Posted on 07/15/2008 12:23:50 PM PDT by JZelle
The District, rebuffed by the Supreme Court last month in a landmark decision on its 32-year-old gun ban, could soon be headed back to court over a new gun law that could take effect as early as Wednesday.
The D.C. Council will vote Tuesday on emergency legislation that will require handgun owners to keep their weapons disassembled or under lock and key in what gun rights advocates see as direct defiance of the Supreme Court ruling.
That ruling said the District could not bar residents from "rendering any lawful firearm in the home operable for the purpose of immediate self-defense."
Some interpreted that language at the time as prohibiting any requirement for gun locks.
"They're doing everything that they can to not comply with the Supreme Court ruling," said Chris Cox, chief lobbyist for the National Rifle Association, who dismissed the proposed legislation as "a joke."
"Unless the criminal calls you beforehand and lets you know he's coming over ... you're going to be left defenseless," Mr. Cox said.
D.C. interim Attorney General Peter J. Nickles acknowledged that officials expected strong reactions to the emergency legislation, which will be in effect for only 90 days.
"We expect a lot of public input, [and] we probably expect also a lawsuit," he said. "We will learn from what it is we see, and it may be appropriate to change some of the measures."
In the majority Supreme Court opinion that struck down the District's gun ban, Justice Antonin Scalia wrote that "the District´s ban on handgun possession in the home violates the Second Amendment, as does its prohibition against rendering any lawful firearm in the home operable for the purpose of immediate self-defense."
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
Hit em with another suit.
Can’t they be held in contempt of court for considering this type of legislation?
If Congress was in Republican hands, perhaps their budget could be held up by Congress for not complying with the Supreme Court ruling, perhaps. That would never happen with Dems. in charge.
Point is, there must be some way to get compliance with Supreme Court orders.
“We will learn from what it is we see, and it may be appropriate to change some of the measures.”
Or get your a$$ in the slammer for contempt of court!
Gestapo tactics.
I guess the only solution would be to buy the biggest, heaviest handgun available. At least you would have a heavy steel frame to throw at the burglars because you sure wouldn’t have time to assemble and load it.
The next step should be for some crime victims in Washington DC to sue the city in civil court for violating their civil rights under the Second Amendment.
Perhaps a fat award would give them some religion.
The Executive Branch is about enforcement of laws. It cannot make laws, or interpret laws. It can determine how much enforcement is put behind laws.
The Supreme Court interprets laws. It cannot make laws nor enforce them.
The Congress makes laws. It should understand what they pass (often don’t), but cannot determine constitutionality in the sense the Supreme Court can, nor enforce them as the Executive Branch can.
No, it’s ignorance. The DC Government could screw up a two car funeral...and has!
Well, perhaps DC residents can fling bullets at home invaders?
The DC City Council is loaded with retards.
Yeah, I really like the civil rights litigation for this. Someone goes down and tries to satisfy their Second Amendment Rights and are rejected.
They then lose a family member in a crime at their home.
Sue the city for $150 million. Triple damages.
That should get their attention.
MOLON LABE
"They" want everyone "gun-free"...........
MOLON LABE
How would they prove that?
So long as someone has a lock, they can’t prove the gun wasn’t first locked and them unlocked just in time to deep six the perp.
Their confidence that it will stand up in court is only matched by their sheer arrogance.
Rope....it's the only way to be sure. What movie was that? Nevermind.
This is a law breaking action by DC and will never make it to the USSC...they have already ruled on it and the first court it appears in will toss it. In fact, Justice Dept. lawers should be drawing up indictments against any city or State official that declares their intention to break the law as set down by the USSC and the Constitution.
There is a Freeper on this board has a tagline that says: "I keep a gun in my nightstand because a cop won't fit." I couldn't agree more.
This is why I sent $$ to NRA for a Life Membership. NRA should immediately bring this to the attention of the US Supreme Court. Clearly, the DC council is flaunting their ruling.
“It’s really about keeping minorities disarmed.” Say what? This is about the silliest comment I’ve read in a very long time. The left wants to do away with the right to keep and bear arms...the 2nd amendment. That is the extreme danger we face as American citizens. Race is absolutely irrelevant. Your contention that the ...central thesis of modern gun control...” is somehow race based is just goofy.
Where is the ACLU????
As a rich (at least when tax hikes are under discussion) white guy from the suburbs, I haven't noticed myself receiving any particular exemptions from the gun laws. Unlike homies buying stolen merchandise out of the trunk of a car.
Also unlike homie, a mandatory 6 months for having a gun in the console is actually a threat to me - what with a job to lose and responsibilities to take care of, and no old friends in the cell block I wanted to see again anyway.
I don't think gun grabbers care about disarming minorities one way or the other. Homies mainly murder other homies, and liberals mainly live somewhere else. The bogeyman is always the disgruntled white guy going postal (once or twice a year), not the nightly tribal wars downtown.
