Heller - 2nd Amendment Case

I'm not going to comment on it, but if anyone wants to see it, the Supreme Court opinion in on the 2nd Amendment is available, here:

http://www.scotusblog.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/07-2901.pdf

I'm sure there are a few here who are interested.

The decision holds that there is an individual right to bear arms.

And that's probably all that should be said.

Nothing opened for me at that link. But I am back in the land of lousy aircard service, so that might be it...

Bravo.
Lets say, for simplicities sake, I agree and am happy with the decision.
-Bill Liptak

The office here is abuzz on this. We can take this discussion private, if anyone wants.

To put it simply: NRA members are happy with the decision; Gun control advocates are not.

Just heard it on the radio. Good!

Nurit

let's see

This will directly effect the largest city near me ... Chicago, which also has a complete ban on handguns.

The TV news will be buzzing tonight!

Very good news… and I like how they clearly defined all the “militia” references as well.

Great news... I have no problem with a realistic approach to some control, but you had best not take my guns away from me.

Amen! Ooops... can't say that...

The decision might not change things all that fast. If you went to Virginia, bought a gun and took it to DC, you'd be violating federal law. If you live in DC and want to buy a gun, you need to be able to find a federally licensed gun dealer in DC. There are none right now. And DC is likely to try and use zoning and other laws to fight people seeking to open gun stores. See: http://blogs.wsj.com/law/

It should bring faster changes to places like Chicago and NYC, but that is also likely to need another decision that says the law, as decided in Heller, also applies to restrict states. Not there yet, but it's a likely development from Heller. Still someone will need to challenge the Chicago or NYC law for it to happen. NYC and Chicago however, do nto have that problem mentioned above with needing a federally licensed dealer. The states of Illinois and New York have them already.

A humurous, somewhat, effort to comply with California law, a pink "Hello Kitty" AR-15. See: http://blog.riflegear.com/archive/2007/1...s-cute-and.aspx

Well, the question as to whether Heller applies to the states is one related to the Fourteenth Amendment, which states, in salient part:

"No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

As far as certain freedoms and rights, the states are obligated to protect them and not restrict them as much as the federal government is so obligated. Since DC did not involve a state, the case did not require a decision that the states could not infringe on the right that has been declared in Heller. If that is decided, then NYC and Chicago might need to change their laws. It may not require a Supreme Court decision to change it in one or the other. Someone could sue in Chicago, and have the Court (either the Northern District of Illinois or Sixth Circuit strike down the Chicago law), while someone who sued in NYC could lose and have the Courts in NYC uphold New York's law. And the two Courts could do it with exactly opposite reasoning.

I quote from antoher page:

"Because the District of Columbia is a federal entity, Heller provides a clean application of the Second Amendment which, like the rest of the Bill of Rights, originally applied only to the federal government. Before a state or municipal gun law can be challenged, the Supreme Court will have to decide that the right to keep and bear arms is also protected by the Fourteenth Amendment, which limits state powers. This conclusion is not forgone.

Nowadays, the Court asks whether a particular rights is “incorporated” into the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, an unpopular doctrine among some conservatives. Of course, after recognizing an unconditioned individual right in Heller, affording it less protection from states than other enumerated rights now receive would be awkward—especially given the overwhelming evidence that the right to keep and bear arms was among the “privileges or immunities of citizens” to which the Fourteenth Amendment refers. Indeed, those who wrote the Amendment were concerned about enabling black freeman and white Republicans in the South to protect themselves from violence, including terrorism by local militias."

Sooner or later, someone is going to open the gun store in DC that allows them to sell firearms to people living in DC. There may be a big price to it, but it is going to happen in the next couple years. There may be only one or two stores, but it will happen. It may not happen without a Court fight or two, but teh Federal Circuit will make it happen.

The Fourteenth Amendment case may not happen for a few years. So, we could have very similar gun laws declared to be ok in one place and not in another. I doubt it will happen for long, but I also think that the localities with restrictive gun laws and not going to ease them a lot quickly. There is going to be a Court battle or two that forces it to happen. The NRA-ILA may be seeking out plaintiffs for such cases right now or soon.

Indeed, it is good news.

I was wrong, the NRA was not searching for plaintiff's, it already had them.

Wasing no time, suit has been filing challenging the Chicago gun ban. See:

http://cbs2chicago.com/local/supreme.court.handguns.2.757471.html

This is like June 7 1944, just because you made it off the beaches, it doesn’t make the war over.


It’s still going to be a long battle!

Absolutely.

And don't forget it was a 5-4 decision. If one of the 5 leaves the Court, a new Justice might not agree and the law could change.

Neither can I.

But I will say that when I heard it on the radio, my day got about 10K% better.

