US Supreme Court justices seem favorable to constitutional gun rights for Americans

WASHINGTON (AP) - Americans have a right to own guns, U.S. Supreme Court justices declared in a historic and lively debate that could lead to the most significant interpretation of whether the U.S. Constitution guarantees that right since the document's ratification two centuries ago.

On the other hand, a majority of justices seemed to agree, governments have a right to regulate those firearms.

There was less apparent agreement on the case they were arguing: whether the national capital's ban on handguns goes too far.

The justices dug deeply Tuesday into arguments about one of the Constitution's most hotly debated provisions as demonstrators shouted slogans outside the stately Supreme Court building. Guns are an American right, argued one side. "Guns kill," responded the other.

Inside the court, at the end of a session extended long past the normal one hour, a majority of justices appeared ready to say that Americans have a "right to keep and bear arms" that goes beyond the Second Amendment's reference to service in a militia as a condition.

Several justices were openly skeptical that the District of Columbia's 32-year-old handgun ban, perhaps the strictest in the nation, could survive under that reading of the Constitution.

"What is reasonable about a total ban on possession?" Chief Justice John Roberts asked.

Walter Dellinger, representing the district, replied that Washington residents could own rifles and shotguns and could use them for protection at home. The District of Columbia and Washington share joint administration, with more federal oversight than other U.S. cities.

"What is reasonable about a total ban on possession is that it's a ban only on the possession of one kind of weapon, of handguns, that's considered especially dangerous," Dellinger said.

Is it "unreasonable for a city with a very high crime rate ... to say `No handguns here?"' Breyer asked.

Alan Gura, representing a Washington resident who challenged the ban, said, "It's unreasonable, and it fails any standard of review."

The court has not interpreted the Second Amendment conclusively since its ratification in 1791. The amendment reads: "A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."

The basic issue for the justices is whether the amendment protects an individual's right to own guns no matter what, or whether that right is tied somehow to service in a state militia.

A crucial justice, Anthony Kennedy, often the swing vote on the nine-justice court, seemed to settle that question early on when he said the Second Amendment gives "a general right to bear arms." He is likely to be joined by Roberts and Justices Samuel Alito, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas in a majority.

"What I heard from the court was the view that the D.C. law, which prohibits good people from having a firearm ... to defend themselves against bad people is not reasonable and (is) unconstitutional," National Rifle Association executive vice president Wayne LaPierre said after leaving the court. The NRA is a powerful Washington advocacy group.

Washington Mayor Adrian Fenty said he hoped the court would leave the ban in place and not vote for a compromise that would, for example, allow handguns in homes but not in public places. "More guns anywhere in the District of Columbia is going to lead to more crime. And that is why we stand so steadfastly against any repeal of our handgun ban," the mayor said after attending the arguments.

A decision that defines the amendment's meaning would be significant by itself, but the court also has to decide whether Washington's ban can stand and how to evaluate other gun control laws.

The justices have many options, including upholding a federal appeals court ruling that struck down the ban.

Solicitor General Paul Clement, the Bush administration's top Supreme Court lawyer, supported the individual right but urged the justices not to decide the other question. Instead, Clement said the court should say that governments may impose reasonable restrictions, including federal laws that ban certain types of weapons.

Clement wants the justices to order the appeals court to re-evaluate the Washington law. He did not take a position on it.

This issue has caused division within the administration, with Vice President Dick Cheney taking a harder line than the official position at the court.

While the arguments raged inside, dozens of protesters mingled with tourists and waved signs saying "Ban the Washington elitists, not our guns" or "The NRA helps criminals and terrorists buy guns."

Members of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence chanted "guns kill" as followers of the Second Amendment Sisters and Maryland Shall Issue.Org shouted "more guns, less crime."

The City Council that adopted the ban said it was justified because "handguns have no legitimate use in the purely urban environment of the District of Columbia."

Dick Anthony Heller, 65, an armed security guard, sued the district after it rejected his application to keep a handgun at his home for protection in the same neighborhood, near the Capitol, as the court.

The last Supreme Court ruling on the topic came in 1939 in U.S. v. Miller, which involved a sawed-off shotgun. Constitutional scholars disagree over what that case means but agree it did not squarely answer the question of individual versus collective rights.

Roberts said at his confirmation hearing that the correct reading of the Second Amendment was "still very much an open issue."

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However, the Founders knew that simply arming the population (all the militia) was insufficient. Training was required. And training everyone to the proficiency required for battle was impossible.
So they settled on a select group of "well regulated" Militia -- trained, disciplined, organized, armed and accoutered, with officers appointed by each state. It was this "well regulated Militia" that was necessary to the security of a free state, not an armed populace.

Their RKBA was protected by the second amendment.

Here you go again. Do you have a brain Mr. Dellinger?

If you had actually listened to what the justices were telling you with their questions you would know that you lost yesterday and you would know that a majority of the justices disagree with your theory.

They were clear that if your theory were true the amendment would have read "a well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the militia to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."

Why don't you stop spreading your bravo sierra and admit that you are, and have been, wrong in your contention that the second amendment only protects the militia.

The justices clearly believe it protects the individual's right to keep and bear arms, regardless of association with a militia. That's how they will rule in June wrt the specific question presented to them.

"Thomas Jefferson told us very CLEARLY what the 2nd amendment means. Unfortunately social facists and a intentional dumbing down of our education system has created a very contitutionally stupid american citizen. "

Apparently. Anyone who thinks he said "No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms" and that he was referring to the 2nd amendment must be a product of such a system.

Thomas Jefferson was proposing the wording for an amendment to the 1776 Virginia State Constitution. The second amendment wasn't written until 1791, so he couldn't have been referring to it.

Second, what he actually proposed was, "No freeman shall be debarred the use of arms within his own lands or tenements." Big difference.

