Posted on 03/20/2007 4:04:15 PM PDT by neverdem
On March 9, the Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia issued a groundbreaking ruling. It declared in a 2-1 decision that the Washington, D.C. ban on handgun possession in private homes, in effect since 1976, is unconstitutional. The court reached this conclusion after stating unequivocally that the Second Amendment's right to keep and bear arms applies to individuals and not just "the militia."
It is quite likely that this ruling will be appealed to Supreme Court, which hasn't offered an interpretation of the Second Amendment since 1939.
Appalled by the District Court ruling, the Washington Post editorialized that it will "give a new and dangerous meaning to the Second Amendment" that, if applied nationally, could imperil "every gun control law on the books."
The Post accused the National Rifle Association and the Bush administration's Justice Department of trying "to broadly reinterpret the Constitution so as to give individuals Second Amendment rights."
But actually, to argue that the Second Amendment does not apply to individuals is a reinterpretation of the Constitution and the original intent of the founders.
One of the major concerns of the anti-Federalists during the debate over the Constitution in 1787 was the fact that the new document lacked a Bill of Rights. In order to get the Constitution ratified, the framers promised to pass a Bill of Rights during the First Congress as amendments to the Constitution. The Second Amendment with its right to keep and bear arms became part of that package.
What was the original intent of the Second Amendment? Was the right to bear arms a collective right for militias, or an individual right for all citizens? The "Dissent of the Pennsylvania Minority," from the debates of 1787, is telling. This document speaks...
(Excerpt) Read more at realclearpolitics.com ...
"So the meaning of the second amendment is exactly the same with or without the prefatory clause."
Exactly so, and the court just found exactly that way. Try reading the decision before you post any more. The court stated that, in this case, the prefatory clause gave one "civic-minded" example of why the right is so enshrined and protected by the Constitution, but that the right itself exists without that example and is far, far broader than the example cited in the prefatory clause. I know you hate limitations on governmental power and authority, bobby, but you're going to have to learn to live with them, because they are the wave of the future and we WILL have truly Constitutional governance restored in this country, maybe even within my lifetime. And it will be done without your "help," thanks very much.
Please don't write on my thread any more until you tell me that you have read the Parker decision. Your comments remind me of the Dred Scott decision, which, believe it or not, was cited in Parker for recognizing the right to keep and bear arms in the territories. It was right in the particulars, but wrong overall. It was so wrong that we had the Civil War.
Thats what your telling me?
Well the Dred Scott decision seems bad looking at in a 21st century world but it wasn't a bad constitutional decision.
The constitution, to facilitate ratification, allowed slavery and did not intend to extend the right of citizenry to slaves. The court ruled accordingly.
This was resolved with the passage of the 13th and 14th amendments. Dred Scott was ruled upon 10 years before the passage of those amendments, however.
BTW, just wanted to add that the editorializing of the Dred Scott decision, "beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations, and so far inferior that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect", was of course idiotic and not constitutionally relevant.
Please don't post any more threads until you've read Reinhart's decision in Silveira v Lockyer so you know what you're up against.
By your state, if it doesn't violate the state constitution, yes.
Oh, and I prefer the term "reasonably regulated given a compelling state interest" instead of "infringed".
Poor Bobby... can't operate outside his Brady approved script.
Well you didn't write that you had read Parker, and you cite Silveira v Lockyer from the 9th Circus the regularly, most overturned Circuit Court by the SCOTUS! ROTFLMAO
Please, don't waste my time with such nonsense anymore. I'll scan comments for the author on Second Amendment threads. I know I won't need to read yours. Adios
And if I remember correctly, Silveira addressed where the Emerson case was wrong.
Who to believe, who to believe?
The Founders...
"The whole of the Bill [of Rights] is a declaration of the right of the people at large or considered as individuals … It establishes some rights of the individual as unalienable and which consequently, no majority has a right to deprive them of." Albert Gallatin of the New York Historical Society, October 7, 1789
-PJ
You do realize what he's saying here, don't you? He's saying the rights of "the people" are either protected collectively (people at large) or individually.
Uh-oh.
Well, your argument about "the people" in the Bill of Rights referring only to individuals just went down the toilet.
-PJ
I meant to add, Gallatin wasn't a Founder.
For the record, I retract the comments about not understanding the Constitution, even if I don't agree with you. I had not come in contact with you before this thread, but you've offered up plenty of citations in your defense.
Agreed.
You are a such an idiot. He is saying that is doesn't matter which way you look at it. The BoR is a list of their Rights and those protections apply everywhere equally.
You've gotta be a shell script. Enough heuristics to imply content and find the antonym. Repost without a content check. Sloppy programming by your author Bot...
As I've demonstrated before, yes he was. Pennsylvania delegate to their Constitutional convention ratifying the Federal Constitution.
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