Posted on 06/28/2010 5:16:43 PM PDT by Kaslin
Second Amendment: In the "living Constitution" era, the Supreme Court rediscovers original intent and rightly rules that the right to bear arms applies to all Americans just as the rest of the Bill of Rights does.
It's hard to conceive how the justices could have decided otherwise. But by the narrowest of margins — 5-4 — they have reaffirmed that keeping and bearing arms is an inalienable and individual right like speech and religion, and that it applies to all individuals as the Founding Fathers intended.
Why anyone thinks the Second Amendment does not apply to all Americans is a mystery to us. Governments have powers; individuals have rights. The Bill of Rights was an enumeration of those individual rights — from freedom of speech to freedom of religion to the right to bear arms — that are to be protected from the intrusion of an oppressive government.
Now the Supreme Court agrees.
Writing for the court in a case involving restrictive firearms laws in Chicago and one of its suburbs, Justice Samuel Alito said the Second Amendment right "applies equally to the federal government and the states." Two years ago, in Heller vs. District of Columbia, the court ruled that gun ownership was an individual right but left unclear its scope.
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A 5-4 vote on the Second Amendment is no victory-it is downright scary..
How can any justice rule against the 2nd. Amendment? It floors me. Unfortunately, we don’t have the numbers to stop Elena Kagan, barring an unexpected development.
Does anyone know where to find the dissents? I’d like to see what passes for logic on the left these days.
I am surprised at how many FReepers think this one justice will change the mix of the court, I didn't realize there were so many out right stupid FReepers.
I've read those comments as well -- but to be fair, its replacing an old Godless commie with a young Godless commie - and that's not good.
ping
I suggest you do a little reading, maybe your brain will benefit, dimwitted bas****.
Thomas hit the bullseye. Scalia, Alito and Roberts were close but no cigar.
Aldebaran is the Greek Omma Boos, Latin Oculus Tauri, and the early English Bull's Eye. "Bull's-eye" is what we call "the centre of a target, which usually carries the highest score", and "a precise or highly effective achievement"Aldebaran
The great "red giant", war-like Aldebaran is one of the four "Guardians of Heaven" - sentinels watching over other stars. It formed one of the four royal stars of Persia as "Watcher of the East".
These were also called archangel stars; this star Aldebaran was Michael - Military Commander of the Heavenly Host. The others were; Gabriel (Fomalhaut) Watcher of the South; Raphael (Regulus) Watcher of the North; Uriel (Antares) Watcher of the West. At one time they marked the two Equinoxes and two Solstices. Aldebaran marked the zero Aries point in 3044 BC, Antares marked zero Libra 3052 BC, Fomalhaut marked zero Capricorn, 2582 BC, Regulus marked zero Cancer 2345 BC. [The angel associations come from Eric Morse, The Living Stars, p.35. Allen's explanation of these four stars on p.256 of Star Names]
These four stars have been characterized as Horses, reflected both in the famed Four Horsemen of Apocalypse (Revelations 6) and Chariot Horses in the Book of Zechariah - [Dr Eric Morse, The Living Stars, p.56.]
The name Aldebaran is the traditional Arabic (الدبران al-dabarān (ad-dabarān)) name which literally translates as "the follower". The name probably refers to the way this bright star follows the Pleiades star cluster in its nightly journey across the sky.[3]Wiki
Compare Aldebaran.
240 pages, including concurrences and dissents. I think Thomas’ opinion that states the basis should be the Privileges & Immunities clause is the most well-reasoned of the decisions.
Not quite what you're after, but you might find this to be of interest.
OK, here goes my try at it. The Court didn't argue this on 2nd Amendment grounds, and here is why...
When the Second Amendment was written, it absolutely did not apply to the states. The Bill of Rights was a guarantee that the federal government and only the federal government would not oppress the citizens' rights. To illustrate, the First bars establishment of an official religion. However, up through the 1820s, some states had established religions. Barron v. Baltimore upheld the restriction on the BoR to the fed. gov't in 1833.
This was not Alito's argument in the case. He looked at the 14th Amendment, which absolutely applies to the states. (The 14th has a sordid history toward ratification that makes anything Obama has done look like a child's game.) The 14th is the giant tunnel in the Constitution that brings prohibitions on the federal government to the states. This didn't happen till something like 1925, though, in Gitlow v. New York.
