Supreme Court Revisits Second Amendment

Jim Walton, left,, Alice Walton, center, and Robson Walton, right, greet each other during the beginning of the Walmart Stores Inc. shareholders' meeting in Fayetteville, Ark., Friday, June 1, 2012. The three siblings are the children of the late Sam Walton, founder of Walmart. (AP Photo/April L. Brown) / April L Brown

The Supreme Court appeared ready Tuesday to endorse the view that the Second Amendment gives individuals the right to own guns, but was less clear about whether to retain the District of Columbia's ban on handguns.

The justices were aware of the historic nature of their undertaking, engaging in an extended 98-minute session of questions and answers that could yield the first definition of the meaning of the Second Amendment in its 216 years.

A key justice, Anthony Kennedy, left little doubt about his view when he said early in the proceedings that the Second Amendment gives "a general right to bear arms."

Several justices were skeptical that the Constitution, if it gives individuals' gun rights, could allow a complete ban on handguns when, as Chief Justice John Roberts pointed out, those weapons are most suited for protection at home.

"What is reasonable about a ban on possession" of handguns?" Roberts asked at one point.

But Justice Stephen Breyer suggested that the District's public safety concerns could be relevant in evaluating its 32-year-old ban on handguns, perhaps the strictest gun control law in the nation.

"Does that make it unreasonable for a city with a very high crime rate...to say no handguns here?" Breyer said.

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 allow for reasonable restrictions that allow banning certain types of weapons, including existing federal laws.

He did not take a position on the District law. Washington residents are not allowed to own handguns, period, CBS News correspondent Wyatt Andrews reports. And shotguns, which are allowed, are required to be kept unloaded and trigger-locked.

The court has not conclusively interpreted the Second Amendment since its ratification in 1791. The basic issue for the justices is whether the amendment protects an individual's right to own guns or whether that right is somehow tied to service in a state militia.

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."

While the arguments raged inside, advocates of gun rights and opponents of gun violence demonstrated outside court Tuesday.

Dozens of protesters mingled with tourists and waved signs saying "Ban the Washington elitists, not our guns" or "The NRA helps criminals and terrorist 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."

A line to get into the court for the historic arguments began forming two days earlier and extended more than a block by early Tuesday.

The high court's first extensive examination of the Second Amendment since 1939 grew out of challenge to the District's ban.

Anise Jenkins, president of a coalition called Stand Up for Democracy in D.C., defended the district's prohibition on handguns.

"We feel our local council knows what we need for a good standard of life and to keep us safe," Jenkins said.

But, Andrews reports that Washington Mayor Adrian Fenty said: "This is a public saftey case. Handguns represent a disproportionate number of crimes in the District of Columbia."

Genie Jennings, a resident of South Perwick, Maine, and national spokeswoman for Second Amendment Sisters, said the law banning handguns in Washington "is denying individuals the right to defend themselves."

Even if the court determines there is an individual right, the justices still will have to decide whether the District's ban can stand and how to evaluate other gun control laws. This issue has caused division within the Bush administration, with Vice President Dick Cheney taking a harder line than the administration's official position at the court.

The local Washington government argues that its law should be allowed to remain in force whether or not the amendment applies to individuals, although it reads the amendment as intended to allow states to have armed forces.

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. His lawyers say the amendment plainly protects an individual's right.

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.

Given the Court's strong conservative makeup, it is likely that both a right to own, possess and use a firearm and the government's right to restrict that ownership, possession will survive the Heller case, says CBS News legal analyst Andrew Cohen. The only thing that remains reasonably unpredictable and mysterious is the language the Court's majority will use in conjuring up the legal standard that will govern review of gun control legislation.

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

[nodemotwit]

Always interesting that liberals single out one of the Bill of INDIVIDUAL Rights and try to morph - just that one - into a STATE right. And if the latter really was the intent of the founding fathers, how did they allow such a gross violation of the Constitution as ''self defense by firearm'' to propagate across America from day one ?

The following are two examples of people who would have died, in the liberal vision of America, w/o their 2nd Amendment right to self defense.

www.wfaa.com/sharedcontent/d
ws/wfaa/latestnews/stories/wfaa080214_lj
_hawes.bfc57dff.html

www.kltv.com/Glo
bal/story.asp?S=7886169

Does anyone think a SC with common sense (ie: one NOT considering our Constitution as a ''living, breathing, interpret it on the whim-of-the-moment'' document) is going to deny the 2nd Amendment right of these law abiding citizens to defend their lives with a firearm when set upon by criminals ?