“Perhaps a fat award would give them some religion.”
What good would that do? That reward would be paid by the tax-payers, as usual....NOT the DemocRats opposing the right to bear arms.
MOLON LABE
It would tell them that they can either spend all that loot on their pet projects or they can deny their citizens their Second Amendment rights, but that there is not enough in the budget to do both.
Thank God for the 2nd Amendment.
Actually, in DC, its about keeping the victims disarmed. DC is a kleptocracy in the best Third-World style. Mugabe would probably be right at home as mayor...
Nevada apparently.
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
So that would give me to believe that the Tampa ACLU thinks ownership of implements of self defense are a natural right...i.e. a right that cannot be legislated on.
What do you think?
” “It’s really about keeping minorities disarmed.” Say what? This is about the silliest comment I’ve read in a very long time. The left wants to do away with the right to keep and bear arms...the 2nd amendment. That is the extreme danger we face as American citizens. Race is absolutely irrelevant. Your contention that the ...central thesis of modern gun control...” is somehow race based is just goofy”
The first gun bans enacted in this country were in the wake of the Civil War, in order to keep the newly-freed blacks from being armed. Gotta keep those N-words from getting uppity and all....
This is a law breaking action by DC and will never make it to the USSC
Actually, SCOTUS ordered DC to give Heller permission to have a gun in his home or, in effect, to show cause why not (i.e., if Heller turned out to be a felon or something). So Mr. Heller would seem to have an awfully big hammer in the lowest court in DC, if DC messes with him personally in the way they seem to propose to continue to treat the populace of DC.
After the Heller decision, there is a 21-day stay for the USSC to revise its decision. Then, the decision is remanded to the DC Apellate Court, which has the RAA to issue order to see the USSC decision enforced.
If Heller files a complaint that the new law infringes on the USSC opinion, the Apellate court can strike it down immediately.
(IANAL, but that is how I see it).
Boy, are you dreadfully mistaken.
Race is exactly what gun control is founded upon. It always has been. Sure, I agree that gun grabbers are out to grab all guns and demolish the 2nd Amendment, but the heart of the issue is entirely race-based and has been since it's conception. Though they want a blanket ban on all firearms, it's really because they're too politically correct (in their concealment) to just want the guns out of the hands of the people that they've always wanted to deny guns to most. You see, we are a global village and must all share the burden equally down to the lowest common denomi-nigger, if you'll pardon my use of that racial slur so that you'll understand their true agenda.
I can state many historical examples proving the very obvious race-based anti RKBA measures of post-Civil War Reconstruction, Jim Crow, and late 19th/early 20th Century laws in Chicago and NYC, but a good example in recent memory is how it came to be that the modern gun control movement left behind the literary society set of Manhattan penthouses and went downtown into the ghetto with the 'Million Mom March' where it remains today. That's also where you'll find the pro-Abortion movement these days, by the way.
I once spied on a 'Million Mom March' gathering and counted exactly one white family -- a mother and her two young daughters -- hovering unwelcome around the outer fringe of a sea of inner-city urban ethnics who appeared there bused in by their African-centric churches, and it was impossible to miss how the demographics of the gun control movement have changed in recent years. Where I used to see predominantly white 'awareist' yuppies and Joan Baez-like lefties at gun control demonstrations back in the late '80s, the crowd had now become a threatening mob of borderline criminal parents lamenting the deaths of their obvious criminal offspring. This is not where activist money comes from, not where convincing activists come from, and certainly not where a lot of public sympathy goes to, but that's where the gun control movement exists today because they were the target demographic all along. The murder rates were never there for white teens to get anyone justifiably excited about gun control. It's always been about blacks and Hispanics as far as gun control activists are concerned. White liberals in favor of gun control don't mourn the loss of disadvantaged inner city youth who die from gunfire, it's that they don't want to get shot by one of them while at the same time they call gun owners paranoid.
Believe me, if you could see the mental picture in a gun control activist's mind if you asked them to imagine a violent person coming their way holding a gun meaning to do evil, that person wouldn't look like the chairman of the NRA and would instead look like someone from the ghetto (more often than not these days someone from their own neighborhood), and you can be damned certain of that.
The only white people left in the gun control movement are the two smiling white faces (one of them in a wheelchair) who no longer serve as anything but recognizable corporate mascots in the same way that Betty Crocker's portrait appears on a box of cake mix. The only other white faces you'll see on the issue of gun control is the occasional representation of a fat unshaven hillbilly with an NRA hat in political cartoons. Only Josh Sugarmann is still trying to make a living out of gun control trying to get a five buck donation from anyone who will still listen to his 'not for profit' outfit's worn out schtick.
You may think that this is actually proving your point, in that the modern gun control movement isn't race-based because it is now in the hands of inner city blacks like Jesse Jackson and Rev. Wright -- so how could it be racist?
