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To: robertpaulsen; Dead Corpse

Robert is correct that they didn't decide the incorporation question. If this case is affirmed by SCOTUS, it will make a national ban on arms impossible. It's also probable that such a decision would prohibit "legal in name only" restrictions, so it would likely prohibit a few harsh regs that made the right one only in theory as well. The question would then become whether something is merely a regulation or whether it has the practical effect of a gun ban. State laws would still be immediately valid under this scenario.

HOWEVER, contrary to what Robert assumes, I think it quite likely that if the SCOTUS says it is an individual (instead of collective) right against the federal government, then it will have no problem saying it applies to the states as well. The non-incorporation argument does not do well once one takes an individual rights approach against the federal government. In order to take the individual rights approach, the DC Circuit had to REJECT the militias argument.

What many anti-gunners fail to realize is that if you accept "we the people" and not "militias" in terms of the federal government, which is what the DC Circuit did here, then it makes it functionally equivalent to every other amendment in the BoR. Given the Court's history, incorporation would be almost a guarantee at that point.

This IS a big case for precisely that reason.


558 posted on 03/09/2007 2:41:44 PM PST by NinoFan (Rudy Lovers: The Rosie O'Donnell Wing of the Republican Party)
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To: NinoFan

http://federalistblog.us/2007/02/states_and_second_amendment.html


568 posted on 03/09/2007 3:00:55 PM PST by oceanview
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