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Guns At Home - But Not Carry? (DC)

1K views 18 replies 9 participants last post by  Janq 
#1 ·
It doesn't sound right to me but it seems the D.C. argument is going to be for a right to keep guns in the home, not the right to carry.

http://cornellsun.com/node/24257
 
#3 ·
Maybe so, but I've written the NRA to get their input, especially since they've sent a mailing asking for a donation towards this argument.
 
#5 ·
one step at a time, I say. Incrementalism can work for us as well as against us.
 
#7 ·
While this may be true, the decision needs to be clear concerning "keep and bear" arms. Not just a right to keep arms in the home. A decision of this nature will have far reaching implications in the future.
 
#6 ·
How is it that supposedly rational people can so easily separate (pick apart) a legal phrase that so obviously was intended to be represented TOGETHER? "...keep & bear arms"
 
#11 ·
Keep in mind that to keep in your home they want them taken apart and stored with the ammo in a diff location. Anyway that's the what i get out of the diff articles i have been reading as of late.
 
#12 · (Edited)
I would think that of all places, Washington D.C. would be one of the easiest places to show the need of law abiding citizens to be able to carry because of statistics in existance. Assault and other violent crimes have risen tremendoulsly since the ban went into effect. Law Enforcement in DC has clearly shown that it is incapable of minimizing the criminal element in our capital city even just blocks from the White House. Neither have they shown any ability to protect the law abiding citizens just blocks from the mall as it isn't uncommon to have up to a half a dozen assaults or armed robberies occur nightly by reports that I've seen.

****************
"Repeal D.C. gun ban.(EDITORIALS)
From: The Washington Times May 21, 2005

It is time to repeal the District's gun laws. Just consider a few statistics: Five years before the D.C. Council banned nearly all firearms in 1976, the District's murder rate fell from 37 to 27 per 100,000 people. In the five years after 1976, the murder rate rose to 35 per 100,000 people. Between 1976 and 1991, the D.C. homicide rate rose 200 percent. The national homicide rate during the same 15-year period rose just 12 percent.

According to the FBI, the District has the highest violent crime rate in the nation of any city over 500,000 ...
****************

How proud D.C. Law Enforcement and the mayor :buttkick:must be to preside over one of the most crime ridden areas of our country, thanks to his gun control policies.


GOOD GUN CONTROL Is Being Able To Hit Your Target!

:urla9ub:
 
#15 ·
Remember that in the days of our forefathers, the militia comprised all able bodied men.
That is still the case today. Please review title 10 of the US Code.

TITLE 10 > Subtitle A > PART I > CHAPTER 13 > §311. Militia: composition and classes
(a) The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age and, except as provided in section 313 of title 32, under 45 years of age who are, or who have made a declaration of intention to become, citizens of the United States and of female citizens of the United States who are members of the National Guard.
(b) The classes of the militia are—
(1) the organized militia, which consists of the National Guard and the Naval Militia; and
(2) the unorganized militia, which consists of the members of the militia who are not members of the National Guard or the Naval Militia
Section 313 of title 32 expands the age of militia service to 64 years, if the citizen served in the regular armed forces.
 
#16 ·
Yep or rather agreed and that might be reason why the second version for the states had the word militia spelled with a lower case 'm' and the word people changed to reflect an upper case 'P'.

Don't get me wrong I'm not against.
I'm just trying to see how and where Mayor Adrian Fenty and D.C. et. al. might be coming from and how their own view in their own minds might have enough basis to take it to the Supreme Court and expect a winning decision.
Folks don't spend the time and money and political as well as historical risk without having a very good basis of reasoning.

Adrian Fenty stands to make his name in history for ever more as the man who either cemented the second amendment for the citizen as being for or against the people right to keep and bear arms as non 'M/militia' civilians, or who was denied the opportunity to argue it at a national/constitutional level and sent home hat in hand to comply with his own regional appellate court decision.
That's a mighty big piece of pie to bite off.

Assuming of course that SCOTUS agrees to take and hear arguments toward the case at all, which in it self is extremely rare and narrow focused.

- Janq
 
#19 ·
WOW!!!
Thank you for posting that!

I had to read the middle section Q&A twice to be definite I was completely understanding & properly comprehending what I was reading and what was being stated but in the end the summation is for me clear.

We the People win and so does D.C., while Adrian Fenty representing the government of D.C. et. al. they should if not will lose.

- Janq
 
#18 ·
Let's make it easy for everyone if that's OK.

The following is reprinted from the September 13, 1991 issue of GUN WEEK
THE UNABRIDGED SECOND AMENDMENT

by J. Neil Schulman

If you wanted to know all about the Big Bang, you'd ring up Carl Sagan, right? And if you wanted to know about desert warfare, the man to call would be Norman Schwartzkopf, no question about it. But who would you call if you wanted the top expert on American usage, to tell you the meaning of the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution?
That was the question I asked Mr. A.C. Brocki, Editorial Coordinator of the Los Angeles Unified School District and formerly senior editor at Houghton Mifflin Publishers -- who himself had been recommended to me as the foremost expert on English usage in the Los Angeles school system. Mr. Brocki told me to get in touch with Roy Copperud, a retired professor of journalism at the University of Southern California and the author of American Usage and Style: The Consensus. A little research lent support to Brocki's opinion of Professor Copperud's expertise.
Roy Copperud was a newspaper writer on major dailies for over three decades before embarking on a distinguished seventeen-year career teaching journalism at USC. Since 1952, Copperud has been writing a column dealing with the professional aspects of journalism for Editor and Publisher, a weekly magazine focusing on the journalism field.
He's on the usage panel of the American Heritage Dictionary, and Merriam Webster's Usage Dictionary frequently cites him as an expert. Copperud's fifth book on usage, American Usage and Style: The Consensus, has been in continuous print from Van Nostrand Reinhold since 1981, and is the winner of the Association of American Publishers' Humanities Award.
That sounds like an expert to me.
After a brief telephone call to Professor Copperud in which I introduced myself but did \not\ give him any indication of why I was interested, I sent the following letter:

