Court considers county's right to regulate guns

Associated Press ^ | Sedptember 24, 2009 | Associated Press

[libstripper]

Some judges on an 11-member panel of the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals appeared to agree with gun-rights advocates that the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms, recently interpreted by the U.S. Supreme Court to protect an individual's right to own guns, is binding on the states and can be used to challenge the county ordinance.

[libstripper]

2d Amendment incorporation is on its way to SCOTUS.

[Travis McGee]

BANG!

[devistate one four]

If the 2nd was there when a state joined the union, how can they over rule it?

changing the rules in the middle of the game.

[Red in Blue PA]

recently interpreted by the U.S. Supreme Court to protect an individual's right to own guns

Do the Brady people honestly believe that all of the people moving west (with their guns) in the late 1700's and 1800's in wagons were all part of militias?

[GT Vander]

This is going to be fun to see where this one lands. Conservatives have historically resisited the idea that the Bill of Rights applies to the states as it conflicts with the States Rights issue. Liberals have consistently argued that the entire Bill of Rights applies to ALL states. The SCOTUS has historically landed somewhere in the middle using the incorporation pricipal to cherry pick certain parts of the Bill of Rights as applying to the states. So on this issue it seems that we have forces finding themselves on opposite sides of the fence. Do conservatives switch sides to support applying the 2nd Ammendment to the states or do liberals resisit applying another part of the Bill to the states?

This should make for an interesting watch.

[Bigh4u2]

The pat answer you get from liberals is “That was a different time..You needed a gun WAY BACK THEN! “

The 2nd means nothing to these people because they’ve never read the Constitution or would even know what it means if they did.

And they frankly don’t care.

[celestron71]

This is going to be fun to see where this one lands. Conservatives have historically resisited the idea that the Bill of Rights applies to the states as it conflicts with the States Rights issue.

I don't know what conservatives you know, but all the ones I know always believed the Bill of Rights applied to the states. We have fought long and hard to have the second recognized as being incorporated along with the other 9 amendments.

Conservatives argue for states rights, but that doesn't mean they want to throw away the protection of the first 10 amendments, it means they want the constitution to be interpreted the way it was written, that the feds only have the powers enumerated and the rest belong to the states and the people, period. That doesn't abrogate the bill of rights, in fact it reinforces them.

[GT Vander]

This issue goes all the way back to the Slaugther House Cases in the 1870’s. Conservative justices have ALWAYS resisted applying the Bill of rights whole sale to the states arguing that that abrogates the States rights under the 10th amendment. Liberal justices have always argued the opposite. Now we find ourselves at a crossroads. The appropirate course of action instead of arguing incorporation would be to revisit the Slaugther House case and settle the issue of application of the Bill of Rights to the states.

[celestron71]

Well I don't agree with the justices that think the bill of rights takes away states rights. How could anyone argue that the protections granted in the bill of rights takes away from freedom of the states to determine their own fate? They do the opposite, they make the sure the individuals in the states are protected, otherwise where is the freedom of speech if it can be overridden by the states, the right to Keep and Bear arms(and we can see where that has gotten us)or any of the other rights.

Conservative justices would be wrong here, and it is hard to believe they are conservative in the modern sense of the word if that is what they believed. What is the sense of having a bill of rights if they only apply to people living in a territory instead of a state?

The 10th says we are free to override any federal mandate that goes beyond the powers granted to it in the constitution, it doesn't give the states the rights to over throw the freedoms enumerated in the bill of rights.

[MortMan]

One point I have seen that I find persuasive is the difference between the first and second amendments. The first states “congress shall make no law”, whereas the second states “shall not be abridged”. The language in the first amendment clearly identifies this as a restriction on the legislature. But, the language in the second amendment appears to be an outright prohibition on the restriction of the right to keep and bear arms.

Given that the tenth amendment specifically identifies that any matter not discussed in the constitution is reserved to the states or the people, it would seem to me that the plain language of the second, in not being restricted to congress like the first, would inherently incorporate itself on the states and sub-governments.

But, I’m an engineer, not a lawyer, so my logic may not fit legal theory.