Here's the DOJ briefs to the Supreme Court that we've been reading about (Emerson, etc)

Office of Solicitor General ^ | May 2002

[Sandy]

I don't think these have been posted yet. These are the 2 briefs that we've been reading about for the last few days.

Emerson v. United States
ON PETITION FOR A WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT;
BRIEF FOR THE UNITED STATES IN OPPOSITION

Haney v. United States
ON PETITION FOR A WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT;
BRIEF FOR THE UNITED STATES IN OPPOSITION

[45Auto]

We need a law that will shift the burden of proof for the need for new gun control laws onto the legislatures, i.e., they MUST demonstrate that such new laws are necessary for some purpose other than to merely ban guns or are just part of their own personal anti-gun bias and/or products of their wishful fantasy thinking. The need to reduce violence is NOT an adequate reason to disarm the general populace, nor is such thinking the result of any sort of logic. Gun laws have been enacted based on nothing more than "feelings" and whim and have been the result of some criminal politician merely paying off his campaign donors. We need to have a direct ruling by the US SC that the RKBA is as the 5th Circuit said: an individual right that cannot be infringed. The one thing missing from the 5th Circuit's decision was an analyses of the last four words: Shall not be Infringed."

[coloradan]

Important documents here.

[Fish out of Water]

index bump

[The Magical Mischief Tour]

I volunteer to argue on behalf of the US guberment before the SCOTUS!!!

[IronJack]

You've made a good point. Legal -- constitutional -- rights CAN be qualified, as precedent has shown, but usually the ruling doctrine has been "compelling public interest." Who would constrain the rights vouchsafed us by our Creator and guaranteed us by the Constitution has a heavy burden. He must demonstrate the the public good is so overwhelmingly served by the constraints that it is irresponsible not to enact them, and that those constraints better serve the public good than the liberties being constrained.

In the case of gun control, the figures simply do NOT back up that assertion. John Lott's seminal study on gun laws defies that contention, as do other statistically verifiable investigations. If those figures don't prove the validity of gun ownership beyond a reasonable doubt, at least they establish a social benefit, which invalidates a compelling public good" argument for limiting the Second Amendment.

As to a derivative argument -- that the Second Amendment was intended to protect a collective rather than an individual right -- that has been pretty much discredited. There is virtually no historic, contextual, or semantic basis for that assertion, as the original Emerson judge so clearly pointed out.

The gun control prize is slipping from the hands of the thieves. This is one battle we're winning. Finally.

[Stat-boy]

Now that I actually have these briefs, it confirms just how ignorant most news reporters are. If any reporter had actually read them, it would be clear that Ashcroft did not announce anything new last week; Olson simply attached a memorandum that Ashcroft wrote last November!

Sandy: thanks for the links.