249, M203, or even the M2?
Typically evasive.
I don’t mean an “M4gery”, I mean a real military-designated select-fire M4.
Where did you learn that?
Where did you learn to turn "infringed" into "not protected"?
It wasn't eactly wrongly decided.
I beg to disagree. The court's finding was that the short barrelled shotgun was not a suitable military arm. Well, it has been since WWI and is still in use today in Iraq and Afganistan.
Guns
Self promotion
Individual thought
Privacy
Bodily function
Property
Come on, we can be free sharing all of this via lawful dictation.
No, the court did NOT find that. They found that there wasn’t enough information to make a ruling on, and remanded the case back to a lower court to get that information.
At which point they are acting as an agent of the state, under state powers, and thus it's not a "right".
There's a federal law against non-Militia members owning such weapons.
So name a single militia member who owns an M4 (or any other post-'86 machinegun) in their own name.
This of course, turns the whole idea of Federalism, protected Rights, and common sense on it's head.
Shouldn’t be too hard for someone with a chemistry book to come up with a recipe ...
BLOPT.
You're welcome! Every once and a while when I feel like the anti gunners are winning, I have to read them again too. It's a morale lifter.
BTW.....Anyone wishing to support Webb County, Texas Sheriff Rick Flores in his reelection fight with the Rep Henry Cuellar (D-Texas) family…can send contributions to:
The Rick Flores Campaign, PO Box 452168, Laredo, TX 78045
Thanks for letting us know. I should sign up as an illegal then I could vote in Texas for him. LOL That said, I'm not sure they would believe a blonde woman who only speaks English. ;o)
Flores and his 5 deputies patrol over 3,000 square miles of the most dangerous border county in Texas....and get absolutely no federal troop assistance in spite of beheadings, kidnapings, drug running, rapists, Zetas and Mexican military invasions of our border protecting drug runners and other smugglers.
May God Bless and protect them. Many of the low life that are coming into America have NO regard for human life, and would kill a deputy in a heart beat without blinking.
Real Texans for a Real Texas Sheriff - Rick Flores …..has a nice ring to it doesn’t it?
It sure does! I hope he wins. :o)
No it won't. In 1776 it would have, but not any more. Let me give you a true, but sad anecdote. In 1776 the population of the colonies was about 12,000,000. When Gage's troops marched on Lexington he was eventually met by an estimated 5,000 militia on his way back to Boston.
In 1776, 5,000 people who were willing to risk their lives for freedom made their way on horseback or walked and ran to confront the British.
In 1996 we had a rally on a Saturday morning in Jan (cold) on the capitol steps in Atlanta to protest gun control. We callled 3500 people who were on the "gun rights activist" list, advertised on the radio and in the suburban papers (no freedom loving individual EVER pays money into the Urinal/Constipation) in an urban area where the population was at the time slightly in excess of 3,000,000 and where there were cars to get you there we had a grand total of 145 people who showed up. Pretty piss poor turnout. So the odds of the masses rebelling is about 50,000,000,000,000 to one.
Pathetic. Broadcast licenses are about permission to transmit on specific frequencies, not about censorship or the First Amendment. They are analogous to hunting licenses, which are independent of the Second Amendment. (People living in places that lack the Second Amendment can still hunt, and despite the Second Amendment, there are restrictions about when hunting may occur, and what may be hunted for us.)
Yep. Unless they actually start rounding people up, ain’t much gonna happen.
Stop it. We have been talking about the impact of adding a constitutional protection to a right, and you know it.
Stop sounding Sophomoric. It degrades the entire conversation
I didn't say they did. The victory was by default because the other side didn't show.
Period. Anything else is semantics.
Kinda hard to show up when you die... Miller kicked the bucket and his co-defendant disappeared if I remember correctly.
Q: How did they arrive at that holding? A: Because the other side didn't show up to offer counter arguments and the case was decided by default. I'm not disagreeing with your analysis of the weaponry; I'm a former Infantry Captain. I trained on shotties plenty.
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