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I, for one, am sick and tired of the seemingly endless debate on a topic that would not even be an issue in a rational and honest society. The fact that the term of art, "the people", coult be falsely construed to mean anything other than each individual citizen as it does in the rest of the Bill of Rights is a sad testament to the intellectual dishonesty of our day.

So now the Supreme Court has a chance to display either it's trademark cowardice on this issue, or exhibit some newfound courage in taking these two opposing rulings, one from the 5th and now one from the 9th, and make their own determination. It's long past overdue.

Ready, Fire, Aim: The Ninth Circuit misses its mark, the Second Amendment

Or "Ready, Aim, Misfire: The Ninth Circuit...."

Not just the Second being recast as only a collectivist right, but the First too:

Book Review: DEMOCRACY AND THE PROBLEM OF FREE SPEECH
Contemporary interpreters of First Amendment law have lost sight of the primary rationale behind freedom of expression, in Sunstein's view, namely the principle of "government by discussion." ...
The First Amendment, understood in this light, is not so much a matter of protecting rights as ensuring sound public judgment through the process of public deliberation. The true meaning of the law should therefore be determined, and limited, by matters having to do with the political process (broadly defined). Political speech should be encouraged since it is essential to the functioning of democracy, while non-political speech should be less fully protected ...

Might say "Okay, what's political?", but that misses the bigger point -- the government determines what is political speech, and any provision for categorizing this speech as "political" and that speech as "not political" will be coopted and used to supress speech that is distasteful to Establishment at the time -- and that will come to include critiques, complaints, plaints, and petitions of any sort.

Restraints on speech are fundamentally wrong -- excepting only clear, immediate public risk and danger ("Fire" in a crowed theater), and the most grevious, obvious slanders. Yet in many areas -- restraints have made great headway, from the 501c3 tax code gags on "political" speech, politically correct speech policies enforced in large corporations, governmentr bureaus, schools and colleges, to expansive interpretations of copyright, expansive slander and libel restriants, and now with logic this Sunstein 1993 work is typical of -- restirctions on political speech itself as given legal effect in the Campaign Finance Reform Acts.

The total restraints -- the loss of Liberty -- we have on our speech may be as great in effect and force as all the restraints now being suffered regarding the right to bear arms.

ping

Rarely have 27 words written out in a plain sentence caused so much confusion amongst seemingly intelligent people.

Pseudointellectual collectivist "useful idiots".

Every time I hear a liberal express horror that Bush is going to pack the Supreme Court with "activist judges" I ask them if if they're afraid that conservatives will do to them what they've been doing to everyone else for the past four decades. And every one of them knows perfectly well what I'm talking about.

Like the Pledge decision, this is another in-your-face that Stephen Reinhardt is behind (in the Newdow pledge decision, he has been getting his colleague Goodwin to sign the opinions, but he signed this 2nd Amendment decision.) As in the Pledge case, the proper decision for the panel would have been to find that the plaintiff(s) had no standing, and to dismiss the case. As Judge Magill's concurrence in the 2nd Amendment case makes clear, under governing 9th Circuit precedent the plaintiffs had no standing, and that was the reason the district court had dismissed the case. All the 9th Circuit panel had to do was to simply affirm that decision. Reinhardt went out of his way to make sweeping statements on the 2nd Amendment (as the panel he was on in the Pledge case went out of its way to make sweeping statements on the Pledge.)

Typical gun-grabbing bull shite. At least SCOTUS will probably decide on a 2A case within the next 10 years. Then we'll know where we stand.

One of the "anti-gun nuts"' favorite mantras is to say, or imply, that the individual rights view of the Second Amendment is a modern invention, promulgated only in recent decades by those whackos at the NRA. They like to try to undermine any examination of the historic record by claiming that no one in the 18th century ever said anything that couldn't be interpreted as a "collective rights" viewpoint.

Unfortunately for them, they're dead wrong.

Here are a few of the clearest statements of the individual right to keep and bear arms from the time of the Constitution:

"As civil rulers, not having their duty to the people duly before them, may attempt to tyrannize, and as the military forces which must be occasionally raised to defend our country, might pervert their power to the injury of their fellow-citizens, the people are confirmed by the next article in their right to keep and bear their private arms."
--Tench Coxe (1755-1824), writing as "A Pennsylvanian," in "Remarks On The First Part Of The Amendments To The Federal Constitution," in the _Philadelphia Federal Gazette,_ June 18, 1789, p.2 col.1 [Coxe is referring to the proposed amendment which became the Second Amendment.]

What part of "their private arms" is unclear to the gun grabbers?

Not only does this clearly spell out the individual rights position, proving that it was an issue even back then, but the context of this quote strongly implies that it was the position also held by James Madison, who *wrote* the Second Amendment.

