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.
I’m sold,
thanks
Roscoe’s contribution is that he demonstates what happens to people when they become part of the beltway establishment.
“See? Carrying a concealed weapon is gay. [rimshot!]”
No simply American
Roscoe is still in Cali to the best of my knowledge. Bobby is flacking for Blagojevich.
“The first battle of the First American Revolution started when a bunch of gun-grabbers in red coats tried to take guns away from private citizens.”
We didn’t have anti-American liberals then nor a court of folk who have not read the Constitution to mess up the law.
FINF
Thanks for the education....I for one needed that. Haven’t posted since the 80’s.
THanks again, Great tagline for Veterans Day.
“On the other hand, I really don’t see massive damage coming from SCOTUS overturning the case. The states that protect concealed carry rights and RKBA now have a constituency that demand this right, and it is not likely now or in the near future that those states will abolish those rights. The states that wish to abolish those rights currently have defacto bans in place.”
You overlook the damage done in Roe. There seems to be two types of court cases, those that affect only a specific case and those that are used to force all states to toe a line. I suspect any decision from the court here will fall into the second category. I just hope the opinion follows constitutional intent and precidence and is not a political decision like Roe or Kelo.
Good link. Everytime I read this case my blood pressure rises. Thanks for sharing.
According to his previous home page, he’s a retired career federal bureaucrat.
“If they could all shoot like that, I wouldn’t care if the whole damned department was gay.” — Dirty Harry
Glad to hear the info will be passed on to impressionable young voters or future voters. An excellent source of a wider range of RKBA info, including discussion of Miller and other SC cases, is at http://www.guncite.com/ Good site to consult for yourself, and also to direct your students to.
See El Gato’s posts, which correct some details I got wrong. Doesn’t change the conclusion, but still good to have the details right, especially if you’re going to be presenting info to people who may be anti-RKBA leaning.
During the Los Angeles riots, hundreds of law-abiding citizens were able to take up arms against lawless mobs to defend themselves, their families, their homes, and their businesses. They did the job the police simply could not do. Lives were saved. Robberies were prevented. Homes and businesses were defended and left intact all thanks to our Constitutional right to keep and bear arms.
But despite the lessons of the L.A. riots, despite the fact that millions of Americans use firearms every year to prevent violent crime, and despite the clear intent of our Founding Fathers, there are those in America who believe you do not have the right to own a gun.
A common claim of the anti-gun lobby is that the Founding Fathers never meant that INDIVIDUALS should be armed; they only intended for the Second Amendment to apply to a militia, such as the National Guard.
These self proclaimed interpreters of the Constitution also ignore the Second Amendment's specific reference to "the right of the PEOPLE." The fact that the "rights of the PEOPLE" appears in the First, Fourth, Ninth, and Tenth Amendments as well and that the courts have ruled repeatedly that these rights belong to INDIVIDUALS matters little to them. They retreat to their standard charge that the Founding Fathers never intended for the PEOPLE to have the right to keep and bear arms.
Even casual reading of our Founding Father's works would prove these foes of the Second Amendment wrong. Volumes upon volumes of articles, pamphlets, speeches, and documents that laid the foundation for the Bill of Rights clearly define the founder's purpose, including what they intended with the Second Amendment.
The Militia of the U.S. is defined under federal law to include all able-bodied males of age and some other males and females (10 U.S.C. *311; 32 U.S.C. *313), with the Guard established as only it's "organized" element. The Guard however is subject to absolute federal control (Supreme Court, Peprich v. Dept. of Defense, 1990) and thus is not the militia envisioned by the Framers.
If its rudy there will be a third candidate on the ballot.
If there is a third party condidate there will be a democrat in the White House.
I've bought and sold guns here without any problem. Maybe the world isn't as simple as you think.
He “thinks” that a handgun saved him years ago in San Jose, Calif., when a gang threatened him.
A gang threatened to kill him and according to the media he only “thinks”, not knows, that a gun saved his life.
BS lamestream media spin rears it’s ugly head yet again!
If a demonrat president had proposed Rx benefits, with the republican congress have passed it?
Something to think about.
Not really, folk LIKE the medicare prescription drug benefit but hate pork. The dems ran against pork and then, in less than a year, decided on record pork....
Now if the republicans are too dmb to take advantage, well, they deserve to lose.
that would be nice....
bump!
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