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.
You could be right, but the piling on of all the losses of freedoms we are steadily loosing, I still think we are heading for a civil war. Expecially if the RATS take it all.
Actually they can :take judicial notice" of any well known fact. Bottom line, Miller and Layton were the day's equivalent of gang bangers, a bit long in the tooth gang bangers by today's standards. The court did not want them to get off "scot free". But anyone who reads the courts decision can see that it's about 99% dicta, a whole collection of irrelevant "Stuff" thrown at the court by the Justice department lawyers. (their brief posits many of the same arguments that the gun grabbers make today, all of htem rejected by the Court). The actual decision turns not on the second amendments actual language, but on the interpretation of a similar state constitution provision, one which includes "For the Common Defense", a provision specifically rejected by Congress when considering what became the second amendment. Thus the version of the second amendment the court ruled on, was one which reads "the right of the people to keep and bear arms for the common defense shall not be infringed.", not the real second amendment.
The Court assumed that the second amendment is about the militia, but it's really about a right of the people. just like the rest of the first 9 amendments.
You can see all this in the following two paragraphs, which are the "meat" of the decision.
In the absence of any evidence tending to show that possession or use of a "shotgun having a barrel of less than eighteen inches in length" at this time has some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia, we cannot say that the Second Amendment guarantees the right to keep and bear such an instrument. Certainly it is not within judicial notice that this weapon is any part of the ordinary military equipment or that its use could contribute to the common defense. Aymette v. State, 2 Humphreys (Tenn.) 154, 158.
The Constitution as originally adopted granted to the Congress power - "To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions; 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." With obvious purpose to assure the continuation and render possible the effectiveness of such forces the declaration and guarantee of the Second Amendment were made. It must be interpreted and applied with that end in view.
Oh Good Lord, a two comma version.
Of course the original version had only one, between "state" and "the right". But several "near" original versions, including those sent to the states for ratification, had 3. The one common version is the most grammatically correct, but the 3 comma version has the two extras where one might pause for breath when reading the one comma version. Commas have two functions, one is that "pause ", the other as a logical separator.
But there are two rights protected. The right to keep arms and the right to bear arms. There is no collective right. The right can of course be exercised simultaneously by groups of individuals, along with the first amendment's right of peaceable assembly.
A bunch of Texas (and New York, Colorado and Minnesota maybe others all are welcome) FReepers have now done this twice, and we'll do'er again come May. We do it in Memory of FReeper Texas Cowboy, and 'cause we have a good time doing it. Before TC passed on, a subset did it with him, just 'cause it is fun. I had the high privilege and distinct honor to participate in one of those early gatherings. (but not the first :( ) We've even been known to have "children" (who no longer are that little anymore) firing machine guns at these affairs, and to fire .50 caliber rifles too. :)
That's a great article. One which I read several years ago, and which has made "check the source" a necessity for me.
Of course the answer the question posed by the title of the article is "Not only no, but Hell No!.
Nope, bystanders ears get it first hand. It's a whole lot easier to prove harm from loud noises, than from second hand smoke, in individual cases no less, not just "statistically".
In fact I've got some hearing loss myself due to being a shooter since ... mumble.. mumble, well a good long time, although I came to handguns and rifles more serious than .22 rimfire somewhat late. First handgun shooting was .38 special from Chiefs Special during AFROTC field training. (They didn't have the budget to let us shoot 5.56 and didn't have the .22 conversion units to let us shoot .22 LR). Didn't own a centerfire anything until my older daughter was in high school. Now I have 2 centerfire pistols (both .45 ACP) and 3 centerfire rifles (along with 2 shotguns and 2 .22s).
Woof !
But it was still and exercise of the power to tax. However even a granted power cannot be used to violate/infringe on a right protected by the Bill of Rights. If for no other reason (and there are others) than the BoR are amendments and the grant of the taxing power is in the main body, so that power is restricted/amended by the BoR. The "preamble" to the BoR makes that clear.
The conventions of a number of the States having at the time of their adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added.
Sure we did, the anti-Americans, we called "The British", even though on April 19th, 1775, the farmers at that bridge considered themselves "Englishmen" fighting to protect their rights *as Englishmen". We did have courts that ignored the (common) law, and the written law of Great Britain, such as the Magna Carta. Of we did not have a written Constitution then.
“You wrote: “Which is saying you will vote for Hillary, a sound choice, for a socialist gun grabber with no regard for teh Copnstitution,.”
Nice try. I’d never vote for Hillary.
Jim, I might be going out on a limb here, but I strongly suspect that you never won a spelling bee.”
Typing bee, strictly two fingers and this forum does not have the needed edit button. I voted for Perot in 92 and got the first Clinton. I have no intention of letting a fit of childish pique repeat that disaster.
This is as much of the Congress proposing a Constitutional amendment to replace the 2nd Amendment as there is of it proposing one regarding abortion. Besides, such an amendment would be limiting the Congress's authority. Other than the Bill of Rights, the only amendment that limits the Congress's authority is the 27th Amendment (proposed along with the Bill of Rights).
If the Nine High Priests Of Justice give the 2nd Amendment a "collective right" (i.e., nullifying) interpretation, then our choices will be:
(1) Quietly defying all gun control laws,
(2) Acts of Civil Disobedience (open defiance),
(3) Start a movement to call a Second Constitutional Convention that would propose a new RKBA amendment,
(4) Revolution/Rebellion/Secession.
The 10th doens't really belong in the bill of rights, but then again the Bill of Rights is a handle we use for the first ten amendments, which were passed as a body by Congress. Congress also passed two other amendments, one of which never was ratified, and the other which was ratified in 1992. Those two would have been the first and second amendments, had they been ratified at the time. They didn't concern individual rights either.
The 10th amendment reads:
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.
This sentence should have said:
There is as much of a chance of the Congress proposing a Constitutional amendment to replace the 2nd Amendment as there is of it proposing one regarding abortion. The portion in italics is what should have been in the earlier version of that sentence. As stated in an earlier post, this site needs an edit button.
Want to know something funny? The Parker decision quotes the 2A twice withing the body of the decision ... and each quote has a different number of commas.
I think so too. Or at least I hope so. To me there isn't any significant difference between Julie Annie and Hitlery other than she has more of a sense of humor than he does, but he might look better in a dress.
Death is guaranteed, living free is not. Unless we guarantee it ourselves. Our kids will probably have to do it again, soon, too. And theirs, and so on. Just the way of the world.
Let me get this right, you’re a former Perot voter who can’t spell...
...and with little credibility left, you want me to vote for Guiliani.
It’ll never happen.
Oops, I guess you saw that already.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1866638/posts?q=1&;page=251#256
“Let me get this right, you’re a former Perot voter who can’t spell...”
Ummmm...ahhhhh...I tace the fifth.
I’m with ya’...
“Let me get this right, you’re a former Perot voter who can’t spell...
...and with little credibility left, you want me to vote for Guiliani.
It’ll never happen”
Apparently a Perot voter who learned a lesson. I guess you are still waiting to get kicked in the head by that dem mule.
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