Tench Coxe was a British Loyalist during the early parts of the American Revolution. This is not a damning observation -- at that time many colonists felt it was more proper to support the established government, whatever its flaws, than to support a band of insurrectionists. But Coxe came around and eventually became one of the Revolution's most ardent supporters. Coxe was one of the three delegates from Pennsylvania sent to the Constitutional Convention (1788). This was an *extremely* important and respected role, and it makes Coxe one of the Founders of our American government. He eventually held significant positions in the new American government, including appointments by James Madison and George Washington.

A few points of note about the above Coxe quote:

1. It was part of an overview not just of the Second Amendment, but of the entire proposed Bill of Rights. It wasn't an off-the-cuff comment, it was a carefully composed analysis.

2. Coxe's summaries were published far and wide. For example, the above quote was also published on the front page of the special July 4, 1789 issue of the Boston Massachusetts Centinel, among others. They were, in fact, the most widely read critiques of the proposed Bill of Rights at the time.

3. When "the People" voted on ratifying the Second Amendment, THIS IS WHAT THEY UNDERSTOOD THEY WERE AGREEING TO.

4. There were no counterarguments at the time. Stephen P. Halbrook writes, in "THE RIGHT TO BEAR ARMS IN THE FIRST STATE BILLS OF RIGHTS: PENNSYLVANIA, NORTH CAROLINA, VERMONT, AND MASSACHUSETTS", "No one disputed this explanation or provided any alternative interpretation of the proposed amendment."

5. Neither did James Madison. Madison wrote to Coxe and commended him for his summaries, without taking any issue with Coxe's characterization of the Bill of Rights. And if anyone should know what the Second Amendment meant, it would be James Madison.

6. The quote has been circulated both with and without the "private" arms qualifier. Ken Barnes, a Second Amendment researcher, took the time to go back to original sources to verify which version was correct. The "private" qualifier *IS* in the original.

This quote alone should be a historical slam-dunk against the "collective rights" twaddle. (And what in the hell is a "collective right"? What *else* do the gun-grabbers contend is a "collective right", not held by individuals?)

Here's a lengthier quote:

"The project of disciplining all the militia of the United States is as futile as it would be injurious, if it were capable of being carried into execution. A tolerable expertness in military movements is a business that requires time and practice. It is not a day, or even a week, that will suffice for the attainment of it. To oblige the great body of the yeomanry, and of the other classes of the citizens, to be under arms for the purpose of going through military exercises and evolutions, as often as might be necessary to acquire the degree of perfection which would entitle them to the character of a well-regulated militia, would be a real grievance to the people, and a serious public inconvenience and loss. [...] 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.
--Alexander Hamilton, writing as "Publius," in the_Daily Advertiser,_ January 9, 1788

Points of note:

1. This is the clearest statement of the meaning of the term "well regulated militia". Hamilton says that what makes an armed populace a "well regulated militia" is the "degree of perfection" of their military preparedness.

2. ...and not, as the gun-grabbers would have you believe, how "government regulated" they are. In fact, Hamilton specifically points out that being too heavily regulated would be impractical. He just wants the population at large to be armed and ready.

3. The last sentence would be enough to give Sarah Brady a stroke: Hamilton wants the general public to be periodically inspected to ensure that they remain "properly armed and equipped". This is the federal government *mandating* the citizens being armed. My, how times have changed...

Coxe again:

"The militia of these free commonwealths, entitled and accustomed to their arms, when compared with any possible army, must be _tremendous and irresistable_. Who are the militia? _[A]re they not ourselves[?]_ Is it feared, then, that we shall turn our arms _each man against his own bosom[?]_ Congress have no power to disarm the militia. Their swords, and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are _the birth-right of an American_... [T]he unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the _federal or state governments,_ but, where I trust in God it will ever remain, _in the hands of the people._"
--Tench Coxe (1755-1824), writing as "A Pennsylvanian," in _Pennsylvania Gazette,_ February 20, 1788 [see_A Documentary History of the Ratification of the Constitution_(Kamiski and Saladino, eds., 1981) p.1778-1780]

Note especially the point about arms being in the hands of the people, and *NOT* in the hands of the federal or *state* governments.

"That the said Constitution shall never be construed to authorize Congress to infringe the just liberty of the press or the rights of conscience; or to prevent the people of the United states who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms..."
--Samuel Adams (1722-1803), in Debates and Proceedings in the Convention of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, pp.86-87, also in Philadelphia_Independent Gazetteer,_ August 20, 1789 (Pierce & Hale, eds., Boston, 1850)

Oh, look: Their *own* arms.

How about the Supreme Court?

