Supreme Court strikes down DC gun ban

[Nibe]

A

[tyven]

the people of DC are not happy about this. all ive heard on the radio today are people calling in to complain.

[archibaldcrane]

I'm a pro-gun person, and I think that now that this is struck down, we pretty much have our weapons situation in proper balance between restrictions and freedom. About the only thing left is closing the gun-show loophole on background checks and hopefully gun rights can stop being such a politicized issue and maintain this current standard.

[BerenTebogo]

I try to not have a stern opinion on this, since I claim to be a democrat, or at the very least a liberal, and I'm pro-gun.

Criminals will have guns no matter what, you could eradicate them from the country and they'd just get them imported, erasing guns from the hands of the public does nothing regarding a criminal. I would rather people have a means to protect themselves should the worst-case-scenario ever occur rather than being another victim.

[sephir]

honestly I think its a bad call. Guns are a major source of Violence and make many complications occur. Handguns are some of the worst offenders. its too easy for people in the US to get guns and it makes me nervous whenever I have to go down there. Toronto has occasional gun problems, but almost all of them are a result of US guns as a result of loose US gun restrictions and weak border checks.

[Kerberoz]

honestly I think its a bad call. Guns are a major source of Violence and make many complications occur. Handguns are some of the worst offenders. its too easy for people in the US to get guns and it makes me nervous whenever I have to go down there. Toronto has occasional gun problems, but almost all of them are a result of US guns as a result of loose US gun restrictions and weak border checks.

And how many of those were bought legally?

[SwampdonkeyPLD]

Didn't crime go up in DC after the ban?

[Tankjr]

Guns are a major source of Violence

The guns aren't the source of the violence.

[Kaslo]

http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/06/26/scotus.guns/index.html


What do you guys think? Personally, I think its a great start, but clearly we have people on the supreme court who can't even read a few sentences clearly. Although we'll probably have to wait another 70 years for another ruling on what "reasonable restrictions" are.

How is that easy to read the amendment clearly when it's not even written clearly. Look up some circuit cases on the subject and you can see how ambiguous the text is.

[Olo401]

This is some of the writing I did earlier today over at Four Freedoms Blog while reading through Scalia's opinion in this case, with quotes:

The first salient feature of the operative clause [of the 2nd Amendment] is that it codifies a “right of the people.” The unamended Constitution and the Bill of Rights use the phrase “right of the people” two other times, in the First Amendment’s Assembly-and-Petition Clause and in the Fourth Amendment’s Search-and-Seizure Clause. The Ninth Amendment uses very similar terminology (“The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people”). All three of these instances unambiguously refer to individual rights, not “collective” rights, or rights that may be exercised only through participation in some corporate body.

Interesting.. Scalia cites the use of the phrase "the right of the people" and even points out that it's also used in the 1st and 4th Amendments and has similar language in the 9th Amendment. His interpretation of it is that it indicates both a collective right and an individual right to something - in the case of the 2nd Amendment it's to keep and bear arms.

Using his own interpretation, and his own citations, you can extend his logic to include the individual and collective right of the people to assembly, petition of grievances, and privacy in their effects and matters among other things. Which means Scalia (unintentionally) gave an argument for unlimited abortion rights, free unhindered civil protests, hell maybe even unlimited damages on class-action lawsuits (this is pretty funny the day after they cut the damage award charged to ExxonMobil by 80%).

And, of course, what the Stuarts had tried to do to their political enemies, George III had tried to do to the colonists. In the tumultuous decades of the 1760’s and 1770’s, the Crown began to disarm the inhabitants of the most rebellious areas. That provoked polemical reactions by Americans invoking their rights as Englishmen to keep arms. A New York article of April 1769 said that “it is a natural right which the people have reserved to themselves, confirmed by the Bill of Rights, to keep arms for their own defence.” A Journal of the Times: Mar. 17, New York Journal, Supp. 1, Apr. 13, 1769, in Boston Under Military Rule 79 (O. Dickerson ed. 1936); see also, e.g., Shippen, Boston Gazette, Jan. 30, 1769, in 1 The Writings of Samuel Adams 299 (H. Cushing ed. 1968).
They understood the right to enable individuals to defend themselves. As the most important early American edition of Blackstone’s Commentaries (by the law professor and former Antifederalist St. George Tucker) made clear in the notes to the description of the arms right, Americans understood the “right of self-preservation” as permitting a citizen to “repel force by force” when “the intervention of society in his behalf, may be too late to prevent an injury.” 1 Blackstone’s Commentaries 145–146, n. 42 (1803) (hereinafter Tucker’s Blackstone). See also W. Duer, Outlines of the Constitutional Jurisprudence of the United States 31–32 (1833).

