Posted on 11/20/2007 10:14:54 AM PST by ctdonath2
After a hiatus of 68 years, the Supreme Court on Tuesday agreed to rule on the meaning of the Second Amendment — the hotly contested part of the Constitution that guarantees “a right to keep and bear arms.” Not since 1939 has the Court heard a case directly testing the Amendment’s scope — and there is a debate about whether it actually decided anything in that earlier ruling. In a sense, the Court may well be writing on a clean slate if it, in the end, decides the ultimate question: does the Second Amendment guarantee an individual right to have a gun for private use, or does it only guarantee a collective right to have guns in an organized military force such as a state National Guard unit?
The city of Washington’s appeal (District of Columbia v. Heller, 07-290) is expected to be heard in March — slightly more than a year after the D.C. Circuit Court ruled that the right is a personal one, at least to have a gun for self-defense in one’s own home.
The Justices chose to write out for themselves the question(s) they will undertake to answer. Both sides had urged the Court to hear the city’s case, but they had disagreed over how to frame the Second Amendment issue.
Here is the way the Court phrased the granted issue:
“Whether the following provisions — D.C. Code secs. 7-2502.02(a)(4), 22-4504(a), and 7-2507.02 — violate the Second Amendment rights of individuals who are not affiliated with any state-regulated militia, but who wish to keep handguns and other firearms for private use in their homes?”
The second amendment never protected that right. You say it does and is being violated. You have yet to support that.
"Sometimes you claim there is no right."
Nope. Never did. It's a natural right. I've said that time and again.
"Sometimes you claim the right is only for militias or states."
No, sometimes I claim the right is protected for members of a Militia.
You have this bad habit of claiming a right then acting as though it should be allowed because it's a right. "We have a right to keep and bear arms and you can't take that away" "We have a right to self defense whch means you can't stop me from using a gun".
Blah, blah, blah. You have a right. Yeah, so? We all have rights. My question to you is, is it protected and who protects it? That's all that matters.
So cool it with your pre-existing rights. List 50 of them and I'll agree with every one. List 1000.
All that matters is, is it protected and who protects it?
You agree that the right is pre-existing. That it includes self-defense.
So now you claim that the Second Amendment means that the federal government cannot infringe that pre-existing right to keep and bear arms unless the keeping and bearing is not related to a militia. "Shall not be infringed" means "shall not be infringed sometimes".
Or because they weren't males and therefore unable to vote could the government have barged in without a warrant and for no reason if they felt like it?
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
If a right is "disallowed" is that not tyranny?
Maybe that explains why your postings seems so strange. You really don't have a philosophy of government that matches what our Founders had nor what I have.
Do you care what the Heller decision is by the Supreme Court? Why would you?
Exactly, that meant everyone who was a citizen, including women although granted they were often treated as second class citizens or even arrested at times for attempting to exercise their rights. Still if "the people" only applied to free white landowning males you think they would have said so directly. At the very least you know they intended the 2nd Amendment to include all males, whether property owners or not simply by the passage of the Militia Act.
Thanks for the thoughtful response. We see the issue differently, but I sincerely hope it turns out that you are right and I am wrong.
Best regards for a safe and enjoyable Thanksgiving1
Doesn't this case in your opinion provide the Court with an opportunity to invoke incorporation finally since DC is arguing that the 2nd Amendment, if it is in fact an individual right only applies to preventing federal government intrusion? This apparently is one of D.C.’s assertions according to Bob Levy:
2) the Second Amendment only restrains the federal government, not states or local government entities like D.C.
So I think that's why the original question was asked. :)
5-4 sounds about right.
Happy Thanksgiving 2U2!
Incorporation is another problem that must be addressed by the court if the 2nd Amendment is to truly protect the RKBA. If I understand the incorporation doctrine correctly, unless and until the 2nd Amendment is incorporated into the 14th it only protects the RKBA from federal infringement even if the 2nd is ruled to protect an individual right. The problem there is that the most egregious infringements on the RKBA are usually the work of local and state governments, and unless the 2nd is incorporated it will not affect that situation.
FOR THE FOURTH TIME ---- YES!!!
"So now you claim that the Second Amendment means that the federal government cannot infringe that pre-existing right to keep and bear arms unless the keeping and bearing is not related to a militia."
NOW I claim? Like it just happened? I've BEEN claiming that. Where have you been?
These were the individuals connected to the country, those who voted, those who participated, those with the most to lose. They had full rights, unlike the slaves, women, children, the propertyless, or non-citizens.
They had their right to keep and bear arms protected because they were the Militia. The U.S. Supreme Court in Parker confirms this definition:
"In sum, the phrase “the right of the people,” when read intratextually and in light of Supreme Court precedent, leads us to conclude that the right in question is individual. This proposition is true even though “the people” at the time of the founding was not as inclusive a concept as “the people” today .... To the extent that non-whites, women, and the propertyless were excluded from the protections afforded to “the people,” the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment is understood to have corrected that initial constitutional shortcoming."
Limited the scope of the right? No, I don't believe that and I told you so.
The federal government, yes. And I doubt that those federal agents who barged in to a woman's home with no reason (other than "they felt like it") would have a job the next day.
Your hypotheticals are fantasy and inflammatory. Get real. Next time I won't answer.
"While this textual exegesis is by no means conclusive, it suggests that “the people” protected by the Fourth Amendment, and by the First and Second Amendments, and to whom rights and powers are reserved in the Ninth and Tenth Amendments, refers to a class of persons who are part of a national community or who have otherwise developed sufficient connection with this country to be considered part of that community."
-- United States v. Verdugo- Urquidez, 494 U.S. 259 (1990)
Yup I agree and this is an excellent opportunity for the USSC to invoke incorporation as DC has provided them with an opening to do so. Unless and until there is incorporation it'll leave the states with an excuse to pass laws that border on the unconstitutional if they choose to. Even if it is not invoked though the precedent of affirming the RKBA by the USSC will still have a tremendous ripple effect in that states will most likely think twice about making attempts at passing the type of sweeping laws that DC now has.
It would be. Please point out where this has happened. If you can't, then perhaps you can explain why you brought it up?
"Do you care what the Heller decision is by the Supreme Court? Why would you?"
I only care if they incorporate.
If they don't incorporate the best that can happen is the DC Circuit decision stands -- and that could have been accomplished by the U.S. Supreme Court simply refusing to hear the case. The worst is that the DC residents go back to where they were, and it gives Sarah Brady a talking point.
I should know better with you. With you, I should have said, "I don't think a protected right IS being infringed.
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