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SCOTUS Rules that 2nd Amendment Is an Individual Right
Reported on NPR presently.
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Reported on NPR presently.
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Comments (9)
5-4 decision, Kennedy the deciding vote.
the 4 remaining liberal justices were the dissenters.
June 26, 2008 10:46 AM | Reply | Permalink
Dissenters? We should call them traitors. How dare they ignore an amendment to the Constitution. Well, I don't mind that they trampled on the Fourth. I mean - if they come to illegally search and / or seize things - as long as I have my guns and Jesus fighting by my side - I say "Bring 'em On!"
Praise Christ
July 6, 2008 3:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
So you can keep your guns after they eminent domain your family homestead to private developers.
June 26, 2008 11:33 AM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, you can have a gun. Yes, the government can regulate them. No, the government can't ban them.
That's the extent of the 2nd amendment. It's why felons and mentally disturbed people do not get to own guns, and it's why waiting periods are constitutional. The government has every right to regulate who owns the weapons. They just can't out-and-out ban them.
A fair decision by the Court.
June 26, 2008 1:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
Does this mean that D.C. can now get that militia they always wanted?
Seriously though, does D.C. have a Guard or some miltia force otherwise?
June 26, 2008 1:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
Do gangs count?
June 26, 2008 5:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
only if they submit their charters to the District's chief alderman, and publicly wear their colors (or uniforms) when in service, and only when in service.
June 26, 2008 9:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
HOCUS, SCOTUS, POTUS.
June 26, 2008 9:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
I would be helpful if folks would get the facts on this issue:
"Justice Scalia, writing for a 5/4 majority, stated: "there seems to us no doubt" that this individual right does, in fact, exist. I guess that’s true if "no doubt" means that for 200-plus years such a right has never been held to exist. Its true if "no doubt" means a split among legal scholars as to whether the right conferred by the Second Amendment is an individual or collective right."
Why is it this court, and so many lawyers and law professors -- including some who claim to be Constitutional law professors -- never make mention of the legislative history? You know, the DEBATES in the first Congress by the FRAMERS of the Bill of Rights -- which, unlike NRA tracts, is LEGAL AUTHORITY -- and that which became the Second Amendment? NO DOUBT is BS of the worst order.
The first draft of that which became the Second Amendment, as collated by Representative James Madison, and submitted by him to that Congress, reads as follows -- and note especially the final clause, and my interlineations which refuse to be illiterate or intellectualy dishonest:
"The right of the people [PLURAL*] to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed; a well armed, and well regulated [UNDER LAW] militia being the best security of a free country: but no person [INDIVIDUAL] religiously scrupulous of [AGAINST] bearing arms shall be compelled [INVOLUNTARY] to render military service [not "individual self-defense" against "criminals"/gum'mint] in person."
_____
*It is "We the people" -- not, "I the people," or "We the individual".
_____
The final clause -- which obviously concerned "conscientious objection" -- exemption from military duty for reasons of conscience -- was the ONLY posited "individual" "right" debated as concerned that which became the Second Amendment. And OBVIOUSLY that posited "individual" "right" was voted DOWN, therefore -- OBVIOUSLY -- the Second has nothing whatever to do with "individual" anything.
Let's keep it simple:
1. Under the newly-ratified Constitution the first Congress -- populated by Founders and Framers -- debated and framed the Bill of Rights, including that which became the Second Amendment.
2. That Congress -- populated by Founders and Framers -- submitted the draft Bill of Rights to the several states for ratification on September 28, 1789.
3. Ratification of the Bill of Rights was completed on December 15, 1791.
4. On May 8, 1792, Congress -- populated by Founders and Framers -- enacted the "Militia Act," which implements US Con. Art. I., S. 8., Cl. 15 and 16 -- the Second Amendment notwithstanding.
5. As the militia is OBVIOUSLY within the scope of the Second Amendment, and the "Militia Act" OBVIOUSLY regulates the militia, then the Second Amendment -- NRA lie notwithstanding -- DOES NOT "protect" anything within its scope FROM rule of law/regulation.
6. 5. means: IF the Second Amendment "protected" an "individual" right -- which it OBVIOUSLY does not do -- then that "individual" right would NOT be "protected" by the Second Amendment FROM rule of law/regulation.
The only "reason" there is a "debate" about whether the Second "protects" an "individual" "right" is that that legislative history is either unknown to the "debaters" or ignored by them.
(There is also a "debate" because -- gun-nuts in particular -- of ignorance of American history. The Founders themselves engaged in not only gun control -- as does any sane society -- but also prohibition and "grabbing". Among the guns they confiscated were those held by those who were "disaffected with the revolution" and the Tories. There was no counter-"revolution" because the Founders had DISARMED the Tories.
Their views did not change with the ratification of the Contitution and Bill of Rights -- as the foregoing makes conclusively clear.
June 27, 2008 5:17 AM | Reply | Permalink
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