Does Antonin Scalia fancy himself to be the spirit of Samuel Adams now?! How quaint.. Well in that case I'll take up the spirit of his cousin, who would argue today that in a place such as the Capitol District of the United States, where you have thousands of people visiting on a daily basis including many elected members of the government, you would want those people to be carrying weapons?! How about if some of those people were looking to assassinate our elected officials? How about if a few of those people were set on setting off a nuclear device? Guess what - those are by your definition arms, which they are now allowed to keep and bear, within striking distance of the VERY BUILDING YOU SIT IN AND WRITE YOUR DECISIONS SCALIA. And you just enabled them. Sleep tight, Tony.

Although we agree with petitioners’ interpretive assumption that “militia” means the same thing in Article I and the Second Amendment, we believe that petitioners identify the wrong thing, namely, the organized militia. Unlike armies and navies, which Congress is given the power to create (“to raise . . . Armies”; “to provide . . . a Navy,” Art. I, §8, cls. 12–13), the militia is assumed by Article I already to be in existence. Congress is given the power to “provide for calling forth the militia,” §8, cl. 15; and the power not to create, but to “organiz[e]” it—and not to organize “a” militia, which is what one would expect if the militia were to be a federal creation, but to organize “the” militia, connoting a body already in existence, ibid., cl. 16. This is fully consistent with the ordinary definition of the militia as all able-bodied men. From that pool, Congress has plenary power to organize the units that will make up an effective fighting force. That is what Congress did in the first militia Act, which specified that “each and every free able-bodied white male citizen of the respective states, resident therein, who is or shall be of the age of eighteen years, and under the age of forty-five years (except as is herein after excepted) shall severally and respectively be enrolled in the militia.” Act of May 8, 1792, 1 Stat. 271. To be sure, Congress need not conscript every able-bodied man into the militia, because nothing in Article I suggests that in exercising its power to organize, discipline, and arm the militia, Congress must focus upon the entire body. Although the militia consists of all ablebodied men, the federally organized militia may consist of a subset of them.

The italicized part has been amended many times since, I think most recently by the Selective Service Act and its changes over the years, but that's the basic idea Scalia uses - every citizen as defined by the Congress who can apply enroll in the organized Armed Forces is considered part of the "militia", and of course the Armed Forces do not need to accept everyone into their ranks.


(A quote from a friend of mine over there

From the Federalist 46, Written by James Madison:[quote:37rzpm06]But ambitious encroachments of the federal government, on the authority of the State governments, would not excite the opposition of a single State, or of a few States only. They would be signals of general alarm. Every government would espouse the common cause. A correspondence would be opened. Plans of resistance would be concerted. One spirit would animate and conduct the whole. The same combinations, in short, would result from an apprehension of the federal, as was produced by the dread of a foreign, yoke; and unless the projected innovations should be voluntarily renounced, the same appeal to a trial of force would be made in the one case as was made in the other. But what degree of madness could ever drive the federal government to such an extremity. In the contest with Great Britain, one part of the empire was employed against the other. The more numerous part invaded the rights of the less numerous part. The attempt was unjust and unwise; but it was not in speculation absolutely chimerical. But what would be the contest in the case we are supposing? Who would be the parties? A few representatives of the people would be opposed to the people themselves; or rather one set of representatives would be contending against thirteen sets of representatives, with the whole body of their common constituents on the side of the latter.

The only refuge left for those who prophesy the downfall of the State governments is the visionary supposition that the federal government may previously accumulate a military force for the projects of ambition

The founding fathers never intended a standing army much less the 2nd amendment be used to justify it.[/quote:37rzpm06]

Scalia, despite his membership in the Federalist Society, rarely uses the Federalist Papers as a guide in his decisions (because they tend to go against his ideological ends). That is the flaw in his thinking and that of other strict constructionists - they refuse to pay attention to the true context behind the document and let their skewed ideology get in the way, then hypocritically claim that the document isn't "living" when they completely misinterpret it.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=

I also read the dissenting opinion written by Justice Stevens, which kept to the precedents that had been used consistently over the past 80-or-so years since the Miller decision. I suppose that disproves the conservative/reactionist argument that liberal judges are 'activist' and legislate from the bench. I did not do an analysis of the dissent; it speaks for itself and, of course, is not the decision that won the day.

By the way, I have no problem with people owning a gun, keeping it in their home or using it for self-defense. In fact, that's part of what is intended in the Second Amendment. This decision partially went the right way - but it did so using severe illogic. One major example of this is the fact that this ruling also strikes down the mandate that a gun in the home be secured or not include a trigger lock. This kind of mandate is put into place to protect people from misuse and accidents involving firearms, as well as to prevent theft of guns by real hardened criminals who WOULD use them in a non-defensive manner. Remember a few years back when kids would find their parents' guns and accidentally shoot themselves while playing with a loaded gun? That's the reason this rule was in place.

