Posted on 03/18/2008 9:45:02 AM PDT by NormsRevenge
WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court appeared ready Tuesday to endorse the view that the Second Amendment gives individuals the right to own guns, but was less clear about whether to retain the District of Columbia's ban on handguns.
The justices were aware of the historic nature of their undertaking, engaging in an extended 98-minute session of questions and answers that could yield the first definition of the meaning of the Second Amendment in its 216 years.
A key justice, Anthony Kennedy, left little doubt about his view when he said early in the proceedings that the Second Amendment gives "a general right to bear arms."
Several justices were skeptical that the Constitution, if it gives individuals' gun rights, could allow a complete ban on handguns when, as Chief Justice John Roberts pointed out, those weapons are most suited for protection at home.
"What is reasonable about a ban on possession" of handguns?" Roberts asked at one point.
But Justice Stephen Breyer suggested that the District's public safety concerns could be relevant in evaluating its 32-year-old ban on handguns, perhaps the strictest gun control law in the nation.
"Does that make it unreasonable for a city with a very high crime rate...to say no handguns here?" Breyer said.
Solicitor General Paul Clement, the Bush administration's top Supreme Court lawyer, supported the individual right, but urged the justices not to decide the other question. Instead, Clement said the court should allow for reasonable restrictions that allow banning certain types of weapons, including existing federal laws.
He did not take a position on the District law.
While the arguments raged inside, advocates of gun rights and opponents of gun violence demonstrated outside court Tuesday.
Dozens of protesters mingled with tourists and waved signs saying "Ban the Washington elitists, not our guns" or "The NRA helps criminals and terrorist buy guns."
Members of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence chanted "guns kill" as followers of the Second Amendment Sisters and Maryland Shall Issue.Org shouted "more guns, less crime."
A line to get into the court for the historic arguments began forming two days earlier and extended more than a block by early Tuesday.
The high court's first extensive examination of the Second Amendment since 1939 grew out of challenge to the District's ban.
Anise Jenkins, president of a coalition called Stand Up for Democracy in D.C., defended the district's prohibition on handguns.
"We feel our local council knows what we need for a good standard of life and to keep us safe," Jenkins said.
Genie Jennings, a resident of South Perwick, Maine, and national spokeswoman for Second Amendment Sisters, said the law banning handguns in Washington "is denying individuals the right to defend themselves."
The court has not conclusively interpreted the Second Amendment in the 216 years since its ratification. The basic issue for the justices is whether the amendment protects an individual's right to own guns or whether that right is somehow tied to service in a state militia.
Even if the court determines there is an individual right, the justices still will have to decide whether the District's ban can stand and how to evaluate other gun control laws. This issue has caused division within the Bush administration, with Vice President Dick Cheney taking a harder line than the administration's official position at the court.
The local Washington government argues that its law should be allowed to remain in force whether or not the amendment applies to individuals, although it reads the amendment as intended to allow states to have armed forces.
The City Council that adopted the ban said it was justified because "handguns have no legitimate use in the purely urban environment of the District of Columbia."
Dick Anthony Heller, 65, an armed security guard, sued the District after it rejected his application to keep a handgun at his home for protection. His lawyers say the amendment plainly protects an individual's right.
The 27 words and three enigmatic commas of the Second Amendment have been analyzed again and again by legal scholars, but hardly at all by the Supreme Court.
The amendment reads: "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."
The last Supreme Court ruling on the topic came in 1939 in U.S. v. Miller, which involved a sawed-off shotgun. Constitutional scholars disagree over what that case means but agree it did not squarely answer the question of individual versus collective rights.
Chief Justice John Roberts said at his confirmation hearing that the correct reading of the Second Amendment was "still very much an open issue."
I'd probably have to get rid of the gun if the perp killed someone. It's not a rational thing, I know the gun's the same, just the idea that my gun killed an innocent would bother me.
Coming from somebody who I think should be aware of Bingham's discussion of the 14th A. in the congressional archives, and how that discussion clarified how we are to interpret the 2nd A., I find Justice Roberts' words about the 2nd A. troubling.
I’ve followed Llahtsov’s theory and practice for several years now.
You can’t have too much ammo. You can always shoot it, sell it, or trade it. Or save it for a rainy day.
It is tool for making holes, at a distance.
Garde la Foi, mes amis! Nous nous sommes les sauveurs de la République! Maintenant et Toujours!