I contend that's the community where gun controllers have struggled for ages to gain a foothold. Now that they're there, gun control's founders have entirely lost interest in the notion and are on to other more important things like alarmism over climate change and so on. Just like how Planned Parenthood focuses almost solely on blacks and Hispanics for their Eugenicist cause. Mission complete!
Justice Clarence Thomas knew precisely this when he voted in favor of Heller in the recent US Supreme Court decision preserving our inherent right to keep and bear arms. I can guarantee you that several paragraphs in the majority opinion as outlined by Justice Scalia are Justice Thomas' words alone. Note also how many gun control activists decried Thomas' vote in published opinion pieces where they asked questions along the lines of 'How could he vote in favor of guns knowing that it's young people of his skin color that are dying in cities across America from gun violence?'.
You can bet your last dollar that gun control is racist.
So, do I understand the DC Appellate court will rule on DC new rules as to whether they are in compliance with the SCOTUS ruling? If so, when?
Not just minorities
They might, then they might not.
From the original decision, it seems likely they will, if Heller files a complaint.
And as to when - when they decide to, frankly. Who knows.
Lets if we can get Silverman and Jantice Rogers Brown on that panel. That would be some good times.
Better than being shot, and disabled or dead.
And the more people that take that position...the better, IMO.
MOLON LABE
I would LOVE to see Heller try to register a semi-auto pistol of the most common type - e.g. a Colt .45 pattern, a Beretta 92, a Glock, S&W 59 series, etc. Better yet, whatever is standard issue for the DC PD. Let them deny him and THEN see what the Court says.
I can imagine that the DC Circuit Court, having made a ruling in Heller's favor that far surpassed the Supreme Court, would probably be receptive to an emergency appeal from Heller to the effect that the new DC regulations, temporary though they may be, are a violation of the Supreme Court's decision.
The Circuit Court could simply mandate that specific provisions of DC regulations shall be without effect and shall not be enforced. Pending the passing of permanent legislation, the Court can effectively mandate that there are NO regulations of guns in DC until the Court approves regulations that are consistent with the Heller decision.
Failing to conform to the orders of a court are a simple, though painful, way to lose control over all of one's affairs.
My concern in all this has to do with the de facto elimination of FFLs to serve the DC population. I don't see how those who should be buying guns in DC will be able to do so legally.
It's a well established historical fact that the first gun control laws were specifically racist in their intent because they only applied to freed slaves. And now the areas that have the tightest gun control are those areas where you have a sizable minority population ruled over by an elite (predominantly white) political class. We look at that result and say that it's caused by the ruling class not trusting the peasants because conservatives don't really notice any issue of race. but liberals dont' think like us. To the liberals running the big cities, identity politics is everything. Your race is central to who you are. And they look at their constituency and see a bunch of dangerous "others" that they're ruling over.
If a wealthy white man wanted to get a gun permit in New York city he can just pay the right people, make the right political contribution and presto... a gun permit. That's how Rosie O'Donnell got hers. Liberals didn't set up the law to keep them from having a gun because wealthy and white is enough like them to make them comfortable. But even if a black man had a real need for self defense he's not getting a permit... no way no how.
Up to now we've always seen gun control as an assault on everyone not in the ruling class, but that isn't how the ruling class has seen it. and we've been giving them a pass on it becasue we feel threatened too.
If we can simply make it clear that only a racist can continue to support gun control, their inner city support will fall away.
You think about gun control as an assault on you and your rights... but the truth is, for liberals it's never been about banning "our guns" it's always been about banning "their guns". But at the core of their "us and them" idea is race.
It may seem like I'm stating the obvious at first, but you see gun control as a very different thing than a liberal does. Not that their way is rational at all, but you need to try to understand it if you're going to counter it effectively.
Gun control started out as a race issue, and it's still a race issue today. Not because we see it that way, but because they mean it that way.
That's exactly the point I was going to make about NYC handgun licensing laws if the thread went any further.
There was a list of CCW holders in NYC published some months ago. Every holder was wealthy and white: Donald Trump, Robert DeNiro, Rosie O'Donnell, etc.
Anyone who thinks that gun control activists aren't primarily concerned about nearby lower class minorities being in possession of firearms simply hasn't been paying attention. They just mask their racism by calling for ALL guns to be banned and trying to turn the tables of racism by saying that all they want to do is keep minorities from being the victims of gun violence.
The truth is that they feel a need to ban guns because the fact remains that in our major American metro areas, no matter how wealthy you become you'll still always be within smelling distance of the poor.
And the DC politicians are ripe for a smackdown and an appointment of a Special Master by the court. If federal judges can decide to take over school systems, they can take over DC's gun administration
My concern in all this has to do with the de facto elimination of FFLs to serve the DC population. I don't see how those who should be buying guns in DC will be able to do so legally.
My hope is that the federal judges will decree that the absence of FFLs in DC means that DC residents may buy what they want in some other state, with federal law to the contrary being null and void.
Try this scenario:
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