[Nystul]

honestly I think its a bad call. Guns are a major source of Violence and make many complications occur. Handguns are some of the worst offenders. its too easy for people in the US to get guns and it makes me nervous whenever I have to go down there. Toronto has occasional gun problems, but almost all of them are a result of US guns as a result of loose US gun restrictions and weak border checks.

Because the past 30 years of handgun ban in DC has certainly made it a safe place.




OH WAIT! Nevermind, it's one of the worst gun violence cities in the nation.


Look, I'm not a gun person. I don't really understand why people want them. But whatever. If the issue is reducing violence then I can tell you with absolute confidence that banning handguns has absolutely no positive impact. It's high time people accept this and start looking for other solutions. This reversal on the ban certainly isn't going to make things worse.

[-Omni]

Most "criminals" have guns to protect themselves from other criminals. It's not uncommon for a dealer to get held at gunpoint for everything he has, so most of them pack heat to keep themselves from getting robbed or killed over something as stupid as a plant or a vial of powder.

If guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns. That's the simple truth. Saying a gun ban would stop gun violence is like saying people won't use cannabis just because it's illegal. Or, if cigarettes were outlawed tomorrow, somebody who had a full pack wouldn't still smoke 'em as if they were legal.

[Demosthenes11]

I don't think people realize that if this decision had gone the other way, it's very possible there could have been a lot of civil violence because of it.

There are a lot of americans that would rather die with their guns in hand than let it be taken from them

[Plow]

HANDgun ban



Pretty huge part of the picture left out of every post in this thread.

[Gregorio]

Does Antonin Scalia fancy himself to be the spirit of Samuel Adams now?! How quaint.. Well in that case I'll take up the spirit of his cousin, who would argue today that in a place such as the Capitol District of the United States, where you have thousands of people visiting on a daily basis including many elected members of the government, you would want those people to be carrying weapons?! How about if some of those people were looking to assassinate our elected officials? How about if a few of those people were set on setting off a nuclear device? Guess what - those are by your definition arms, which they are now allowed to keep and bear, within striking distance of the VERY BUILDING YOU SIT IN AND WRITE YOUR DECISIONS SCALIA. And you just enabled them. Sleep tight, Tony.

What makes you think John Adams would think guns don't belong around elected officials and tourists?

Also, you do realize that you can carry handguns in many of the areas surrounding Washington D.C., right? There is not a giant metal detector around the capital preventing people from entering with guns, only an invisible fear of the law. I highly doubt anyone who is in the mindset of killing a politician is going to let a gun law get in their way.

[Gregorio]

HANDgun ban



Pretty huge part of the picture left out of every post in this thread.

Not entirely. I haven't read over the fine print of the D.C. ban in a while, but if I remember correctly many shotguns and hunting rifles were banned as well unless the permits were grandfathered in or certain other obligations were met. I could be wrong though.

[Remyo]

honestly I think its a bad call. Guns are a major source of Violence and make many complications occur. Handguns are some of the worst offenders. its too easy for people in the US to get guns and it makes me nervous whenever I have to go down there. Toronto has occasional gun problems, but almost all of them are a result of US guns as a result of loose US gun restrictions and weak border checks.

Because the past 30 years of handgun ban in DC has certainly made it a safe place.




OH WAIT! Nevermind, it's one of the worst gun violence cities in the nation.

correct. it has a higher murder count than the state of vermont, which has almost no gun laws(almost anyone can carry). Bans usually only take the guns out of the hands of good people who would buy them legally, the criminals are going to get them and use them regardless of the laws.

[*Shinzon*]

The founding fathers never intended a standing army much less the 2nd amendment be used to justify it.

First, so what? So because the founding fathers didn't intend for a standing army we shouldn't have one? They didn't intend for a national bank, they didnt intend for the government to do a multitude of things. Which is why the elastic clause exists. The beauty of having the elastic clause is that government can use its power to "do everything that is necessary and proper" to run and govern the country. Secondly, the comment about not intending to have a standing army is a strict constructionist view and if I read your post right, you were criticizing Scalia for having this same view, I'm confused as to how you're using that.

[HAcoreRD]

i personally feel safer knowing anyone can pretty much have a gun as opposed to an law enforcement figure.

Besides, if they banned guns, they'd be as easy to get underground as it is for kids to score pot.

[Remyo]

now D.C. won't be as fucked when the zombie apocalypse comes.