Didn't we have a "Civil War" on that issue?
Posted on 06/04/2009 5:59:45 AM PDT by epow
On Wednesday, June 3, the National Rifle Association filed a petition for certiorari to the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of NRA v. Chicago. The NRA strongly disagrees with yesterday's decision issued by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, holding that the Second Amendment does not apply to state and local governments
Lets take a poll, since no one can understand the Constitution.</ Sarcasm>
What? I don’t see what the heck you are talking about. The right to keep and bear arms is simply a part of the right to self defense. It’s a natural right that can’t be infringed by the Federal government, the State governments, or anyone else. The good folks in England, Spain, China and everywhere else have this right to, so how in the world would say, Illinois, be able to modify that?
And what does eminent domain or interstate commerce have to do with anything?
“the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed”
Where is local allowed in that statement? Easy enough to answer right?
By your reasoning slavery should still be legal?
If the Constitution is simply a restatement of “natural law” then is eminent domain and interstate commerce “natural law”? Is a militia “natural law”? Are Grand Jury indictments “natural law”?
And they did, when they included the phrase "the right of the people to keep and bear arms" in the 2nd. It's not a right of the people if the States can take it away. If you think the States can take away a "right of the people", please explain your legal justification for it.
Where in the Constitution does it claim to be the source of state police powers?
Didn't we have a "Civil War" on that issue?
It was under the Bill of Rights. Slavery in the states wasn't ended until explicitly outlawed by the 13th Amendment.
That's probably true in states which honor the RKBA section of their own constitutions. But in some states such as CA, NY, NJ, MA, IL, etc, etc, the state courts don't enforce their own state Constitutions' prohibition of state and local laws that ban certain class's of guns and/or put severe restrictions on gun possession and use in general. In those states either the SCOTUS' proper interpretation of the 2nd Amendment protects the people's RKBA or it isn't protected at all, which is currently the case in IL as was demonstrated by the 7th circuit yesterday. If there are 5 Justices on the court who are still willing to acknowledge the author's true intent for the 2nd Amendment, hopefully the 7th circuit will be reversed and the state and local laws of IL and every other state which now denies it's citizens their right to arms will be nullified.
If the SCOTUS grants certiorari to the NRA appeal it will all come down to whether or not Kennedy will stand by his vote on Heller. I believe he only gave his tepid support to the four originalists opinion in exchange for them watering down the wording to allow more infringement on the RKBA than they would otherwise have allowed. God help us as long as our ability to exercise our rights and liberties depends on the grudging agreement of a capricious weasel like Kennedy to vote for an interpretation of the Constitution that he knows is what it's authors intended it to mean instead of what he wants it to mean. If Bush could have gotten one more opportunity to appoint a Justice we might be able to breathe easier. But thanks to the tenacity of a slowly dying cancer patient and the deliberate hold out by Souter until Bush left office he didn't get that opportunity, and our RKBA is once again at Kennedy's mercy if the SCOTUS accepts the NRA appeal.
The Framers thought it was.
The big quarrel in this thread is an artifact of the same words "right of the people to keep and bear arms," representing both a retained power of the people, inviolable by any state (unless the people consent, which they obviously do), and the words in the 2nd amendment.
So, when a person reads "the 2nd amendment doesn't apply to the states," they naturally jump to the utterly FALSE conclusion that the right to keep and bear arms may be prohibited by the states. Why the leap? Obviously, because the same RKBA words are in play.
The "Civil War" didn't dissolve the states.
>>A Constitutional Amendment explicitly restricting the federal government from abridging freedom of speech empowers federal judges to silence teachers leading prayers in local public schools and to remove images of the Christ child from the local town square?
That’s quite an “interpretation” you managed to put together. Ginsberg and Souter would be proud.<<
I honestly have no clue where you pulled that from. Who said that?
And the 14th Amendment applied, among other things, the Bill Of Rights - and hence the 2nd Amendment - to the states as well. If SCOTUS decrees the 14th doesn't apply after all (per the 2nd), then the 13th doesn't apply either, and pretty much the whole "Constitution" contract gets flushed.
“Where in the Constitution does it claim to be the source of state police powers?”
No, see, what you are doing is tying all these things together as one imminent document, where as certain amendments are safeguards. The second amendment in and of itself says that no government(local, state, federal) shall take away that right. There are certain rights that are allowed to be governed by the states as pertaining to the Constitution. The second amendment is one where no government has the authority at any level.
Man you cleaning house today bro!
The Constitution anticipates the quaint notion of "self help." As far as the founders of the federal government were concerned, no state would even dream of disarming its citizens. But the fierce independent spirit of the day was that if a state DID try that, and the people resisted to their arms being stripped from them, the people's resistance would be justified, "constitutional" if you will, the exercise of a power the people rightly hold against those who might disarm them.
Now it is the year 2009, and you (and you are not alone, I'm not singling you out, except you clearly expressed what many people feel) are admitting that the only rights you will dare to exercise will be the ones that Kennedy concedes.
At any rate, the RKBA is as protected as the people assert it must be protected. Which isn't much protection.
The judicially created incorporation doctrine was unknown when the 14th Amendment was ratified. Even the incorporation of the 1st Amendment (i.e., pornography is free speech, school prayer isn't) wasn't invented until 1925.
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