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.
California is a “May Issue” state.
It is all but impossible to get a carry license in or around any major urban area of California, which accounts for most of the state’s population. Most other towns are no better. There are some rural areas where carry permits are obtainable, but the overwhelming majority of California applicants are rejected because they can’t show need. Well, the actual reason is that they aren’t well connected celebrities, politicians or power-brokers, but I’m just splitting hairs.
You caught on faster than I did.
If a state doesnt have a “right”...explain why the tenth amendment is included in the “bill of rights” and why they didnt call it the “bill of powers”...
If your going to be semantic then please clarify it..
The 2nd clearly addresses both “state” and “people” separately...
IIRC...only the tenth does as well...
If “powers” apply only to states..and “rights” apply only to people...why does the tenth state:
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.
Is the tenth article on the bill of rights somehow NOT a right?
Why include the word “state” at all in a bill of “rights” if no rights are being enmumerated...
Again, my apologies. I wasn’t reading posts, I was just posting. So I missed the help or warnings others were giving me. It wasn’t until I went back and continued reading that I got the help and realized my mistakes.
Sorry, won’t happen again. Dumb call on my part.
You are welcome, but I handled it poorly. My apologies.
It is obvious on the face of it that the 2nd confers an individual right. We just need the Supremes to affirm that individual right so the Left, the Socialists, the media and the government will quit being able to act on the lie that it doesn’t.
Yes, and that Democrat will be Hillary.
I haven’t been able to buy a handgun in California for years. You see, the State of California promised me that if I got trained and passed a safety test, I would get a Basic Firearms Safety Card that would be good for life. I got that card.
A few short years later they told me the card was no longer worth anything and I had to get a new card, etc. They keep changing the rules and raising the bar.
It is a never-ending process with California. I think it is all about the money.
I wholeheartedly agree. I fully admit that removing this cancer results in a more productive discussion than the disruptions and distractions we have had to endure. This way, we can just discuss the issue, not run in useless circles.
You can't have it both ways if you support unlimited federal "incorporation" of all state powers through 14th Amendment penumbras and emanations.
Sorry, but I will vote for ANYBODY to prevent HITLERY from taking office.
The Republicans are panzies. With the White House and both branches of Concgress, they had to be perfect gentleman and accommodate all the wishes of the left. Be inclusive.
Hitlery will do no such thing. She will steamroll the republicans. The damage Hitlery could do with a LibDem House and Senate would set the Conservatives back at least 30 years. At least.
There will be no half measures from Hitlery. She would have at least 2 years with a Dem Congress before any backlash could occur to retake the Senate or House. At worst, she would have 4 years, and she would pull no punch in driving a slwe of socialist legislation through the government.
Again, the Republicans being panzies, would just later let those socialist laws stand, just as Clinton rammed a bunch of Executive Orders through that Baby Bush never bothered to overturn.
I am terrified by Hitlery. I will vote for Giuliani, Romney, McCain, or anybody before I would risk seeing her Reign of Terror on America.
“When we look at the Bill of Rights as a whole, the setting of the Second Amendment reinforces its individual nature. The Bill of Rights was almost entirely a declaration of individual rights, and the Second Amendment’s inclusion therein strongly indicates that it, too, was intended to protect personal liberty. The collective right advocates ask us to imagine that the First Congress situated a sui generis states’ right among a catalogue of cherished individual liberties without comment. We believe the canon of construction known as noscitur a sociis applies here. Just as we would read an ambiguous statutory term in light of its context, we should read any supposed ambiguities in the Second Amendment in light of its context. Every other provision of the Bill of Rights, excepting the Tenth, which speaks explicitly about the allocation of governmental power, protects rights enjoyed by citizens in their individual capacity. The Second Amendment would be an inexplicable aberration if it were not read to protect individual rights as well.”
Here is the decision in its entirety:
http://pacer.cadc.uscourts.gov/docs/common/opinions/200703/04-7041a.pdf
Judge Silberman, who wrote the decision, is a Reagan appointee.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laurence_H._Silberman
I encourage all FReepers to read this landmark decision that clearly and powerfully concludes that the Second Amendment is an individual right. It is a model of Constitutional interpretation.
The media spin that this decision is some sort of trivial and mendacious exercise more concerned with the placement of a comma than with the rights of citizens could not be further from the truth.
The test of their laws with regards to the intent of the 2A would be how hard it is to buy a battle rifle and other weapons suitable for militia duty. What’s that like in CA?
Actually they both "disappeared" once the indictment was quashed by the circuit court judge, at which point they were no longer defendants. Miller was not killed until after the presentations to the Supreme Court had been made. He was found dead about a month (Around Apr. 6, '39) before the Court issued the ruling (May 15, '39). Layton, copped a plea for probation only, under the same judge,who had quashed the indictment.
Oh but they are. That, in the end, is the point of the second amendment. See tag line.
It is really very simple. A grammatically identical sentence will show what the intent of the Founding Fathers was, as clear as day:
"A literate Electorate being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and read Books shall not be infringed."
This would clearly preserve the right to have books for all people, not just those who are adult registered voters.
In the same way, the Founders intended for teenage boys, old men, and able-bodied women to have the right to keep and bear arms, as they might be called upon to back up the militia of able-bodied male adults in a real emergency. In the case of the older boys, who would soon become full-fledged members of the militia, it was considered desirable that they report for duty already familiar with the use of firearms, and thus easily trained or "well-regulated" for militia service.
I would not be here today if not for this wise and humane Amendment. A great-great-grandmother of mine was attacked by Indians when she was home alone with her 7-year-old son and some younger children. She loaded their cap-and-ball rifles, and the eldest boy (my great-grandfather) fought off the attackers and killed one of them. It was no great trauma to the boy to kill a man who had been trying to kill him, and he was lauded for his bravery and good shooting. Some current inner-city dwellers would do well to follow their example.
-ccm
I think the M1A is still legal. ARs and AKs have all been banned, with all older guns on registration lists for future confiscation. SKSs also registered for future confiscation.
I still remember when people were honest/stupid enough to register their SKSs only to have them confiscated. The attorney general said it was OK to register the guns after the deadline had passed, then the court said it wasn’t OK, so all those guns were illegal and were subject to confiscation.
Welcome to the People’s Democratic Republic of California where the legal possession and use of a piece of metal and wood can make you a felon. Every single one of these SKSs was purchased legally but only later made subject to registration and then confisction.
Coming to a Hitlery lead nation near you...
I take it the average California citizen, if called up for militia duty, would show up in pretty sadly equipped.
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