Therefore, it is likely the SC will either pass on ruling on the lower courts DC Gun Ban case, in which case the DC Gun Ban falls, or the SC will validate the lower courts ruling, in which case the DC Gun Ban again falls. But in the latter case I hope their opinions also clarify/re-affirm that the Federal government does have the right to regulate the types of firearms that may be possessed. And, as a law-abiding gun owner, I would like to see the access to both firearms and ammunition by criminals and the mentally unstable minimized.

(cont)

[nodemotwit]

(cont)

To that end, what I would personally like to see is the Firearm part of the ATF take on some responsibilities that are similar to the Center of Disease Control (CDC). In the latter case, when someone contracts a population threatening disease (eg: tuberculoses), the CDC is, by law, notified by medical practitioners then acts A.R. to prevent the spread to the rest of the population. So, for the ATF, this would mean that :

** Medical practitioners would be required, by law, to report mentally unstable patients to the ATF in every case that they are deemed a threat to themselves or their family or the general population.
** The Armed services would be required, by law, to report any discharge from the service for serious mental problems.

Similarly, given the youth of many of these perps, a special case needs to be made wrt juvenile criminal records, specifically:

** Juvenile violent offenses would, by law, be reported to the ATF, and considered by the ATF until the age of 25, after which those records would be purged, unless those individuals developed an adult rap sheet involving more violent offenses by age 25.

THEN, the ATF, firearm dealers and gun show promoters would need to modernize their equipment such that both firearm and ammunition purchases are vetted by the ATF, online, w/128 bit encryption (ie: same security as CC purchases).

(cont)

[nodemotwit]

(cont)

And for those conservatives worried about the ATF tracking ammunition purchases, every purchasers name/address could be submitted by the gun shops computer along with a pool of randomly picked local state residents, with the ATF computer on the other end quickly (less that 1 second) providing an electronic thumbs up/down for all of them, then the gun shops computer would filter out all but the intended buyer. If the ATF were to track in this scenario then it would appear, over time, that 100% of the states adult residents are purchasing ammunition.


Since we give medical data to the CDC to protect the general populace I do not think it is as big stretch to give similar data to the ATF to, again, protect the general populace.

=======================


Additionally, the ATF needs to set national standards within which the state governments can restrict the parameters of firearm ownership AND interstate transportation for
travel/vacation purposes.

** The former: To avoid DC-like scenarios, where self defense becomes a non-option. For example, states which wish to minimize clip capacity would have the single option of 10 rounds, nothing else. And truly self-defense threatening restrictions, like requiring a firearm to be disassembled and scattered into 4 corners of a house in individually locked
containers, or requiring a special tool to change a clip, like in CA, would be illegal per Federal law.

(cont)

[nodemotwit]

(cont)

** The latter: To avoid the imbecilic hodge-podge of different state firearm transportation rules across the US.


But this only addresses part of the problem. Some other aspects are that :

** In certain states, liberals encourage illegal immigration and, by default, the illegal documentation industries that enable the former, and therefore the ''drivers license as ID'' for gun/ammunition purchases, as vetted in such an ATF system/responsibility upgrade as outlined above, would be much less robust. For this reason, National ID or similar protocols may be required.

** In certain states, human life has become too cheap. For example, the rap sheet of the perp Arthur Mann, who recently (Feb. 28th) got life in GA for shooting his ex-girlfriend, in public, shows that he was previously released after serving only FOUR years of a pathetic 10yr sentence for a prior murder in FL. I do not know if this is due to the liberal anthem of the ''perp is the victim'', or neocons who are too cheap to push for execution-or-life incarceration for murder, or maybe both, but FOUR years for murder ??
And even when these murderers are condemned to life in prison, what are they faced with ?
A lifetime of :
__free medical care,
__free food
__bed with fresh linen
__air conditioning and heat
__exercise, and
__reading materials.

All at taxpayer expense.
Wow.
I bet Arthur Mann was in that GA courtroom, just begging for the death penalty.

(cont)

[nodemotwit]

(cont)

(As a side note, why is it OK to use DNA evidence to free a death row inmate, but not OK to use DNA evidence to put someone on death row ? And if DNA evidence can accelerate someone off death row quickly (and rightly so), why couldn%u2019t it also accelerate their execution, especially when multiple witness to the crime are also involved ? ).

