Posted on 12/07/2006 11:58:08 AM PST by Sub-Driver
Scope of 2nd Amendment's questioned
By MATT APUZZO, Associated Press Writer 5 minutes ago
In a case that could shape firearms laws nationwide, attorneys for the District of Columbia argued Thursday that the 2nd Amendment right to bear arms applies only to militias, not individuals.
The city defended as constitutional its long-standing ban on handguns, a law that some gun opponents have advocated elsewhere. Civil liberties groups and pro-gun organizations say the ban in unconstitutional.
At issue in the case before a federal appeals court is whether the 2nd Amendment right to "keep and bear arms" applies to all people or only to "a well regulated militia." The Bush administration has endorsed individual gun-ownership rights but the Supreme Court has never settled the issue.
If the dispute makes it to the high court, it would be the first case in nearly 70 years to address the amendment's scope. The court disappointed gun owner groups in 2003 when it refused to take up a challenge to California's ban on high-powered weapons.
In the Washington, D.C. case, a lower-court judge told six city residents in 2004 that they did not have a constitutional right to own handguns. The plaintiffs include residents of high-crime neighborhoods who want guns for protection.
Courts have upheld bans on automatic weapons and sawed-off shotguns but this case is unusual because it involves a prohibition on all pistols. Voters passed a similar ban in San Francisco last year but a judge ruled it violated state law. The Washington case is not clouded by state law and hinges directly on the Constitution.
"We interpret the 2nd Amendment in military terms," said Todd Kim, the District's solicitor general, who told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit that the city would...
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
"The point being, of course, that the freedom of speech that a newly created citizen of any state would gain in some other state, only pertains to "subjects upon which its own citizens might speak"; whereas this same newly created citizen would be permitted "to keep and carry arms wherever they went", without qualification."
As you noted, before the 14th not to mention the 13th. Perhaps the body of case law of the time already had limits to speach while teh body of federal gun case law lacked such restriction.
I don't know here. I tend to separate the law of the land into two periods, before the 14th and after. If the intent of the 14th is considered as important to its meaning, then much law from before 1866 became null after. It just took the court a very long time to begin playing by the new rules.
I've quoted everyone from Jame Madison to John Locke to John Adams and more on the subject of property, all in agreement that property rights is the most basic foundation of our rights, and that the purpose of government is to protect those rights.
And I agreed that property rights are among the most basic of our rights, as did Locke..
What is true of property, according to Locke, is also true of the right to life: --- I am obliged to seek to preserve the life of all [with arms] as a means to preserving my own [property].
I also agree that the purpose of government is to protect those rights. -- Just as I also assert that our right to carry arms is among the most basic of our rights, and that the purpose of government is to protect those rights.
The issue here still remains..
"-- Ownership does not always mean absolute dominion. The more an owner, for his advantage, opens up his property for use by the public in general, the more do his rights become circumscribed by the statutory and constitutional rights of those who use it. ---"
Thus -- the right of a business-owner to regulate the conduct, "and constitutional rights" of his customers, -- remains at issue.
None of the quotes you property fundamentalists are bandying about disprove anything Black, Locke, or anyone else has written about this 'right to carry v. property' issue.
- There is no issue. -- Carrying arms is not an assault on property rights.
I think you did miss the point.
The Fourteenth is irrelevant to the meaning of my post.
The Dred Scott decision was perhaps the most important Supreme Court decision in the first century of our nation.
One could expect that the Supreme Court would have crafted it very carefully to justify the imposition of aspects of the institution of slavery on non-slave states.
The abolitionist movement was at its peak and this Supreme Court decision played a large part in the outbreak of the US Civil War.
For all those reasons, one can have no doubt that the description of Dred Scott's situation would have been considered very carefully.
The decision concerns itself with the effect of each state's laws on the citizens of other states.
The decision very clearly describes the status of "freedom of speech", qualifying Dred Scott's presumed liberty in a state other than his own as having limits set by the state.
There is no such qualification to Dred Scott's presumed liberty to carry arms wherever he went. There is no enunciated expectation that the state was able to exercise any control over Dred Scott's right to keep and bear arms in a state which he might visit.
Others have pointed out the asymmetry between "Congress shall make no law" in the First Amendment, and "shall not be infringed" in the Second Amendment.
My post was to point out that, many years prior to the passage of the Fourteenth Amendment, the Supreme Court saw no reason to suggest a limit to a person's right to keep and bear arms, but did see a reason to suggest a limit to that same person't freedom of speech.
What would explain the Supreme Courts description OTHER than the fact that "shall not be infringed" meant, at least in practice, that the states did not infringe and would not infringe? How would you explain the asymmetry?
