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.
“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.”
You may believe that. I’m fairly certain that at the time, after the blood sweat and tears shed by the Founders and their families their primary fear was something else entirely. They knew their human frailties and the new government may not turn out to be perfect. The deep fear of our Founders was that an appropriate uprising to form a new government if necessary could never happen if said government disarmed its sheeple. The liberties held sacred by our Founders will only remain liberties if the sheeple can AT ANY Time restore commonsense order by appropriate uprising. Uprising without guns is like taking a knife to a gun fight....
>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.<
Which presidential candidate do you think understands and fully respects the above paragraph.
There will certainly be no restoration of the right to manufacture and purchase new machine guns, nor will there be expansion of any rights to go around with a weapon in public without a State permit. I do not think even the most generous Court decision would restore much more than the right to own a rifle of relatively modern design--not necessarily semi-automatic-- and take it to a shooting range for practice, quite possibly only after obtaining a Federal and/or State license.
The Constitutionality of losing gun rights for domestic violence misdemeanors or protective orders is certainly questionable to my mind, and perhaps the reversal of this ex post facto injustice would be the greatest result of a Supreme Court decision upholding the 2nd Amendment.
Even if the Court upholds pistol and semi-auto bans, licensing, and other regulations, I still think little will change. If anything, the gun-owning community will be invigorated, and we might see further gains at the State level comparable to the concealed weapons permit reforms of the past two decades.
If the decision is for a collective-rights interpretation, and totally against us, then the gun community will be REALLY riled up, and the Democrats could expect to get their balls cut off at the next election. I wouldn't be at all surprised to see a new Amendment proposed to supersede and expand our Second Amendment rights, and it would have a pretty good chance of passage.
-ccm