Posted on 11/27/2007 2:58:46 PM PST by neverdem
For some 30 years, the District of Columbia has banned handgun ownership for private citizens. It was approved by that city's council in the wake of terrible gun violence and a rising murder rate in the nation's capital.
The ban has stood through this time with other council votes, but without any official review by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Sometime next year, the high court will make a ruling on whether that law is constitutional.
It is surprising to us that it has taken this long for the court to get this case. It would seem that it would have gone to the highest appeal long before now. We do not understand all the legal entanglements that must have kept it off the court's docket, but it is certainly there now.
And now, if the court is acting properly, the D.C. gun ban should be struck down.
This is a clear case of constitutionality, not politics, not conservative or liberal. If Constitution's Bill of Rights clearly allows gun private gun ownership anywhere — and we believe it does — then it allows it in the District of Columbia.
"The right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed," is what the Second Amendment says, and there seems to be little "wiggle" room in that statement.
In some instances — Washington, D.C. being one of them — we admit we despair of so many guns in the hands of so many people who would use them the wrong way, but the answer is not to abrogate the Constitution.
If one portion of the Bill of Rights can be limited by a local government, why can't another? There is no logic in saying on the Second Amendment is up for local review. To continue to allow this is to invite a city council or state legislature somewhere to decide that the First Amendment is too broad, or that the Fourth Amendment is too restrictive on law enforcement.
We know there are passionate arguments for gun control and that is part of the problem: The passion has blotted out clear thinking. This time the NRA is right. The law should go.
Thank you Patrick Henry.
Don't forget Madison in "Federalist Papers" #46. If you haven't read it, please do. You'd be hard put to find a single instance of the principle author of the Constitution stating what the nature of power in our society is/should be, nor a clearer example of the right to overthrow a tyranny, nor a clearer example of what the militia is (i.e. all of the people). I sincerely hope that its full text is included in either Heller's brief or some amicus brief.
So you're saying that armed individuals are necessary to the security of a free state, and this is why individuals need their RKBA protected?
In 1792, there were no laws, that I know of, restricting women, teenagers, old folks, or free blacks from speaking, writing, assembling, or owning arms. Possibly free blacks in parts of the South. Are you prepared to come up with real data, or are you going to continue to make stuff up as you go?
So you're saying that armed individuals are necessary to the security of a free state, and this is why individuals need their RKBA protected?
RKBA needs to be protected in order to prevent a would-be tyrant from confiscating our weapons and then, once we couldn't effectively resist, doing some REALLY horrible things like putting political opponents in concentration camps.
The Holocaust was preceeded by the disarming of Jews.
Stalin's massacres of the kulaks and other opponents was preceeded by disarming all of these people (and any other potential opposition).
Ditto China, Cambodia, Uganda, Rwanda, etc. - the populace in all of these cases of genocide was disarmed before the genocide. It was a necessary prerequisite.
Either you'd make a really ineffective dictator, or you're playing stupid - I don't know which.
Those amendments are phrased in a way similar to the second amendment. Meaning, according to you, that the second amendment doesn't guarantee a right to keep and bear arms.
A) The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged ...
B) the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
By George, I think he's finally got it!
YES, I and I think most of the other posters on this thread are asserting that
“The Supremes could rule that the 2nd Amendment only applies to the Congress and that cities and states can legislate whatever they want.”
They can’t do that. They can’t rule that one amendment only applies to the Federal government, and then rule that the others apply to everyone. And they’ve ruled that the first amendment is universal.
Bzzt. Oh, sorry. Wrong answer.
"The People" were the same people who were protected in their speech, association, religious freedoms, property rights, trial rights, etc. They included women, men, free Negroes, taxed Indians, etc. Where some of these persons were NOT protected was in their suffrage, which was left up to the States to define until the 14th, 19th, 24th and 26th restricted that power in various ways.
No one argued that women had no right to trial, or Indians to gather peacably, or free blacks to own property and have access to the courts.
I have no idea. I never said there were laws against those activities. Why are you bringing that up?
I said "the people" were adult, white, male citizens. Only. I also said members of a well regulated Militia (per the Militia Act of 1792) were adult, white, male citizens. Only.
When reading the second amendment, one can't help but conclude that the amendment was protecting the right to keep and bear arms of members of a Militia from federal infringement.
Article I, Section 2 says "the people" elect House members. In 1792, did teenagers vote? Did women? Blacks? If they didn't, then they couldn't be part of "the people" could they?
Unless you're saying "the people" in Article I, Section 2 are different from "the people" in the second amendment?
Article I Section 2 - The HouseIn this context, "the people" is immediately qualified to refer to that subset of the people who are qualified to vote for the state legislators.The House of Representatives shall be composed of Members chosen every second Year by the People of the several States, and the Electors in each State shall have the Qualifications requisite for Electors of the most numerous Branch of the State Legislature.
The obvious purpose of this is to distinguish how the House is elected from how the Senate was elected: "The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, chosen by the Legislature thereof"
Just the opposite. In Federalist 29, Hamilton explains:
"The project of disciplining all the militia of the United States is as futile as it would be injurious, if it were capable of being carried into execution. A tolerable expertness in military movements is a business that requires time and practice."
"But though the scheme of disciplining the whole nation must be abandoned as mischievous or impracticable; yet it is a matter of the utmost importance that a well-digested plan should, as soon as possible, be adopted for the proper establishment of the militia. The attention of the government ought particularly to be directed to the formation of a select corps of moderate extent, upon such principles as will really fit them for service in case of need."
Which explains why the second amendment reads, "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free state", not "armed individuals are necessary to the security of a free state".
Every gun ban clearly violates the 2nd Amendment
Huh? English, por favor.
Only "the people" voted. In 1792, the only ones who voted were adult, white, male citizens. They were "the people".
I have no idea what you're talking about.
The point that the rest of us are making is that the writers of the Constitution intended for the Bill of Rights to apply to "the people" as the term was generally understood to mean.
I can understand that you do not want to argue with the Founders. You are no more than a disruptor.
But you can keep and bear arms at any time.
The analogy is ludicrous. Besides there was no federally protected "right to vote" at the time. The only requirement was that the electors (voters) in Congressional elections in a state have the same qualifications as those for the most populous branch of the state legislature. A state could restrict that to those over 80 years old if it wished, and it's citizens would allow it. A right to vote was not federally protected until 1868 when the 14th amendment was ratified, and then only for males over 21, but also for all elections, not just federal ones. The 15th amendment added protection against denial of the right on acount of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. The right was not federally protected for women until 1920, with the ratification of the 19th amendment. Protection of the right for those unable to pay a "poll tax" was added in 164, but only for federal elections, and finally in 1971 protection against being denied the right due to being between 18 and 21 was added by the ratification of the 26th amendment.
Because it would be redundant. The part after the comma says the same thing, since the states determine "qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the state legislature".
Also, I just thought of this...our second amendment rights are our right to keep and BEAR arms, correct? They why is the second amendment treated as a right to keep arms...ignoring the “bear” part? Doesn’t this imply that restricting our right to carry concealed or open carry for that matter is unconstitutional?
If we are allowed to own a firearm, shouldn’t the right to carry it come automatically with it? How do you separate the two? Somewhere along the way in our nation’s history somebody screwed up. I think this separation of the two never should have been allowed to happen.
Then why are you arguing that the second amendment protects the right of a militia, or the right only of those in a well-regulated, militia, which ammounts to the same thing?
But if they had said the "right of the militia", then militias would have rights, or at least the one right. But the point is moot since they did not write that.
The Jefferson one above it is also probably bogus as well. Although it at least *sounds* like something Jefferson would have said or written.
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