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.
If the enemy showed up on the doorstep of that 80-85%, then yes indeed they were in a position to defend the state - assuming they were armed & competent, which the 2nd Amendment ensured they could be.
Out of 300,000,000 people in this country, surely SOMEONE fulfilling your criteria owns their own M4 legally. If you're so adamant about your criteria as to post so prolificly on a single topic, surely you could find _one_ person who enjoys that right as you so limit it.
If the Supreme Court rules the 2nd Amendment is an “individual right” that extends beyond the limits of active participation in a state militia, will you promise to stop harping on your much-disputed premise?
I bring this up because there is, thru the grapevine, indication that the Supreme Court will take the _Heller_ case and rule in that direction by a landslide ... and, by indication of popular commentary per your absence, widespread desire that you do so.
That's what "the people" means, eh? I'd say that people meeting that classification include my wife (non-citizen female), brother (over 45), nieces & nephews (four under 17), parents (way over 45), along with a few hundred million other people who don't fall into your 15% category. You'll be hard pressed to explain why all of them have failed to "have otherwise developed sufficient connection with this country to be considerred part of that community."
I think you just flame-roasted your own argument there, RP.
OK, sorry.
All of us who have an operational trigger finger are supposed to have M-16s.
All better?
Exactly. His reasoning would “well-regulate” the 2nd Amendment out of existence, by allowing the government to limit militia membership to a standing army, and by prohibiting all interstate commerce in arms (and anything used to make them, raw steel included).
He just walks away from such presentation of the logical conclusion of his arguments, and bickers about something else.
That's because it's not in the Commerce Clause. It's in the 2nd Amendment. You know, that little "shall not be infringed" thing. It was tacked on as a "we didn't give you the power to infringe on this, but if you somehow think you did, we're making it perfectly clear you don't" clarification.
Some one please tell the rapist , mugger criminal that the government is going to disarm the public. It will make thier job easier! You don’t think this gun ban is for the criminals do you?
The "problem" is not that I don't see it. The "problem" is that there's nothing to see.
But, hey. I could be wrong. You tell me. What is there in the Commerce Clause that would stop Congress from regulating all guns?
I've been answering your questions left and right. I've answered every one of your questions. I've been polite in answering your questions.
So, will you answer mine?
Those answers have been provided almost daily for years now.
If the Supreme Court rules the 2nd Amendment is an “individual right” that extends beyond the limits of active participation in a state militia, I, robertpaulsen, promise to stop harping on my much-disputed premise.
Mark it for future reference.
I haven't yet decided what I want from you if I'm right. An apology, for starters. But let me work on that. There will be more. Much more.
But, hey. I could be wrong. You tell me. What is there in the Commerce Clause that would stop Congress from regulating all guns?
I've been answering your questions left and right. I've answered every one of your questions. I've been polite in answering your questions.
So, will you answer mine?
What I posted was "You don't see it there, and are single mindedly uninterested in looking for it, or admitting it's existence when presented with it from anywhere else."
And you have just demonstrated the truth of that observation.
Nice.
...observation: in the study of rhetoric, much is devoted to persuading an opponent to prove your point, but little is devoted to how to get him to cede gracefully, and what to do when he doesn’t. Hence the brilliance of Leftism: it’s not about being right, it’s about not shutting up.
He’ll hold government power to be absolute to the nth degree, and individual rights to be relative to the point of obscurity.
Marked.
And I find your comeback rather telling.
A new kind of slavery that would make ALL the people slaves to a tyrannical government. We are already half-way there anyway,
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Half-way? What is halfway between Buffalo and Key West, Miami?
I think it goes much further than tha, Rip. I we ever let the suckers take over this country, it will really be the start of something big globally.
The militia can't be well-regulated if the people denied the keeping and bearing of arms, it's a necessary but not sufficient condition. But it is not the right of the militia, well-regulated or not, that is protected, it's the right of the people.
Source? Be specific.
The 1846 Supreme Court of Georgia did not think it did not apply to the states. (Nunn v. State, 1 Ga. (1 Kel.) 243 (1846))
The language of the second amendment is broad enough to embrace both Federal and State governments--nor is there anything in its terms which restricts its meaning.
...
"The right of the people to bear arms shall not be infringed." The right of the whole people, old and young, men, women and boys, and not militia only, to keep and bear arms of every description, not such merely as are used by the militia, shall not be infringed, curtailed, or broken in upon, in the smallest degree; and all this for the important end to be attained: the rearing up and qualifying a well-regulated militia, so vitally necessary to the security of a free State. Our opinion is, that any law, State or Federal, is repugnant to the Constitution, and void, which contravenes this right,
Neither did William Rawle, who in 1791 was appointed as a United States Attorney for Pennsylvania by President George Washington, a post he held for more than eight years. His 1829 book, "A View of the Constitution of the United States of America" (1829), was adopted as a constitutional law textbook at West Point and other institutions. Of course he was personally acquainted with the men who wrote the Constitution and Bill of Rights. Here's what he had to say on the subject:
In the second article, it is declared, that a well regulated militia is necessary to a free state; a proposition from which few will dissent. Although in actual war, in the services of regular troops are confessedly more valuable; yet while peace prevails, and in the commencement of a war before a regular force can be raised, the militia form the palladium of the country. They are ready to repel invasion, to suppress insurrection, and preserve the good order and peace of government. That they should be well regulated, is judiciously added. A disorderly militia is disgraceful to itself, and dangerous not to the enemy, but to its own country. The duty of the state government is, to adopt such regulation as will tend to make good soldiers with the least interruptions of the ordinary and useful occupations of civil life. In this all the Union has a strong and visible interest."
"The corollary, from the first position, is that the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."
"The prohibition is general. No clause in the Constitution could by any rule of construction be conceived to give to congress a power to disarm the people. Such a flagitious attempt could only be made under some general pretence by a state legislature. But if in any blind pursuit of inordinate power, either should attempt it, this amendment may be appealed to as a restraint on both."
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