Posted on 11/25/2007 12:06:41 PM PST by Graybeard58
If as The Washington Post asserts the constitutionality of the gun ban in Washington, D.C., rises or falls on "whose social science research is accurate," then the U.S. Supreme Court should have no trouble upholding beleaguered residents' gun rights.
The high court hasn't focused on the meaning of "the right to bear arms" for 70 years, despite decades of contradictory rulings by lower courts. In March, the Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia struck down as incompatible with the Second Amendment the district's strict gun-control laws, which have been on the books since 1976.
In a lengthy piece published Nov. 13, which many have taken as a tacit admission it was wrong to advocate so fiercely a gun ban that caused violent crime to soar, the Post summed up supporters' "social science": "(T)he city points to research indicating that street violence would have been worse without the law and that the ban is responsible for a sharp drop in suicides and domestic killings."
That's not science, it's supposition and conjecture. What can be proved, empirically and statistically, is the gun ban made D.C. exceedingly more dangerous.
Violent crime exploded after the city had disarmed its law-abiding citizens. The homicide rate rose 200 percent in the first 15 years while the national rate held steady.
As the Post reported, "Even as the homicide toll declined here after 1991, the percentage of killings committed with firearms remained far higher than it was when the ban was passed. ... Meanwhile, periodic (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms) reports over the years, including one released in August, have documented that firearms, flowing in from elsewhere in the country, remain readily available on D.C. streets �” exactly what the ban's initial supporters had hoped to prevent."
So the ban has been hopelessly feckless, thus rendering moot the city's argument that the ban should be "a legally permissible public-safety measure that has saved lives."
But is it constitutional? The appeals court said the ban "amounts to a complete prohibition on the lawful use of handguns for self-defense. As such, we hold it unconstitutional ... (and) conclude that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to keep and bear arms," a right that "existed prior to the formation of the new government under the Constitution."
We think the ruling speaks for itself.
Ping to a Republican-American Editorial.
If you want on or off this list, let me know.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
BTTT
But, I don’t believe the Second Amendment to be a guarantee for each individual except in federal matters. There, in Washington, D.C., this ruling is correct as it is not a state, but a District of the Federal Government meant as a central meeting place for the states to meet without favor to one or the other. The reason each state has their own constitution is to guarantee the right of each individual in that state to have a right to, or no right to, bear arms as the people in that state decided locally (or continue to decide). Although the civil war changed the scope of the meaning of the United States to mean that States are subject to the Federal Government instead of “these United States” as the framers meant when the INDIVIDUAL States (or quasi countries, if you will) entered into a treaty with each other to form a pact of States much in the same way the European countries have now formed their own United States (or countries) called the European Union. The Second Amendment only prohibited the federal treaty from disarming the people of any one state collectively, thus the need for each state to include within their own constitution whether to guarantee the right with its people. Since the North changed the meaning of the USA with its victory in the nineteenth century, we now witness the federal government sticking its nose into all state matters and taking almost all of the states sovereignty away.
Although you may think that your point of view is the correct one, there is something missing from this. And it’s a very big something.
The 10th Amendment.
“Amendment X
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. “
Read the phrase right after the first comma.
It’s a very important part of the Constitution that lays out what the Bill of Rights protections mean.
The Bill of Rights was not the Government ‘giving’ you rights, but a means of protecting your ‘God given’ rights.
Although States do have the right to make laws, those laws may not contradict the Constitution or usurp the rights of the people.
If the founders had written the Bill of Rights with the idea of ‘giving’ you rights, then you would be correct in assuming that the States could modify those rights to fit their individual laws.
BUT, that’s not the case.
The Bill of rights is very specific in what it portends.
Amendment IX speaks of rights not in the Constitution that are ‘protected’ although not written.
“Amendment IX
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people. “
That is to say, any ‘right’ not written in the Constitution does not mean the government, state or federal, may take away ‘unenumerated’ rights. Or ‘God given rights’.
Also the Supreme court has decided that all of the Bill of Rights extends to the States as well.
Article X lays it out very well with the statement....
“nor prohibited by it to the states”
States cannot pass laws that contradict the Constitution. Although they have been trying for decades...
Also; the constitution and bor is the supreme law of the land which strengthens the argument that the tenth clarifies.
you’re also forgetting that just about every state constitution enumerates the right to keep and bear arms.
for example, our (MI) constitution specifically states “Every person has the right to bear arms for the defense of himself and the state.”
that is correct but BEWARE of “time place and manner” justifications to get around the strict scrutiny test.
This issue is whether they can allow “restrictions” on a fundamental right in the same way they allow it under the first amendment. (remember CFR?)
Also keep in mind all those nifty hot/warm pursuit tests and the fact the police are allowed to lie to induce a confession.
True they are all about criminal law, but judge will contort to get the desired result. (see dred scott decision)
This one is VERY much about the judges and NOT the law.
IMHO, the incorporation of the First Amendment via the Fourteenth has undermined the effect of the First Amendment on Congress. While it is clear that states needed to retain the power, despite the Fourteenth Amendment, to prohibit yelling "fire" in a non-burning theater in such fashion as to cause a panic, it is not clear that the federal government legitimately needed any such power. While the invention of radio communications has created a need for some sorts of federal control, such technologies develop sufficiently seldom that they could and should be dealt with via constitutional amendment.
Unfortunately, the government seldom wants to bother with amending the constitution legitimately when "amendment by fiat" is so much easier.
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