Listening to the caller comments on the radio today I was shocked at the level of ignorance, misinformation, and what seems like a widespread aversion to allowing responsible individuals to make their own personal protection decisions. Institutionalized learning obviously has some severe shortcomings.

Absolutely correct, there will still be many legal conflicts to come. But, at least everyone has a very clear definition now that “militia” applies to “everyone”. No more ambiguity to cling to in desperation there.

Of course, I may also be grossly underestimating how bass-ackwards some people can interpret the English language, but at least they’ll have much more material to have to argue against now.

It's always bad form to quote yourself, but here's my own blog entry on the decision, and an excerpt from the entry -

http://tomfaranda.typepad.com/folly/2008/06/todays-2nd-amendment-supreme-court-decision.html

I was in the gym this morning when the Supreme Court decision ruling that the District of Columbia's law totally banning handgun ownership was unconstitutional. BUT, even the CNN commentators were surprised that it was only a 5-4 decision. They had expected a 7-2 or even unanimous deicision upholding the 2nd amendment "right to bear arms."

So a switch of one vote would have invalidated the common sense understanding of the second amendment! Amazing.

Here in the UK we have tighter gun laws than anyone in the US is demanding.
And the benefit from 600,000 peoople losing thier hobby and property (and having to be compensated by the taxpaper with 100 million pounds and gunsmiths, gunshops and ranges being ruined?
Shootings have soared.
The Sock

A favorite quote of mine. If you make guns illegal, then only criminals will be the ones owning them...

Don't you mean "If you outlaw guns, only outlaws will have guns"

I like that also.

Yeah, pretty much what I meant.

A blog, one that would tend to be for allowing gun ownership, with more on where things might go from here:

http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2008_06_22-2008_06_28.shtml#1214559656

As I keep reading stuff about the Heller decision, it seems the dissent cited incorrectly to some authorities. Basically, someone is claiming the dissent says that certain things in support of its argument about older cases. Apparently, the things the dissent says are not true. Perhaps, the judges that signed and wrote it, and clerks that worked on it, either did not read the cases cited or worse. See: http://armsandthelaw.com/archives/2008/06/stevens_dissent.php

I have not read the cases cited, at least not in a number of years, so I don't know if this is true or not.

Obviously, this is political, and I care about it enough to follow it. As you could probably guess, I own firearms and am against a lot of gun control. However, I am trying to stay away from arguing. Please someone tell me if I am beginning to argue.

Been reading some commentary today where its said a multitude of new restrictions in a certain areas could essentially negate the SC decision by making ownership so highly restrictive that while not technically enacting an outright ban, they'll "dissuade" you through legislation.

If such restrictions were to be enacted, they'd likely be struck down as unconstitutional as well. In the meantime, I'm still doing my happy dance.

hope this doesn't cross the line on political stuff, but I've got two words fer ya: Regional Zoning.
You can use zoning laws to ban without banning anything you want. In my home state it's illegal to operate a strip club within a certain distance of a church, and guess where new churches keep popping up(seems to me that in the case of such a law the facility that was there FIRST should get the right-of-way, but what can you do?).
I've read over and over of persons with the (overly broad) label of Sex Offender being forced out of their homes because so many laws were passed saying "you may not linger, reside, ets within X distance of Y(ZABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWZ) location" that when all was said and done there wasn't any place left where they COULD live.

"...Sex Offender...there wasn't any place left where they COULD live..."

I've got an idea where they can live.

But I get your point. Many years ago a friends from his home gun business got zoned out of existence...

"...Sex Offender...there wasn't any place left where they COULD live..."

How about 'the land of striped sunshine'. Some third world hell hole of a prison, where they are simply NOT RELEASED.
They say it's too expensive to keep them in prison; ok outsource it. Countries with an average income of a dollar a day don't spend a lot on their prisoners.
The Sock

Interesting turn. Which offender should be further punished AFTER serving their respective prison term, the sex offender or the gun violence offender?

Just thinking out loud...

John E

Good question!
Obviously no one should be punished after serving their term. But where they are still a danger to society they should be sentenced for n to life in the first place. That goes for sex and gun offenders.
It seems common sense to me; if someone has made no effort to rehabilitate themselves and spent their time in prison on drugs, gangs, plans to get hold of weapons illegally, or kiddie porn. Why let them out?
And this is my last comment as this is definately straying into areas I shouldn't have started discussing on this forum in the first place. Sorry.
The Sock

True. But that also means they don't spend a lot on security. Also, there are prisons in south america for example that might as well be one giant criminal enterprise, like giant criminal think-tanks where gangs thrive and have an endless supply of new recruits.

Many sex offenders can not be "rehabilitated," they will continue to commit sexual offences on innocent people the rest of their lives. I'm not sure that some gun offenders can be rehabilitated either, but at least they usually don't pick on little kids when they do their thing...