[aristeides]

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.)

[tomswiftjr]

Remember it was Reinhardt who was slapped down by the USSC in the U.S. v. Verdugo-Urquidez [494 US 259, (1990)]. The important thing from that opinion (which Reinhardt chose to ignore) is the following:

"the people" seems to have been a term of art employed in select parts of the Constitution. The Preamble declares that the Constitution is ordained and established by "the People of the United States." The Second Amendment protects "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms," and the Ninth and Tenth Amendments provide that certain rights and powers are retained by and reserved to "the people." See also U.S. Const., Amdt. 1, ("Congress shall make no law . . . abridging . . . the right of the people peaceably to assemble"); Art. I, § 2, cl. 1 ("The House of Representatives shall be composed of Members chosen every second Year by the People of the several States") (emphasis added). While this textual exegesis is by no means conclusive, it suggests that "the people" protected by the Fourth Amendment, and by the First and Second Amendments, and to whom rights and powers are reserved in the Ninth and Tenth Amendments, refers to a class of persons who are part of a national community or who have otherwise developed sufficient connection with this country to be considered part of that community"

Obviously he didn't want any part of this and chose to ignore the ruling in this opinion.