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.
Yes. Exactly. The whole people. The collective group of free individuals. Each citizen, regardless of ... well ... any discriminating feature. Anyone who is not otherwise a subject/citizen of another soveriegn country (and arguably even them). Not an immediate danger to others when armed. Nobody is excluded just because they are not a white, male, citizen landowner. The opposite of what a Sarah Brady sycophant contends.
Just as we've been telling you for thousands of posts over hundreds of threads.
Yes, we think he meant every person, every citizen. You're a citizen, and not an immediate danger to others when armed? get out your checkbook, your M4 is waiting.
I'll say it one last time.
Promise? That would make a lot of people very happy.
And yes, what he calls you applies. You don't talk about anything else, and you won't accept the plain meanings of explainations by those who wrote the Constitution. Only Sarah Brady & co. agree with you, happy that by your view the 2nd Amendment can be "well-regulated" into oblivion.
I didn't. Maybe others did. A right can be unprotected yet not infringed.
Notice that the feds haven’t tried anything since Waco & Ruby Ridge, with perhaps the sole exception of New Orleans - which got shut down real fast from the inside.
I just got finished telling you "when that person is acting as a member of the state Militia". Not on their own.
Is there something wrong with you? Seriously.
Name one that is.
As does the 2nd Amendment, right where it says "the right of the PEOPLE" (not "the STATE").
Except as you say, New Orleans, but the poor schlubs who had their weapns stolen by the JBTs in NO still don't have them back, and that pompous ignorant stupid ass Nagin is still strutting around with no consequences for his unconstutional acts.
One name. Just one. Out of three hundred million people, you should be able to come up with ONE PERSON who is exercising their 2nd Amendment right to standard common modern military arms (in the USA, that’s the M4). Yes, that includes anyone acting “as a member of the state militia”. Fine. Name one, just one, who owns a post-’86 machinegun, keeps it at home, not acting as an agent of the state (feds included).
Go ahead.
Name one.
Just one.
I know that. RP doesn’t.
Exactly. We always look for the bloodless option. We REALLY want to make sure all of our other options are exhausted before resorting to more stringent corrective measures.
; -)
I’ve gotten so tired of his bovine spittle that I try to beat him to the RKBa threads with my “IBrp?” post. Because as soon at the FRexpert shows up the thread goes down the toilet.
just sayin’
Just observing that it took, what, 15 years for the next attempt - which was aborted because the new guys were reminded of what happened back then.
In VA, if you failed to bring a gun to church, the fine was 200 pounds of tobacco.
I love that.
Church, guns, tobacco...
Picture the liberals heads exploding...
You seem to be stating that the Milita member, when called up, must report to the Militia Armory to be issued his Militia-owned weapon.
Classically, militia members were responsible for providing their own weapon and ammunition.
Thus, any militia member should be able to go down to the local Cabela's and buy their own weapon conforming to the requirements of said militia.
Never misquote me.
I said that IF, I repeat IF we accept the Federal Gmvt’s definition of Militia, as defined in US Code, Title 10, Chapter 13, then we acknowledge that the only constitutionally protected persons are men between 17 and 45 (plus a very few others) and women who are members of the National Guard or “Navel Militia.”
You are off my reply list for one week.
“The prospect of tyranny may not grab the headlines the way vivid stories of gun crime routinely do. But few saw the Third Reich coming until it was too late. The Second Amendment is a doomsday provision, one designed for those exceptionally rare circumstances where all other rights have failed—where the government refuses to stand for reelection and silences those who protest; where courts have lost the courage to oppose, or can find no one to enforce their decrees. However improbable these contingencies may seem today, facing them unprepared is a mistake a free people get to make only once”.
Judge Alex Kozinsky
I see. So if I cited some examples of stations that were fined or lost their license because of something they broadcasted, I'd be lying?
When it was written, tell me who else had the right protected? Please, tell me. Tell all of us.
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