Perhaps we shouldn't ask why, but simply enjoy the moment.
Heh. :-)
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.
Did he get banned just for being an obtuse one-note troll?
“I hate to tell you this, but the very lawyers you hate are waging the battle in the trenches to uphold your fundemental right to posses a firearm.”
I think that deserves repeating.
The "operative" thought here is "what if" It didn't happen. But the people didn't and most of them won't here. (Betcha my neighbors are good at turning people in though)
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Comprehensive List of Handguns *NOT* Outlawed by Mayor Rudy Giuliani
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1806614/posts
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Until the main firearm of the U.S. military is something other than an M-16 variant, you're talking about a distinction without a difference.
I understand the point you're trying to make, but you're using the wrong firearm as an example. Try a design that wasn't manufactured until after '86, such as the H&K P90.
If you look at the last election they do not have the power in their conference to pass this type of legislation. If every republlican was unable to vote they do not have 3/3 of their own on board.. there are a number of pro gun Dem's that came in in the last election.
Can you recess appoint a Supreme? There is still over a year left we may get one more shot at a nomination that is really what Shumer has been after the AG for, why he drove out the last one why they fought this one so hard..
This is the battle of our time, of all time. If we lose the 2nd amendment the rest are meaningless.
The may win all 3 next year they may not but there is no way on earth they will have all guns out of private hands by 2012 or 2022 or 2052....
Perhaps we shouldn't ask why, but simply enjoy the moment.
Heh. :-)
“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...”
The left makes it their business, in their never ending pursute of power, to rewrite as much history as possible, or at least pretend it does not exist.
Shifting topics a bit, we have a supreme court who ruled in Roe that the intent and meaning of the Constitution in Roe was such that an act illegal in every state at the time of the founders was really intended by those founders to be a protected right!!!
Liberals, the Constitution means only what they desire it to mean at any given circumstance.
While Republicans don't as of yet have a candidate to rally around just the sound of Hillary's voice makes me wonder if she could pull it off. The dems are masters of lock-step voting but I can't believe independents could stomach listening to that voice in their living rooms for 4 years.
“The Militia Act of 1792 described a militia that was organized, armed, trained and accoutered with officers appointed by the state.
I don’t understand your question.”
The Militia act was almost the first act passed by the first Congress peopled by the founders we often speak of. They began the act by describing the folk in that FEDERAL Militia as all able bodied males of military age and further advised that these folk were to appear, when called, with their own weapons. They they described the arms expected as handguns, muskets/rifles and edged weapons. The new states in turn drafted enabling legislation on the state level that was IAW this federal law. Read the debates about the Congressional action and some of the state debates and it is very clear that the Militia was the body of the people and that those folk were to provide their own weapons.
The issue is intent. What does the amendment mean. It meant what those who drafted it believed and intended it to mean, not what some law school liberal 130 years later decided it meant, for that is where the idea of a ‘collective’ right appeared, in university law schools at the turn of the 20th century.
Are you aware that the idea of a collective right did not exist anywhere in federal law until the 1930’s? Are you aware that state laws using a collective right did not appear till 1840 and all such laws were based on state constitutions and not the federal one. In Presser v Ilinois, the court ruled very clearly that the states do not have the power to disarm its citizens as that would infringe on the federal militia role, protected under the Constitution.
The question is very simple. On what historic base do you base the notion that a collective right exists. Trace that history to the founders. It simply cannot be done. It is a modern construct and as such is crappy constitutional law.
But they can't tape your mouth shut, or remove your vocal cords, because you *might* shout fire when their is no fire. And like prior restraints on keeping and bearing arms, you couldn't shout fire, or given evacuation instructions, if there were a fire.
And throughout the history of the United States, it has been understood that states can remove the firearms ownership rights of convicted felons-though that limitation used to be only for the duration of the sentence, while now it is essentially "forever".
Rights can be removed, for cause, via due process. ONLY. They cannot be removed by legislative fiat that applies to everyone. IMHO, the current "forever" laws are as unconstitutional as any other gun control laws. If the ex-con can't be trusted with firearms, she shouldn't be out on the street, cause if she wants them to commit more crimes, she'll get them, law or no law.
Then don't look...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1806614/posts
I'll never vote for him... he would put gun grabber Schummer or gun grabber Cuomo on the SCOTUS...
And to hell with anyone who doesn't like this:
One of the very last things the NRA wants is for the Supreme Court to uphold the lower court’s ruling.
I agree with everything you say. I just want to see the numbers used carefully by our side. The left can twist their statistics any way they want, and no one in the media is going to call them on it. I’m sure you know that. But if a Second Amendment advocate slips up, even a little, you can be sure it will be analyzed to the smallest degree.
Sigh...rp, if you don't have that straight by now, just stop arguing. Give it up.
The Constitution delegates these powers:
Section. 8. The Congress shall have Power To ... provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;
That's the FEDS providing for organizing, arming, and prescribing discipline, with the STATES appointing officers, training, and disciplining. You keep talking like the states own the militia entirely; no, there is ONE militia that the states manage parts of. That the Militia Act speaks of "state militias" is like speaking of "state football teams" - they are often spoken of as separate, but are understood to be part of the same umbrella organization.
Try to keep up.
Did you already see this?
bump
Try the Oxford dictionary, obsolete definition dating back to 1690 - "Regulated" has an obsolete definition (b) "Of troops: Properly disciplined" and then "discipline" has a definition (3b) applying to the military, "Training in the practice of arms and military evolutions; drill. Formerly, more widely: Training or skill in military affairs generally; military skill and experience; the art of war."
But of course this is all a red herring argument because the preface does not even purport to limit the amendment. I'm just speaking hypothetically that, even if it did, you are still wrong. There is no serious academic thought that remains in favor of a collective rights view of the Second Amendment. Even Lawrence Tribe agrees with you.
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