Third, he used the term "freeman" not "free man". A freeman (or freeholder) was a citizen with full rights, including the right to vote.

Lastly, the Virginia legislature rejected his wording and went with:

"SEC. 13. That a well-regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the proper, natural, and safe defence of a free State; that standing armies, in time of peace, should be avoided, as dangerous to liberty; and that in all cases the military should be under strict subordination to, and governed by, the civil power."

Not even close to what he proposed.

Apparently. Anyone who thinks he said "No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms" and that he was referring to the 2nd amendment must be a product of such a system.

Paulsen you're FULL of it and full of your elitist self. I don't give a rats ass if you read anything I have written, but you'd do well to read the following and educate yourself because it has become obvious that you're a shill and your words are a hateful statement against the United States itself. You speak against the Constitution consistently and inaccurately, in your meager attempts at twisting and debasing the words of the Founding Fathers.

Not ONE of these men spoke of arms in terms of "hunting" nor regulation thereof. Not even Jefferson in your own twisted thinking believed that regulation of arms, ANY weapons, to include swords, or military weapons, should be "regulated" by the government in ANY FORM.

Every, single one of these men spoke of the USE of these weapons as keeping and defending OURSELVES from an unjust, and ridiculous government - which is becoming more and more obvious you prefer over the God given rights and freedoms we already HAVE. The Constitution doesn't GIVE these rights. It ENUMERATES them as Rights NO MAN or GOVERNMENT can or will take.

Your continued insistence upon 'government controls' of these rights is the VERY reason we have them, to prevent maggots like yourself from taking them from us.

You are a disingenuous, intellectually dishonest, inarticulate, liberty-sucking, trollish ignoramus. Your belief that guns are bad is an in-bred, Socialist-Leftist-Nazi concept and you'd do well to change in your attitude or go elsewhere to peddle your mealy mouthed crap.

Read, and LEARN instead of living out the rest of your life as an ignorant sap.

"What, Sir, is the use of a militia? It is to prevent the establishment of a standing army, the bane of liberty .... Whenever Governments mean to invade the rights and liberties of the people, they always attempt to destroy the militia, in order to raise an army upon their ruins."
-- Rep. Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts, spoken during floor debate over the Second Amendment, I Annals of Congress at 750, August 17, 1789

"Whereas, to preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them; nor does it follow from this, that all promiscuously must go into actual service on every occasion. The mind that aims at a select militia, must be influenced by a truly anti-republican principle; and when we see many men disposed to practice upon it, whenever they can prevail, no wonder true republicans are for carefully guarding against it."
--Richard Henry Lee, The Pennsylvania Gazette, Feb. 20, 1788.

"That the said Constitution shall never be construed to authorize Congress to infringe the just liberty of the press or the rights of conscience; or to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms ... "
-- Samuel Adams, Debates and Proceedings in the Convention of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, at 86-87 (Pierce & Hale, eds., Boston, 1850)

"Who are the militia? Are they not ourselves? Is it feared, then, that we shall turn our arms each man against his own bosom. Congress have no power to disarm the militia. Their swords, and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birthright of an American...[T]he unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or state governments, but, where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the people."
--Tenche Coxe, The Pennsylvania Gazette, Feb. 20, 1788.

"What country can preserve its liberties if its rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms."
-- Thomas Jefferson to William Stephens Smith, 1787. ME 6:373, Papers 12:356

"The right of the people to keep and bear ... arms shall not be infringed. A well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the best and most natural defense of a free country ..."
-- James Madison, I Annals of Congress 434, June 8, 1789

" ... to disarm the people - that was the best and most effectual way to enslave them."
-- George Mason, 3 Elliot, Debates at 380

" ... but if circumstances should at any time oblige the government to form an army of any magnitude, that army can never be formidable to the liberties of the people, while there is a large body of citizens, little if at all inferior to them in discipline and use of arms, who stand ready to defend their rights ..."
-- Alexander Hamilton speaking of standing armies in Federalist 29

"Certainly one of the chief guarantees of freedom under any government, no matter how popular and respected, is the right of citizens to keep and bear arms ... The right of citizens to bear arms is just one guarantee against arbitrary government, one more safeguard, against the tyranny which now appears remote in America but which historically has proven to be always possible."
-- Hubert H. Humphrey, Senator, Vice President, 22 October 1959

" ... most attractive to Americans, the possession of arms is the distinction between a freeman and a slave, it being the ultimate means by which freedom was to be preserved."
-- James Burgh, 18th century English Libertarian writer, Shalhope, The Ideological Origins of the Second Amendment, p.604

"And that the said Constitution be never construed to authorize Congress ... to prevent the people of the United States, who are peaceable citizens, from keeping their own arms.... "
--Samuel Adams

Finally about the remarks YOU made about Jefferson.. here's his OWN WORDS about what he said... which are vastly more accurate, and different than your own, ignorant interpretation thereof:

I was extending the right of suffrage (or in other words the rights of a citizen) to all who had a permanent intention of living in the country. Take what circumstance you please as evidence of this, either the having resided a certain time, or having a family, or having property, any or all of them. Whoever intends to live in a country must wish that country well, and has a natural right of assisting in the preservation of it. (http://www.guncite.com/gc2ndjef.html - Read the WHOLE article as written and cited there).

Finally... Patrick Henry said, "Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect every one who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are ruined.

"O sir, we should have fine times, indeed, if, to punish tyrants, it were only sufficient to assemble the people! Your arms, wherewith you could defend yourselves, are gone...Did you ever read of any revolution in a nation...inflicted by those who had no power at all?" June 1778, Virginia ratifying committee against Edmund Pendleton who argued, not unlike RobertPaulsen and other Leftists, AGAINST the Bill of Rights.

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