** In certain states, conservatives have implemented what are known as Project Exile laws (eg: VA). Specifically, felons are already prohibited by Federal law from possessing firearms (which, of course, does not prevent them from doing so when they leave prison, eg: Arthur Mann), but, with Project Exile, a felon even being caught jaywalking while in possession of a firearm will result in a 5yr incarceration w/o parole. This should be made into a Federal law applicable to all states, whether the sates want it or not, but it would have to be prosecuted in Federal courts to not financially burden states.

=======================

(cont)

[nodemotwit]

(cont)

This would still leave states to restrict citizen carry laws off their property, outside of their autos, as the state sees fit. Keep in mind though, that still would leave the looney
left entities to make their childish gun laws, like requiring law abiding gun owners to transport their firearms outside their homes in a locked container with the word ''GUN'' in big white letters on the case (eg: Boulder, CO, Jan 17, 2001). Presumably this was so that their non-gun owning neighbors could be alerted to such a heinous threat so that they could start running around their home interiors, in circular desperation, hands flailing in the air, shrieking, until their law abiding but obviously evil gun-owning neighbor drove out of sight.

=======================


Otherwise, I have seen prior posts here mentioning 30,000 US citizens killed by guns every year. This is true, for 2004, but only to the extent that well over half of them are suicides. Liberals would have you believe that this group of suicide-by-gun individuals posses a unique genetic trait, such that if they do not have a gun then they will not commit suicide, EVER. Here is the actual CDC US mortality data for 2004:

By gun:
Suicide ........- 16,750
Homicide .......- 11,624
Accident .......- 649
Undetermined ...- 235

By other than gun:
Suicide ........- 15,689
Homicide .......- 5,733
Accidents ......- 111,363

(cont)

[nodemotwit]

(cont)

By Accident other than gun:
Auto/Truck/etc .- 48,053
Falls ..........- 18,807
Drowning .......- 3,308
Fire/Smoke .....- 3,229
Poisoning ......- 20,950
Unspecified ....- 17,016

www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr55/nvsr
55_19.pdf

Since almost 15,700 other individuals managed to commit suicide W/O a gun, liberals will have to provide genetic proof that these 16,750 individuals are a genetically unique group, somehow predisposed to ''Suicide-by-gun-or-Live''. Since they cant, I submit that common sense dictates otherwise, which leaves the honest number of 12,500, not 30,000.

So if you are worried about gun homicide you are over 4X more likely to die in a car accident than by gun homicide.
And if you are worried about a gun accident you are 5X more likely to die in a fire accident, 32X more likely to die of a poisoning accident, and 74X more likely to die in a car accident than by a gun accident.

=======================


But, that being said, I do not see why some common sense steps, possibly those outlined above, could not be taken to restrict access to both firearms and ammunition by criminals and the mentally unstable. The only problem is that all of this would require our liberal, conservative and independent representatives to come together and make it happen. Seeing all the other un-enforced laws they are already collectively responsible for, Im not holding my breath.

[cfin5]

"The militia is the natural defense of a free country against sudden foreign invasions, domestic insurrections, and domestic usurpation of power by rulers. The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered, as the palladium of the liberties of the republic; since it offers a strong moral check against the usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers; and will generally ... enable the people to resist and triumph over them." - Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story, "Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States", Vol. 3, pp. 746-7, 1833

[sigotratando]

The question I''m wondering about now is what type of arm is appropriate to have in one''s home.

If it was expected (& conferred to the present) that ''the people'' would bring with them arms representative of the day (the contemporary state of the technology); & if a ''free state'' referred to the ability to resist oppression by a Federal govt, then does it not make as much sense to say that, in order to resist a modern federal govt that has over-extended its reach, we need to have weapons on par with the Federal Govt in order to have a chance at resisting --- Bazookas, machine guns, etc.?

If the answer is no, then the ''arms'' that we are allowed to ''keep & bear'' are more or less to placate the masses into thinking their rights are preserved; or to put weapons into the populace that are really only good for using on each other?

[sigotratando]

Well, gotta run. I%u2019m out of beer. I can%u2019t argue constitutional law without beer.
Posted by VoidMaster

I hear ya brutha!