Posted on 11/27/2007 2:58:46 PM PST by neverdem
For some 30 years, the District of Columbia has banned handgun ownership for private citizens. It was approved by that city's council in the wake of terrible gun violence and a rising murder rate in the nation's capital.
The ban has stood through this time with other council votes, but without any official review by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Sometime next year, the high court will make a ruling on whether that law is constitutional.
It is surprising to us that it has taken this long for the court to get this case. It would seem that it would have gone to the highest appeal long before now. We do not understand all the legal entanglements that must have kept it off the court's docket, but it is certainly there now.
And now, if the court is acting properly, the D.C. gun ban should be struck down.
This is a clear case of constitutionality, not politics, not conservative or liberal. If Constitution's Bill of Rights clearly allows gun private gun ownership anywhere — and we believe it does — then it allows it in the District of Columbia.
"The right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed," is what the Second Amendment says, and there seems to be little "wiggle" room in that statement.
In some instances — Washington, D.C. being one of them — we admit we despair of so many guns in the hands of so many people who would use them the wrong way, but the answer is not to abrogate the Constitution.
If one portion of the Bill of Rights can be limited by a local government, why can't another? There is no logic in saying on the Second Amendment is up for local review. To continue to allow this is to invite a city council or state legislature somewhere to decide that the First Amendment is too broad, or that the Fourth Amendment is too restrictive on law enforcement.
We know there are passionate arguments for gun control and that is part of the problem: The passion has blotted out clear thinking. This time the NRA is right. The law should go.
They didn't vote. How are you part of the national community if you're not allowed to vote? How are you "connected"? Hell, you're just along for the ride.
There were probably some free blacks and foreign mercenaries in the militias, also. There’s always exceptions.
From your own post for Christ's sake! He is talking about the people at large is he not?
So you're saying "the people at large" meant everyone, and that Hamilton was suggesting everyone in the United States be assembled once or twice a year to see that they were properly armed and equipped.
Again I will say it very slow for you. I didn't say anything. Hamilton himself did!
Nice dodge by the way as he was also referring about the problem of assembly and training the "people at large". Simple logistics and the reason for the 2 classes of Militia.
So the non-voting, non-property owning white able-bodies males required to be armed and to fight in the militia if needed in 1792 were not considered part of the national community?
Voting rights were separate from the BoR in that states felt obviously only the property owners, who most likely paid the bulk of the taxes were entitled to that privilege however all free citizens were nevertheless part of the national community in the sense they had responsibilities, duties, and yes civil rights.
To All:
I present the above without comment.
[snigger...]
Ah, so then ... foreign mercenaries could vote?
RP has more than his normal share of self contradictions in this thread.
Only white 18-45 year old foreign mercenaries who owned property could./s
I think it was dual mercenary citizenship back then. /s
I said "the people" who voted were adult, white, male citizens. You say they were those qualified to elect the most numerous house of the state legislature.
Please tell me the difference between those two groups.
Citation, please. Show us the law that limited voting to only that category. I suppose you'll have to show such law from all 13 states (unless you can give a federal definition from 1792), and then demonstrate additional law limiting the Constitution's use of the definition of "the people" to that of voters, which is presumably inconsistent across all 13 definitions. Oh, and what about that "landowner" criteria you were so insistent on, but have without comment stopped using of late?
No. When he says "all the militia" he's referring to all individual citizens.
"Hamilton himself did!"
Hamilton said, "Little more can reasonably be aimed at, with respect to the people at large, than to have them properly armed and equipped; and in order to see that this be not neglected, it will be necessary to assemble them once or twice in the course of a year."
Are you interpreting "the people at large" as everyone? That could explain the confusion.
Please show us any case law, speeches or thought by politicians or intellectuals of the day that said women or the old did not qualify for any of the rights in the BoR and in fact were denied them for those reasons.
Most people would.
I'm trying to make a valid point and you're yipping and yapping like a crazed chihuahua gnawing on this voting/property-owning bone you found. Give it a rest already. You nitpick posters to death, yet offer nothing of your own. It's more important to you to play your gotcha game than offer ANYTHING of substance.
In 1792, "the people" (the voters) were adult, white, male, citizens. In some cases they were landowners. In some cases they were simply taxpayers. It depends on the state. For example, North Carolina, 1776:
"VII. That all freemen, of the age of twenty-one years, who have been inhabitants of any one county within the State twelve months immediately preceding the day of any election, and possessed of a freehold within the same county of fifty acres of land, for six months next before, and at the day of election, shall be entitled to vote for a member of the Senate."
"VIII. That all freemen of the age of twenty-one years, who have been inhabitants of any one county within this State twelve months immediately preceding the day of any election, and shall have paid public taxes, shall be entitled to vote for members of the House of Commons for the county in which he resides."
Oooooh! It says "21" and the Militia Act says 18! Oooooh. Jump on that, too. Show me just how smart you are.
The people were the Militia. Deal with it.
Ok, rereading that post my head is spinning. "All the militia" means "all individual citizens" ... but "the people at large" does not. That's bent. To paraphrase Charles Babbage: I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a notion.
Show me it wasn't. Show me where women voted. Or children. Foreigners. Slaves. Non-whites. Indians.
Come on! Put up or STFU already.
Once you answer one of MY questions, I'll then resume answering yours. So I'm waiting.
Well that's better than being fluffy the cat.:)
Your inability to make a consistent point I have to admit is fun to bring out. If the Militia Act defines the "the people" as you have said countless times then it follows that "the people" cannot be white, property owning males only as you also keep saying. If that's the case then I suggest you read post #232 because I believe that's why you're so determined to keep "the people" limited.
Women were NOT "the people" and were not protected and here's your proof:
"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."
-- US v Parker
Memorize it so I don't have to tell you again.
Keeping "the people" limited to a very tiny portion of the population is important in your argument since if that can't be done then even the pretense of 2A limited to militia purposes gets blown away.
I HAVE NEVER SAID THAT. EVER.
Why do you refuse to read my posts and instead make things up? The next post from you like that and I hit abuse, so don't say you weren't forewarned. I will not be misquoted by you or anyone else.
I defined "the people" of 1792 using Article I, Section 2. I then COMPARED that group to those in the Militia AS DEFINED BY THE MILITIA ACT OF 1792.
With some minor variences due to state laws defining who can vote, they're the same people. Based on that, my whole point was that the U.S. Supreme Court could conclude that "the people" were those individuals who were members of a well regulated state Militia.
If you don't understand my point by now, you never will.
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