Posted on 12/13/2002 5:41:17 AM PST by SJackson
In a word, it is US. Using judicial rulings to expand this to the same level as those used to allow women in the military, it'd include them as well.
Excuse the first posting of this. Fumble Fingers
Liberals don't give a damn about grammar, just propaganda value.
Hmm... does this mean that Congress doesn't even have to beef up the US Border Patrol? All they have to do is issue these Letters of Marque and Reprisal and we can stop the illegal aliens on their side of the border!!!
That was just "one" explaination I have heard-read over the years. I stand ready to learn if anyone has a better explaination of the phrase. This explaination of "well regulated" is what I use when socialist seditionial clintonista types claim that of all of the bill of rights this is the only one that doesn't refer to the individual just the goobermint.......yeah right.
Stay Safe !
So that is it all along... Public officials are not the militia, and so, they are prohibited from owning arms. Its all about gun-envy. "If I can't have guns, neither can you!" :)
I have added that to my RKBA tool box. Thanks !
Stay Safe !
Are you sure? The story that I heard was that Jack Miller was already dead when the case went in front of the Supreme Court. Jack Miller had left the scene after the initial trial where the case was dropped by the lower court. By the time it went to the SCOTUS, Jack Miller has already been killed by a 'competitor'.
I've heard conflicting accounts.
Part of the confusion may be that although Miller's name is on the case, there were actually *two* people involved in the original arrest, Jack Miller *and* Frank Layton.
So perhaps one died and the other failed to appear, and people keep getting confused as to which was which. The ultimate fate of either is hard to track down, since they were small-time guys in a less documentation-obsessed era involved in a (at the time) not obviously significant court fight.
Maybe the plaintiffs should file a motion for reconsideration with the panel on the basis of recent news about Bellesiles. Reinhardt won't back down, but the two other members of the panel may at least be embarrassed enough to remove the references to Bellesiles from the opinion.
Reinhardt was being stupid, he was being in your face. Now, the two other members of the panel may well have been being stupid.
Sigh. This is a very common misconception, even on the pro-gun side which usually gets most of _Miller_ right.
The Supreme Court did *not* make a ruling on whether or not the sawed-off shotgun was suitable for militia use. They did *not* say, "no it isn't".
Let's look at their language again:
In the absence of any evidence tending to show that possession or use of a 'shotgun having a barrel of less than eighteen inches in length' at this time has some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia, we cannot say that the Second Amendment guarantees the right to keep and bear such an instrument. Certainly it is not within judicial notice that this weapon is any part of the ordinary military equipment or that its use could contribute to the common defense.Legal language (when done right -- and the Supreme Court generally knows what it's doing) is very precise.
Let's take the highlighted portions one at a time:
1. "In the absence of any evidence". The Court admits that no evidence had been presented. Not that they had seen evidence against it and none for, but in fact they saw *no* evidence either way, neither side had thought to present any (because they hadn't been able to predict that that's the issue the Court would home in on and make the key to their decision).
2. "...we cannot say..." This is not legal slang for "we have decided it isn't". If they had actually ruled that it was not, they would have said so using direct and clear language. They're being quite literal here -- they CAN NOT SAY, either way. They were unable to make a ruling on that matter. Why? See point #3.
3. "...is not within judicial notice...". "Judicial Notice" is legalese for something that is so obvious and indisputable that judges can decide the matter simply by decree without having to have the issue argued by the prosecution/defense and having evidence produced in court. For example, "the sky is blue" is beyond dispute, it need not be argued in court, no evidence needs to be presented on the matter. For most types of issues, however, judges are required to let the matter be argued pro-and-con, they're not allowed to just presume the truth of most issues without hearing evidence on the matter. So when the Supreme Court wrote that the issue of the firearm's militia suitability "is not within judicial notice", they were declaring it to be something that was *not* an obvious enough matter that it could be decided "from the bench" in the absence of evidence.
Taken altogether, the Supreme Court was saying, "because this is a controversial enough issue that we can't just make a decision without evidence, we really are unable to make a ruling on that matter".
The Justices in the _Miller_ ruling specifically remanded the case back to the lower circuit court for a later determination of that matter, at which time the attorneys would have had time to gather and present evidence about whether a sawed-off shotgun was or was not suitable for militia use.
Unfortunately, the lower court never bothered. Or if they did, their decision has become lost over the decades.
Some pro-gun folks like to call this "Goldilocks gun control". To the anti-gunners, some guns are too hot, some guns are too cold, and no gun is "just right".
For example, from Goldilocks Gun Control, by Edgar Suter, MD:
Some guns are ``too big'' (``assault weapons''); some guns are ``too small'' (handguns). Some ammunition penetrates ``too much'' (armor piercing ammo); some ammunition penetrates ``too little'' (``hyperdestructive'' hollow point ammo). Some guns are ``too inaccurate'' (``Saturday Night Specials''); some guns are ``too accurate'' (scoped hunting rifles or ``sniper rifles'' that don't give Bambi ``a chance'') -- or so the Goldilocks gun banners say.
With regards to the still up-in-the-air question about sawed-off shotguns in particular, yeah.
But the _Miller_ decision did make clear that a) Mr. Miller's status as a private citizen (not part of any formal militia) was no impediment to his Second Amendment standing (if it had been, the justices would have just pointed that out and knocked off early for lunch), and b) the only real key issue when a private citizen claims Second Amendment protection for his firearm is whether the type of firearm would be suitable for militia use.
Part (b) is why the folks on this thread who have claimed that the "militia" clause doesn't really mean a damned thing are wrong. It does mean something -- it means that the purpose of the right to keep and bear arms is to preserve the effectiveness of a citizen militia. The _Miller_ decision says, in effect, that militia-suitable arms are thus the relevant ones to consider, and not such things as starter's pistols, BB-guns, cap pistols, squirt guns, etc.
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