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.
I'm a literalist and, though I agree with your post, I would disagree with your phrasing.
Everyone has the "right," in the sense that we can't stop them before the fact (except through argument or force), to abrogate any of our rights, even our right to life. They just don't have the right to get away with it or to keep us from stopping them cold when they try. IOW, we can't stop them from passing the law, but we can force them to reverse it (if our lawyers are good enough and the court isn't packed, as it has been the last many decades). That's what the second amendment means to me. I have the right to stop someone from breaching my rights or someone else's rights, even if I have to use a gun or a knife or a club to do it, under extreme circumstances.
I've been glad that the court hasn't taken a case like this before now. If they'd had a case of this nature before Sandra Day O'Connor was replaced by Justice Alito I'm afraid that they might have ruled that the second amendment was not an individual right. I'm pretty confident that this court will rule that it is and that's why cert was granted, probably by the 4 solid conservatives. The liberals didn't want to take a chance that it would be ruled an individual right in the past, however unlikely that was, and the laws were trending their way, so they avoided granting cert on anything that had the chance of becoming a precedent that they didn't like.
Judicial activism by non-action in the courts when they had a clear duty to act.
I know, it's an odd way to say it, but it's how my mind works. <g>
"the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
"The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."
"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people."
The same founders who approved of the phrase "the people" in the second amendment, approved of the phrase "the people" in these other amendments in the Bill of Rights. Consistency of definition must be maintained if we are to be able to interpret the intent of the founders. So what definition of "the people" do you propose?
Who told you that?
It's just the most forceful reason to allow the individual RKBA. Folks needed the hardware for self defense as well as food. How would folks get to a rally point unarmed if they have to fight to get there? Colonial militias predate our revolution to the earliest hostilities with the native Indians, IIRC. Whether it is natural disasters like Katrina, or the Rodney King riots, we have a natural right to self defense. Check the excerpt from Parker in comment# 1.
i needed to be told that? and how do you infer my meaning?
On what evidence do you submit that the Constitution was intended to be a "living document" who's meaning changes with the times, as opposed to an "enduring document" who's meaning was fixed at the time of ratification and remains so until amended?
while the rights are given to us by god and not government, they are inherent. however, at that time these rights were only given to the few.
now, "the people" have changed. the right is the same, but whom it applies to has been altered. so the right is extended to them as well.
Isn’t it possible that the U.S. Supreme Court may look at that and conclude that the second amendment protected the right of individuals to keep and bear arms as part of a Militia?
NO!
So God changed his mind?
Actually, that's not what USC Title 10, Chapter 331 states. :-)
first blacks were not people, but property. then they were 3/5's of a person, then they were a whole person.
humans are fallible and can make amends for their mistakes. god is an omniscient observer, imho.
I’m finding it hard to believe that the Founders intended that under their Constitution Mary McCauly (Molly Pitcher) had no right to man that cannon.
You're confusing 'blacks' with 'slaves.'
At the time of the founding, there were more than 100 black property owners in Virginia, that were considered full 'persons' and many of them owned black slaves, that due to their bondage, were not considered full persons. Anyone who was a slave, regardless of their skin color, was not a full person.
I know what a firearm is, but I’m not sure that porno videos etc are “speech.”
Then why didn't the 2nd half of the Amendment say "...the right of that portion of the People enrolled in the Militia to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed." ???????
The words "the People" have been interpreted in MANY Supreme Court cases to mean all of the people, or at least all of those who are subject to US law. To rule that the 2nd only applies to adult white male citizens is utterly absurd on its face, and would turn decades of precedent on its head. It ain't happening. Other things might, but this twisted idiocy won't.
Of course it has a purpose. To state the main political reason *why* the right of the people is being protected. But that reason does not gramatically restrict or even modify the "shall not be infringed", it does not provide an "except" justification.
I think the Supreme Court of Georgia said it best in Nunn vs. Georgia
"The right of the people to bear arms shall not be infringed;" The right of the whole people, old and young, men, women and boys, and not militia only, to keep and hear arms of every description, not merely as are used by the militia, shall not be infringed, curtailed, or broken in upon, in the smallest degree; and all this for the important end to be attained: the rearing up and qualifying a well-regulated militia, so vitally necessary to the security of a free State. Our opinion is, that any law, State or Federal, is repugnant to the Constitution, and void, which contravenes this right,
It's only a living document in the sense that it contains provisions for it's own modification. Those provisions require a vote in the state legislatures, and generally a proposal by Congress, alhough a convention can also propose amendments, but the "convention" method has never been used, except to create the Constitution in the first place.
Not quite, the pre-existing right of the people is protected, not created or given, by the second amendment.
"Militias" don't have rights.
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