Posted on 02/15/2008 10:56:51 AM PST by rellimpank
MILWAUKEE - Barack Obama said Friday that the country must do "whatever it takes" to eradicate gun violence following a campus shooting in his home state, but he believes in an individual's right to bear arms.
Obama said he spoke to Northern Illinois University's president Friday morning by phone and offered whatever help his Senate office could provide in the investigation and improving campus security. The Democratic presidential candidate spoke about the Illinois shooting to reporters while campaigning in neighboring Wisconsin.
The senator, a former constitutional law instructor, said some scholars argue the Second Amendment to the Constitution guarantees gun ownerships only to militias, but he believes it grants individual gun rights.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
No offense taken! : )
Well gun control is always promoted as "common sense", not "good sense"
Sturgeon's Law: "90% of everything is crap" applies to sense too.
Like I said, “commonsense” for him may entail limiting the calibre of firearms that we “unwashed rabble” may obtain.
Virtually everybody who fought in the American Revolution on the winning side were guilty of a felony. It's actually quite a serious crime to take up arms to abolish one's government.
In 2004, Obama said he supports a national ban on concealed carry because the states that allow it are “threatening the safety of Illinois residents.”6
Sedition/treason aside I meant other crimes.
I’m not sure this is relevant, because Presser v Illinois, 116 US 252 (1886), held that the Second Amendment is not “incorporated” into the Fourteenth Amendment against the states. The Court may want to overrule Presser in the future. But it’s unlikely that they will in Heller, because nobody really knows what DC is (is it a “free State?” is it a federal territory? is it a colorful ostrich?), and no 14th Amendment issue has been raised.
But it’s also obvious that if Heller wins against DC, someone would immediately bring a challenge against Presser in a real state. (And I guess the Court could overreach and apply Heller to the states despite the facts of the case—they did end up extending Brown’s anti-segregation holding to DC despite the fact that the 14th Amendment only applies to the states, not the federal government—but don’t bet on it.)
I should add more to be fair. The Civil Rights Act of 1866 did guarantee gun ownership to freed slaves, so as to help them protect themselves from their former masters. And one major purpose of the Fourteenth Amendment was to make sure the Civil Rights Act wouldn’t get repealed if a future Democratic Congress took power. See David Currie, The Constitution in the Reconstruction Congress, 75 U Chi L Rev ___ (forthcoming 2007). So it is entirely plausible that even if the Second Amendment isn’t incorporated (whatever that’s supposed to mean) against the states that the Fourteenth Amendment was still meant to protect gun ownership in some form.
“Once again, the Left gets it wrong. Gun rights are not “granted” by the Constitution, rather protected by it.”
The Lefties try to twist and turn our English language to make everything PC so it fits their leftist agenda..Doesn’t work with the 2nd Amendment, the language is clear enough: The State has the right to raise a militia and the people have the right to keep and bear arms..That is a protected right that a tyrannical foreign King or oppressive leader of this country cannot legislate away or nullify by judicial fiat..
Even if you take the collectivist position on the Second Amendment—that is, that the first clause of the Amendment matters most, and that the purpose of gun ownership is to serve the state militia—handing out M16’s to the populace would be fine. In fact, it’d make a lot more sense, because it’d be a lot more useful for national defense and whatnot. In fact, the only real precedent on what the Amendment means, United States v Miller, 307 US 174 (1939), just says that having a sawed-off shotgun isn’t related to a militia, which is fairly hard to deny.
But Obama didn’t say that; he said explicitly that there is an individual right to owning a gun. This is especially important because the Supreme Court granted cert on (in fact, just received amicus briefs on) the DC case that could finally decide whether the individual or the collective interpretation is right. (They could also avoid the issue entirely if they wanted; nobody really knows what they’ll do.) But you really can trust him on this point, because it’s not out of line with liberal legal academia at all. There’s a huge trend now towards an individual-rights interpretation now in the law schools, based (The leading article, if it helps, is Sanford Levinson, The Embarrassing Second Amendment, 99 Yale L J 637 (1989).) The political fight, of course, will be over how much you can “reasonably” regulate firearms. But there’s not much reason to suspect him on the individual-rights point.
“The MILITIA is the body of all able-bodied citizens.”
Too many people forget that.
Interestingly enough, FReeper El Gato has pointed out (<-click) that legal authorities regarded the 2nd A. as applying to the states, even if informally, in the half century after the 2nd A. was ratified.
Indeed, the Congressional Globe indicates that some of the federal lawmakers who listened to Bingham talk about the 14th A. thought that the federal BoR applied to the states before the 14th A. was made anyway.
Also, if you examine the page in the Congressional Globe that I've been referencing, Bingham based the 14th A. partly on the USSC's decision in Barron v City of Baltimore (1833), a state land grab case. In the opinion of that case Chief Justice Marshall indicated that it was obvious (my word) that the federal BoR did not apply to the states.
I had a look at Presser and I am astonished by their opinion on the scope of the 2nd Amendment. To be blunt, I think the we may be seeing clues as to how crude 19th century information management was compared to the computerize archives that we have today. Not only was the Congressional Globe that I've been referencing a set of 46 volumes, thousands of pages I believe, but given that the Globe had been replaced by the Congressional Record by the time that Presser was decided, Bingham's words about the scope and purpose of the 14th A. were arguably a needle in a haystack by that time. In fact, I question if the justices who decided Presser v Illinois were even aware of Bingham's words about the 14th Amendment. And if they were aware of Bingham's words then they were legislating special interest agendas from the bench.
What a mess!
The bottom line, however, is that I consider Bingham to be THE authority on Sec. 1 of the 14th Amendment. Jefferson put it this way.
"The true key for the construction of everything doubtful in a law is the intention of the law-makers. This is most safely gathered from the words, but may be sought also in extraneous circumstances provided they do not contradict the express words of the law." --Thomas Jefferson to Albert Gallatin, 1808. ME 12:59In fact, Jefferson and Lincoln warned us to be on our guard for crooked judges.
"One single object... [will merit] the endless gratitude of society: that of restraining the judges from usurping legislation." --Thomas Jefferson to Edward Livingston, 1825. ME 16:113 http://tinyurl.com/zebwrFinally, it just dawned on me that USSC case opinions refer to previous USSC case opinions. I don't believe that I've ever seen a case opinion that has a reference to congressional records."We the People are the rightful master of both congress and the courts - not to overthrow the Constitution, but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution." --Abraham Lincoln, Political debates between Lincoln and Douglas, 1858.
Again, what a mess!
As far as I can throw an Abrams tank. He's nothing but a typical scumbag Chicago gun-grabber and tyrant-wannabee - i.e. corrupt, through and through, and scared to death of the average person having any control over his life, or any true say in how we are governed.
I trust him not one whit on ANY issue.
I was talking to a lib at work and he thought militia was the same as the National Guard. I informed him there was no National Guard until the 20th Century. Missed it by 150 years.
Come to think of it, someone should tell Obama that the Second Amendment is meant to protect the citizenry from people like him, liberal fascists.
What the...? Is this really Obama speaking??
I see that you once had a speeding ticket Mr. Gun owner, well our "Common Sense Regulations" require that you turn in your firearms because you have shown yourself to be a risk to others and one who has no respect for the law.
Well, If they are going to start that crap, I had best get a bunch of junk ‘surrender’ guns to hand ‘em so they will be happy. Maybe I can hold a ‘buy-back’ or something...
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