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.
Bump.
You’re probably right about him being an unconvicted felon but at least he’s a LIVE one. There are lots of people who carry without the written permission of the king. I used to until I got so old I couldn’t pull it safely. Now I just stay away from people, thus staying away from trouble and danger.
Actually, I don't think it means that at all. I came across a definition of "well regulated" that I now keep on my FR home page, which, knowing how 17th and 18th Century armies operated, makes the most sense of any explanation I've ever seen:
The term "regulated" applied to clocks means "accurate in keeping time". It made sense, particularly in 18th Century armies, to have to pay a lot of attention to how well soldiers could operate in massed formations. Soldiers had to be drilled to load, aim, and fire as one unit. You do NOT want the rifle next to you to be firing (and emitting a shower of sparks) while you are pouring gunpowder into your musket. Everybody had to do every step together with no screwups.
One of the main reasons we revere General Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben is for his abilities in training Washington's raw recruits to do exactly that. From von Steuben's wiki page:
But battle was close-order drill, and speed of firing could only be obtained by drilling men in the handling of their firearms until the motions of loading and firing were mechanical. Firing was done in eight counts and twelve motions:
Again, these cartidges were blackpowder wrapped in paper, and the pan was primed with loose powder, often obtaining by tearing the paper with your teeth and pouring a little into the pan. You did not want the guy next to you, or in the rank behind you, firing, while you were in the middle of handling that cartridge.
Ask her how many of those she’s willing to see shot.
I suspect a multi year dance, and we’ll end up right where we are now. Status quo.
Please read something before you cite it: The section actually reads:
Sec. 311. Militia: composition and classes
(a) The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age and, except as provided in section 313 of title 32, under 45 years of age who are, or who have made a declaration of intention to become, citizens of the United States and of female citizens of the United States who are members of the National Guard.
(b) The classes of the militia are -
(1) the organized militia, which consists of the National Guard and the Naval Militia; and
(2) the unorganized militia, which consists of the members of the militia who are not members of the National Guard or the Naval Militia.
Therefore, under your argument, there are no gun ownership rights for women unless they are members of the National Guard or Naval Militia, nor are there any gun ownership rights for any male over 45 years of age! I'm 63. Who do I turn my weapons in to?
Next, please realize that “well regulated” refers to the Militia organization, not the weapon! Under your interpretation, an unclean weapon could be confiscated by the State.
Well Sir Fish A Lot, tell your sister that if they dare try that, we won’t need whomever the President is to invoke the Riot Act.
A lot of people are expecting this to be a potential SHTF moment should our RKBA land jam side down.
This passes the SCOTUS, it'll be used by the defense in every firearms persecution case going on around the Country.
The SCOTUS has the opportunity to be heroic here and do the right thing by upholding an individual Rights position here. It would go a long way towards restoring the protections the Founders wanted in place for our Rights as Citizens of the Nation.
Some states, and the feds are increasing the types of crimes that result in the forfeiture of your 2nd amendements rights if an individual is convicted of one of them. Domestic violence, for example.
As long as the Court upholds the New Deal Commerce Clause, and gives Congress the authority to dictate what you can and cannot buy, sell, or own (including firearms) as an exercise in "regulating commerce among the several states", you are correct.
The Parker case concerns the right of DC residents to possess functional firearms in the home for self defense.
"Essentially, the appellants claim a right to possess what they describe as “functional firearms,” by which they mean ones that could be “readily accessible to be used effectively when necessary” for self-defense in the home. They are not asserting a right to carry such weapons outside their homes. Nor are they challenging the District’s authority per se to require the registration of firearms."
I am anticipating that the U.S. Supreme Court will use parts of the following in their decision. Look for it.
The U.S. Supreme Court will rule that the second amendment is a limitation only on the federal government and that it protects a fundamental individual right of citizens to keep and bear those arms which have some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated state militia (US v Miller). It is up to each state, under that state's constitution, to define those "arms" and to determine what state regulations or restrictions would apply to those arms.
Washington, DC is not a state, nor does it have a "state" militia. Yet its residents cannot be totally disarmed by the federal government, no more than a state government can totally disarm it's citizens -- this would leave the country with no organized protection other than federal troops, something the Founders feared.
The federal government's current laws covering Washington DC's residents go beyond the strict scutiny limitations of a fundamental right -- though there may be a compelling government interest for the DC laws, they are not narrowly tailored to that purpose.
They give a pointed rationale for the gun-grabbers interpretation, and they throw this extremely bare bone regarding the gun-rights rationale.
This article was not fair and balanced.
"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."
A militia was a group of citizens thown together to protect themselves. They were not the "standing army." Both the active and reserve forces of the USA are part of the standing army. If it isn't so, then why does the Fed pay their bills?
They are not the militia.
In order to have a militia, they ALL have to have weapons. Therefore, the right of weapons is an individual right for a self and community defense purpose.
Deprivation of Rights as punishment for a criminal act is one thing. Making so many things a "criminal act" that everyone becomes a criminal is something completely else...
The only “loophole” that might justify DC’s ban from a legal standpoint is the “no STATE shall” portion...since DC isn’t a state.
However I don’t think that’s enough to uphold the ban. Then again I’m not a lawyer. I’d love to hear Fred Thompson’s take on the matter.
Those who advance that augment, do so by attaching a modern big-government meaning to the word regulated. The word has another meaning which was more prevalent during colonial times. That other definition is:
[adj] marked by system or regularity or discipline; "a quiet ordered house"; "an orderly universe"; "a well regulated life"Those were times when all order, discipline and regularity was not established by outside agencies. It was a time when self discipline, regulation and order were the norm. According to this meaning, they actually meant an orderly and disciplined Militia, which required members who already owned and knew had to to use firearms.
Additionally, I don't see why some assume that the 18th Century meaning of the word "Militia" meant only the State Militias we see today. I've read of much smaller and local groups of armed citizens, from a town, region, territory etc., being refered to as "Militias" throughout American history. The "security of a free State" was not left only to State Militias.
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