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To: Texas Federalist
Moreover, I seem to remember that this case has a bad set of facts for gun rights advocates.

What bad set of facts? A bunch of upstanding and law abiding citizens filed suit against the state Attorney General to get him to stop violating their RKBA. There's really no more to it than that. Certain prominent "NRA lawyers" would have you believe that there is more to it than that, but that's pretty much it. There real problem withe the suit was that it involved Ugly Black Guns, which the courts supposedly have no sympathy for, even though more people are killed with handguns, which they want DC to start registering once again, rather than banning outright, and the fact that winning would have required the Court to answer two questions, (1)Does the second amendment protect the rights of individuals, and (2) does it apply to the states, probably through the 14th amendment. They would have preffered a single question, the first one. They also think trying to "save" Ugly Black Guns, is a non-starter. IOW they've given up on the primary purpose of the second amendment, and are down to arguing the secondary purposes of self defense against criminals, and sport shooting, or at least they prefer to start with the secondary purposes.

58 posted on 12/02/2003 2:54:47 PM PST by El Gato (Federal Judges can twist the Constitution into anything.. Or so they think.)
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To: El Gato
I share your frustration. But let me clarify what I meant by "bad set of facts" When the Supreme Court rules on a new issue, it waits for a set of facts that most clearly establishes the proposition of law that they want to establish. In this case, for example, if the justices were to rule that the Second Amendment conveys an individual right, I would speculate that they would rather take a case where the statute is clearly unconstitutional, like a challenge to D.C.'s total handgun ban, and let the lower courts iron out the rest. If they took the California case, once they established that there is an individual right, there would be too much dissent among the justices over whether the assault weapons ban was "narrowly tailored" to further a "compelling state interest". The result would be a muddled opinion that would be more difficult for lawyers and judges to use as precedent.
154 posted on 12/03/2003 8:21:45 AM PST by Texas Federalist
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