"It is undoubtedly true that all citizens capable of bearing arms constitute the reserved military force or reserve militia of the United States as well as of the States, and, in view of this prerogative of the general government, as well as of its general powers, the States cannot, even laying the constitutional provision out of view, prohibit the people from keeping and bearing arms, so as to deprive the United States of their rightful resource for maintaining public security, and disable the people from performing their duty to general government."
--U.S. Supreme Court Justice Woods, writing in _Presser v. Illinois,_ U.S. Reports v.116 p.252, Supreme Court Reports v.6 p.580, Lawyer's Edition v.29 p.615 (1886)

"[S] 1889. The next amendment is: '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.' [S] 1890. The importance of this article will scarcely be doubted by any persons who have duly reflected upon the subject. The militia is the natural defence of a free country against sudden foreign invasions, domestic insurrections, and domestic usurpations of power by rulers. It is against sound policy for a free people to keep up large military establishments and standing armies in time of peace, both from the enormous expenses, with which they are attended, and the facile means, which they afford to ambitious and unprincipled rulers, to subvert the government, or trample upon the rights of the people. The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered, as the palladium of the liberties of a republic; since it offers a strong moral check against the usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers; and will generally, even if these are successful in the first instance, enable the people to resist and triumph over them."
--U.S. Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story (1779-1845), "Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States; With a Preliminary Review of the Constitutional History of the Colonies and States before the Adoption of the Constitution" pp.746-747 (Boston, 1833)

Justice Story is rightly considered one of the foremost authorities on the Constitution.

"Last Monday a string of amendments were presented to the lower House; these altogether respect personal liberty..." --Senator William Grayson (1740-1790) of Virginia in a letter to Patrick Henry, June 12, 1789 [in Patrick Henry's_Papers_ vol.3, p.391 (1951)]

Hmm, "personal liberty"...

"I ask, Who are the militia? They consist now of the whole people, except for a few public officers."
--George Mason (1725-1792), in the Virginia Convention on the ratification of the Constitution, June 16, 1788, in_Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution,_ Jonathan Elliot, ed., v.3 p.425 (Philadelphia, 1836)

"...whereas, to preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them; nor does it follow from this, that all promiscuously must go into actual service on every occasion."
--U.S. Senator Richard Henry Lee (1732-1794) of Virginia, _A number of Additional Letters from the Federal Farmer to the Republican; leading to a fair examination of the System of Government proposed by the late Convention; to several essential and necessary alterations in it. and calculated to Illustrate and Support the Principles and Positions Laid down in the preceding Letters,_ (New York, January 25, 1788), p.169 [Note: Richard Henry Lee, who was a Senator in the First Congress, is_not_to be confused with Revolutionary War hero Henry "Light- Horse Harry" Lee, the father of Confederate general Robert E. Lee. Richard Henry Lee was "Light-Horse" Henry's_uncle_ (_and_uncle-in- law!) thanks to "Light-Horse" Henry marrying his second cousin, Matilda Lee.]

"Another of these [democratizing] operations is making every citizen a soldier, and every soldier a citizen; not only_permitting_every man to arm, but_obliging_him to arm."
--Joel Barlow (1754-1812), _Advice to the Privileged Orders in the several States of Europe, resulting from the necessity and propriety of a general revolution in the principles of government,_ p.24 and 61-69 (London, 1792-1793) [This work was written in the early days of the French Revolution.]

Oh, yeah, belief in individual citizens being armed for the public good is a modern "gun nut" invention, the early Americans never thought of seeing it that way, yup yup...

Reinhardt is such an arrogant son-of-a-bitch, he just HAD to make himself out to look so f'ing smart to all his lefty cronies on the west coast, including that dipsh*t California AG, Bill Lockyer, and those other dishonest goons sitting on the Cal SC. He can't help himself. These people think they have a lock on the government in California and that they can do anything they want legislatively because the entire court system is in on the conspiracy to deny rights, "wink, wink, nod, nod."

Reinhardt's arrogance may just have pushed him too far on this one. Gone are the days when the bastards could just push us aside with a bang of the judicial gavel.

There are some who say that the US SC will not take this case; if so, the problem is only going to grow. Inaction by the SC would be unconscionable. RKBA advocates are willing to put up a lot of money to get this thing appealed, and I think the juggernaut cannot be stopped. There also is no middle ground; either its an individual right, or the entire Constitution is null and void. If the latter, than every damn law passed in the last 200 years is also null and void. The US SC cannot afford to allow this kind of thinking to fester. The fate of the Republic hangs in the balance.

Scalia, Thomas and probably Rehnquist would like to rule on this; all it takes is for 4 justices to agree to hear a case, so one more honest man is required.