(Keep the Faith, my friends! We are the saviors of the Republic! Now and Forever!)
LonePalm, le Républicain du verre cassé (The Broken Glass Republican)
NEWS RELEASE INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS WON IN TODAY’S SUPREME COURT HEARING, SAYS SAF
BELLEVUE, WA – Today’s oral arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of District of Columbia v Heller produced a clear victory for the individual citizen’s right to keep and bear arms, the Second Amendment Foundation said.
“We are confident,” said SAF founder Alan Gottlieb, “that the high court will hand down an opinion that affirms the Second Amendment means what it says. Based on the questions that the justices asked, it is clear that they read the amicus briefs submitted by our side in support of District resident Dick Anthony Heller. We were impressed with the depth of questions asked by all of the justices, and we have no doubt that the court has a clear understanding of Second Amendment history, and that ‘the people’ are all citizens.
“We believe the District presented a very weak defense of its handgun ban that is not supported by court precedent or historical fact,” he continued. “Attorney Alan Gura, and Solicitor General Paul Clement, however, both provided a clear and proper perspective on the meaning of the Second Amendment. Mr. Gura’s remarks left the justices with a clear understanding why the District’s handgun ban is unconstitutional.”
Gottlieb believes that Gura, one of three attorneys representing District resident Dick Anthony Heller, who is challenging the 32-year-old handgun ban, “won the oral argument.”
“While we do not expect the Supreme Court to strike down every gun law and regulation on the books,” Gottlieb said, “we anticipate that the court will rule once and for all that the right to keep and bear arms is a fundamental individual civil right, and that gun bans, even on specific types of commonly-owned firearms, do not stand up under even modest scrutiny.
“An affirmative ruling, which we anticipate sometime in late June,” he concluded, “will provide a foundation upon which other Draconian firearms laws can be challenged, and more importantly, it will destroy a fantasy that has become a cornerstone argument for restrictive gun control laws. This should put an end to the lie that the Second Amendment only protects some mythical right of the states to organize a militia. That was not true when the amendment was written, it is not true today, and it will not be true tomorrow, regardless how hard extremist gun banners try to make it so.”
“Everybody over age 18 should have a submachine gun. Next?”
Nope. Everybody under age 18 should have a submachine gun. Everybody over age 18 should have a true machine gun. And lots of ammo.
Well, at that point, he's not a member of the Supreme Court...so since they hadn't ruled specifically on the 2nd Amendment recently, it *was* an open issue.
How do you feel about being lenient with robbers, rapists, etc. who refrain from using icky nasty guns for their crimes?
Gee. That’s counting one’s chickens before the fox is out of the henhouse.
Idiot
Facts don’t matter to liberals. Breyer has to be very aware from the may amicus briefs that the ban on handguns in DC HAS NOT resulted in increased pubic safety. He just doesn’t care.
Why, I do believe they're right. That's one of the reasons why I have them.
My take:
Even the most conservative Justices (Thomas excepted, for obvious reasons) seem to have left a lot of cover for existing restrictions on military arms. Counterintuitively, they seem to say it's important to protect the right of the individual to show up armed for militia muster as long as they don't do it with anything more powerful than what's commonly available to the average civilian. And, by the way, machine guns (or anything else we decide isn't OK) aren't commonly available since the law makers say they can't be.
Greaaatttt.
God, PLEASE Save the Constitution.
Gotcha!
Scalia and Roberts said machine guns aren't commonly-owned. (They seemed to fall silent on the reason.) EBRs aren't common in California, either.
See you lads at the muster. And don't forget your longbows and quivers, ya hear...
Frankly, I’ll be satisfied if they put semi-autos with normal (high) cap mags off limits to the gun grabbers. Unless you have a mountain of ammo behind you, full auto isn’t much use. Aimed shots will make better use of ammo.
:-)In non clasIII states
Crime has nothing to do with gun control. Breyer KNOWS that crime wasn’t reduced by disarming private citizens. His aim is to help the liberals in Congress pas slaws to eventually disarm AL of the US so that we cannot effectively fight back against socialism.
“When will they announce a decision, any quess?”
The most important cases always seem to come at the very end of the term.
Unless there is a suprising consensus among the justices, I would expect this decision to be handed down the last week, or quite possibly on the final day that the Court is in session for this term.
- John
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