The 14th gives you due process rights. Actually, it gave former slaves due process rights, as it was intended. The Supreme Court has used this to give you "abortion rights" as well as now gun rights. Alito and Thomas were a bit crafty about it, though. They spoke in the decision about the due process rights of former slaves to own guns. If a former slave could own guns, how would it be fair to restrict you?
I read parts of the argument and I was dubious at first, but I think the reasonings of Alito and Thomas (his is a bit different) are interesting. Apparently Scalia had some disagreements, but I haven't read those.
From my perspective, being able to defend yourself is a matter of Natural Law, a God-given right. Any law which denies self-defense is itself illegal. I'm a strong believer in state and local rights, though. If a community wants to ban guns, should they be able to do so? Not by Natural Law, but I'm uncomfortable with federal involvement.
I'm a very staunch supporter of gun ownership with very few restrictions, but personal feelings should have nothing to do with the law. I need to read this case in more depth because the arguments are not simple, and the decision is very lengthy.
Good, but scary...
Subtle point - elections very much matter in this day and age...
“Does anyone know where to find the dissents?”
Easy, don’t even have to look it up - Ginsberg, Breyer, Stevens and Sotomayor. God bless Kennedy for doing the right thing as the swing voter. And pray that nothing happens to any of our constitutionalist justices or that any of them retire before ‘12.
Was watching Anderson Cooper while ago during a commercial of Greta (have to check out the “enemy” every once in awhile :-). The leftist author/legal commentator Jeffrey Toobin was on, fairly sputtering to AC about the decision today of the “conservative arm” of the SCOTUS. They were both shocked (shocked, I tell you!) that what was once “always” an oddball issue - the 2nd amendment - until Reagan, is now considered a guaranteed right and that from now on, any bans on gun ownership will be pretty much out of the question.
Oh,the humanity - tsk tsk.
Justice Thomas' decision was more than a bit different. He avoided the Due Process argument and used the Privileges and Immunities clause.
"I agree with that description of the right. But I cannot agree that it is enforceable against the States through a clause that speaks only to “process.” Instead, the right to keep and bear arms is a privilege of American citizenship that applies to the States through the Fourteenth Amendment’s Privileges or Immunities Clause."
“I am surprised at how many FReepers think this one justice will change the mix of the court...”
While it’s true that it won’t, Kagan is a wildlly radical lefty, more so than the oldie Stevens. Plus, she’ll likely live more years than he.
How's this for an unexpected development?
Get one (1)congresscritter to insist on asking the following simple question of Ms. Kagan :
Is the united States of America a Democracy or a Representative Constitutional Republic?
The resulting debate would be literally unprecedented. At least since 1865.
It was a lot precedented between 1793 and 1860...
Sorry for my obtuseness! It’s late and my brain is dull - you meant, of course, where to read the dissenting arguments, not who wrote them. Duh.
Why would the 14th even have been needed if recently freed blacks became 'people' rather than slaves? Wouldn't the BOR apply to them at such time? Oh, that's right, the BOR only limits the federal government.
This is where I don't follow the argument. I believe that certain items were put there as a 'for the record' statement with the understanding that no government could infringe on the RKBA, for example, as it would now be enshrined in a document with the most supreme legal status.
I think they might have done the same with 'ownership of humans' had the issue been settled at the time of it's writing. The same for fetuses- had they imagined a million a year would someday end up in dumpsters.
To me, the constitution was to be the document of all documents, attempting to encompass as many freedoms as possible while assigning as few powers as necessary to the general government. Ammendments allowed the states a way to fine-tune the sucker.
In that light, no person's right to keep and bear arms may be infringed as many states are currently guilty of with fees, licenses, and permits, etc. However, the states might weigh-in on the What, Where, When, How, and How Much with regards to 'arms' while being forbidden from denying a right to keep and bear them.
The way this is going it'll be ages before this 'right' is enjoyed as intended, imo. Any right that cannot be exercised is not a right at all but more likely a priviledge. I still haven't come across the Bill of Priviledges. I bet there are at least four justices who have a copy though.
You can find the case, including separate opinions at:
In the right side panel, under “Recent opinions” you can download a .pdf of the case.
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