Court Upholds State Assault Weapons Ban

Los Angeles Times ^ | 12/6/2002 | Henry Weinstein

[Joe Brower]

Court Upholds State Assault Weapons Ban
In a rebuff to the White House, U.S. appellate panel rules that the 2nd Amendment does not give individuals the right to keep and bear arms.br> By Henry Weinstein, Times Staff Writer
Los Angeles Times

December 6, 2002

A federal appeals court upheld California's assault weapons control act Thursday, ruling that there is no constitutional right for individuals to keep and bear arms.

The 3-0 decision, declaring that the 2nd Amendment protects only the right of states to organize and maintain militias, is flatly at odds with the position of the Bush administration and a decision last year by a federal appeals court in New Orleans.

California adopted the nation's most sweeping assault weapons ban in 1999. It prohibits the manufacture, sale or import of weapons including grenade launchers, semiautomatic pistols with a capacity of more than 10 rounds, semiautomatic rifles that use detachable magazines and guns with barrels that can be fitted with silencers.

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[Dog Gone]

I'm not saying that's our only option at all. I'm saying that your options at that point are extremely limited. Mine, too.

Comply or defy.

[Mr. Mojo]

I'm saying that your options at that point are extremely limited.

Your are correct. But there would be only one legitimate option for any citizen worth his or her salt -- Civil disobedience.

[tpaine]

I've lived 66 happy years exercising my 'opinions'.

I pity you yours. - And your silly hubris in 'forgiving' me.

[Dog Gone]

Then the Constitution can't be amended, yet it says that it can be.

All we can reasonably do is look to those principles in interpreting the Constitution. Trying to use those principles to decided which parts of the Constitution may or may not be amended is a fool's errand.

It won't get us anywhere useful or important.

[CharacterCounts]

Then the Constitution can't be amended, yet it says that it can be

Of course the Constitution can be amended. But any attempt to enact an amendment denying those enumerated fundamental rights would be unconstitutioonal because the Constitution did't grant those rights in the first place. The document itself acknowledges that those right are superior to the Constitution.

[Dog Gone]

I agree, and I would't apologize for it. However, if I was caught, I wouldn't try to hide behind some bogus argument that the law isn't the law.

[Dog Gone]

The document itself acknowledges that those right are superior to the Constitution.

Not that I recall. In which Article?

[Kevin Curry]

What is your state's constitutional RKBA provision? Do you know?

[Z-28]

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco is the most liberal left-wing court in the USA ...

"Last week, the Solicitor General of the United States informed the Supreme Court that the Department of Justice had decided to fundamentally change its interpretation of the Second Amendment.

"The SG is now arguing that the Second Amendment protects an individual's right to possess a firearm for purely personal use. Previously, DOJ had interpreted the Amendment as protecting a right to bear arms only in the context of forming or serving in a state militia. If the SG's new view is adopted by the courts, various gun control laws that previously seemed immune to constitutional attack will, in all likelihood, be struck down as infringing individuals' Second Amendment rights." -
http://writ.corporate.findlaw.com/lazarus/20020516.html

[CharacterCounts]

One of the great failings we have as citizens of the US is that we place a great amount of faith in an un-questioned authority. I don't necessarily dis-agree with you, but you seem to place a great faith in that the USSC could never be wrong.

They have been, and relatively frequently.

Every time the Supreme Court reverses itself on a constitutional issue, it admits that its prior ruling was unconstitutional.

[Mr. Mojo]

if I was caught, I wouldn't try to hide behind some bogus argument that the law isn't the law.

Neither would I, and point taken. We would be outlaws, plain and simple. Such a USSC ruling, although both highly unethical and contrary to the intended meaning of the 2nd Amendment (an unalienable right), would nevertheless still be a law. ....And one worthy of disobeying and sacrificing one's life for, if need be.

[CharacterCounts]

Not that I recall. In which Article?

When it says the rights are enumerated. This means these rights are only listed by the Constitution and are not granted by it. Accordingly, they are not subject to the Constitution and cannot be ameded by it.

The word enumerated was not chosen by happenstance.

[Dog Gone]

I hope you live 66 more happy years, but your pity has no less hubris than my forgiveness.

[Mr. Mojo]

sacrificing one's life for = sacrificing one's life to attempt to overturn

[Dog Gone]

I don't think that word is in the Constitution.

[CharacterCounts]

Amendment IX

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

[tpaine]

At #85 you wrote:

"I think if a Constitutional Amendment is validly passed requiring us all to convert to some awful religion, then that's the deal." - dog gone -

Or, in other words:

'I think if a Constitutional Amendment is validly passed requiring us all to turn in our guns, then that's the deal.'

Good grief.
-- This is pitiful.

[gatex]

"Thus, the 2nd does not need to be 'incorporated'. - It has always applied to state/local government."

What about U.S. v. Cruikshank and U.S. v. Presser ? Didn't SCOTUS in both these cases rule that the Second Amendment limits the federal government only ?

[Dog Gone]

Okay, you have me, at least on the root word being in the Bill of Rights.

But I don't follow your line of thinking. Almost none of the Amendments subsequent to that grant more rights to the people. Are they all void?

[tpaine]

They 'ruled' wrong.
-- Why would you have it any other way? - The right to possess & bear arms is obviously inalienable.