But Dredd Scott is generally considered the worst opinion before Roe. Could you imagine a modern court citing it?
Especially the militia that might fate-twistingly drag his defenseless corpse from his home into the street one sweetly ironic day.
There is no issue
--Tpaine
“'Tis but a scratch'
'A scratch?! Your arm's off!'
'No, it isn't.'”
-- Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)
“STAN: I want to be a woman. From now on, I want you all to call me 'Loretta'.
REG: What?!
LORETTA: It's my right as a man.
JUDITH: Well, why do you want to be Loretta, Stan?
LORETTA: I want to have babies.
REG: You want to have babies?!
LORETTA: It's every man's right to have babies if he wants them.
REG: But... you can't have babies.
LORETTA: Don't you oppress me.
REG: I'm not oppressing you, Stan. You haven't got a womb! Where's the fetus going to gestate?! You going to keep it in a box?!”
-- Monty Python
Usually I don't find a lot of humor in your illogical ultimately boring posts. But you're outdoing yourself this week. I'll count myself lucky that you must always have the last word, so you're essentially my puppet until I really do get bored.
I can imagine problems.
But I don't see anything wrong with the Dred Scott decision, but rather it dealt with the fact that "the people" quite obviously did not include slaves at the time the Constitution was written. If slaves are not of "the people", then they can be considered private property.
Slavery was immoral, wrong, damaging to the public welfare, and much worse than trans-fats, but I don't think it was unConstitutional. Given what the Dred Scott decision was about, I don't see how a Supreme Court was going to decide differently.
Given that you would claim that "arms" does not include "cannon", what do YOU find that would lessen the legal correctness of the Dred Scott decision?
"as my scotch-iris, kentucky hillbilly ancestors told the british and anyone who would enslave them: eat lead........powder, patch, ball, fire. repeat as necessary."
rotflmao......i love it!!!
sic semper tyrannis
Man, this has turned into a long thread eh? It's good that folks are waking once again to this issue. We will have to go once more into the breach against the dems/rinos in regards the 2nd Amendment.
Supreme Court says the First Amendment doesn't extend - and I agree with that wholeheartedly. Supreme Court has also said the Second Amendment doesn't compel the private individual in much the same manner.
Of course the whole structure of the document doesn't matter - nor subsequent legal decisions or anything - that limits that document to just the Federal government, and by way of the 14th, to the States.
You can't look at a portion of the document and derive how the rules apply. You need to look at what the document was even intend to apply to. It was not intended to make prohibitions on individual behavior. It was intended to outline the powers and limitations on government - pure and simple.
But if you want to get in an argument as to the text of certain amendments and how broad they are, can you explain the 10th Amendment?
"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people"
Where is the text on "powers not delegated to the people" or "prohibited by it to the people"?
And to clarify, there is no right to decide who comes on my property, correct?
"Anyone who needs to be persuaded to be free, doesn't deserve to be."?
Yet you want to tell me how I can run my business?
"man, this has turned into a long thread, eh?"
you said it. i think you're right; it is good that folks are waking to the issue once again.
"-- Ownership does not always mean absolute dominion. The more an owner, for his advantage, opens up his property for use by the public in general, the more do his rights become circumscribed by the statutory and constitutional rights of those who use it. ---"
"-- the right of a homeowner to regulate the conduct of his guests --" is not at issue. -- the right of a business-owner to regulate the conduct, "and constitutional rights" of his customers, is indeed at issue.
graf008 asks yet again:
And to clarify, there is no right to decide who comes on my property, correct?
To bad you can't understand the point that Black made: "-- the right of a homeowner to regulate the conduct of his guests --" [is unquestioned]
Property is exploitation of the weak by the strong. -- Pierre Joseph Proudhon, International Communist
Thieves respect property. They merely wish the property to become their property that they may more perfectly respect it. -- Gilbert K. Chesterton
All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others. -- George Orwell
Tpaine, I don't know why you keep ignoring the tomes of Marxist works that support your position on businesses being public property and some rights being more equal, so that the rights of others must be suppressed.
With all of those quotes you would definitely be in a position to cut and paste people into submission. After that you just have to replace the Constitution with your quote collection.
That's SampleMan.
Twelve-year-olds can read better than you have, so I wouldn't cast stones if I were you.
I didn't call you a Marxist. I said you are ignoring the tomes of Marxist literature that supports your argument against property rights.
The reason you are doing that is because it would clarify your anti-property rights position, and you prefer to remain the man behind the curtain. Perhaps you should wonder why the Communists all agree with your position that businesses are to be publicly administered.
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