"July 26, 1991
"Dear Professor Copperud:
"I am writing you to ask you for your professional opinion as an expert in English usage, to analyze the text of the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution, and extract the intent from the text.
"The text of the Second Amendment is, '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 debate over this amendment has been whether the first part of the sentence, "A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State," is a restrictive clause or a subordinate clause, with respect to the independent clause containing the subject of the sentence, "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."
"I would request that your analysis of this sentence not take into consideration issues of political impact or public policy, but be restricted entirely to a linguistic analysis of its meaning and intent. Further, since your professional analysis will likely become part of litigation regarding the consequences of the Second Amendment, I ask that whatever analysis you make be a professional opinion that you would be willing to stand behind with your reputation, and even be willing to testify under oath to support, if necessary."
My letter framed several questions about the text of the Second Amendment, then concluded:
"I realize that I am asking you to take on a major responsibility and task with this letter. I am doing so because, as a citizen, I believe it is vitally important to extract the actual meaning of the Second Amendment. While I ask that your analysis not be affected by the political importance of its results, I ask that you do this because of that importance.
"Sincerely,
"J. Neil Schulman"

After several more letters and phone calls, in which we discussed terms for his doing such an analysis, but in which we never discussed either of our opinions regarding the Second Amendment, gun control, or any other political subject, Professor Copperud sent me the following analysis (into which I've inserted my questions for the sake of clarity):

[Copperud:] The words "A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state," contrary to the interpretation cited in your letter of July 26, 1991, constitute a present participle, rather than a clause. It is used as an adjective, modifying "militia," which is followed by the main clause of the sentence (subject "the right," verb "shall"). The right to keep and bear arms is asserted as essential for maintaining a militia.

In reply to your numbered questions:
[Schulman: (1) Can the sentence be interpreted to grant the right to keep and bear arms solely to "a well-regulated militia"?;]
[Copperud:] (1) The sentence does not restrict the right to keep and bear arms, nor does it state or imply possession of the right elsewhere or by others than the people; it simply makes a positive statement with respect to a right of the people.
[Schulman: (2) Is "the right of the people to keep and bear arms" granted by the words of the Second Amendment, or does the Second Amendment assume a preexisting right of the people to keep and bear arms, and merely state that such right "shall not be infringed"?;]
[Copperud:] (2) The right is not granted by the amendment; its existence is assumed. The thrust of the sentence is that the right shall be preserved inviolate for the sake of ensuring a militia.
[Schulman: (3) Is the right of the people to keep and bear arms conditioned upon whether or not a well-regulated militia is, in fact, necessary to the security of a free State, and if that condition is not existing, is the statement "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed" null and void?;]
[Copperud:] (3) No such condition is expressed or implied. The right to keep and bear arms is not said by the amendment to depend on the existence of a militia. No condition is stated or implied as to the relation of the right to keep and bear arms and to the necessity of a well-regulated militia as requisite to the security of a free state. The right to keep and bear arms is deemed unconditional by the entire sentence.
[Schulman: (4) Does the clause "A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State," grant a right to the government to place conditions on the "right of the people to keep and bear arms," or is such right deemed unconditional by the meaning of the entire sentence?;]
[Copperud:] (4) The right is assumed to exist and to be unconditional, as previously stated. It is invoked here specifically for the sake of the militia.
[Schulman: (5) Which of the following does the phrase "well-regulated militia" mean: "well-equipped," "well-organized," "well-drilled," "well-educated," or "subject to regulations of a superior authority"?]
[Copperud:] (5) The phrase means "subject to regulations of a superior authority"; this accords with the desire of the writers for civilian control over the military.
[Schulman: If at all possible, I would ask you to take into account the changed meanings of words, or usage, since that sentence was written two-hundred years ago, but not to take into account historical interpretations of the intents of the authors, unless those issues can be clearly separated.]
[Copperud:] To the best of my knowledge, there has been no change in the meaning of words or in usage that would affect the meaning of the amendment. If it were written today, it might be put: "Since a well-regulated militia is necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be abridged."
[Schulman: As a "scientific control" on this analysis, I would also appreciate it if you could compare your analysis of the text of the Second Amendment to the following sentence,
"A well-schooled electorate, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and read Books, shall not be infringed."
My questions for the usage analysis of this sentence would be, Is the grammatical structure and usage of this sentence, and the way the words modify each other, identical to the Second Amendment's sentence?;
and Could this sentence be interpreted to restrict "the right of the people to keep and read Books" only to "a well-educated electorate" -- for example, registered voters with a high-school diploma?]

[Copperud:] Your "scientific control" sentence precisely parallels the amendment in grammatical structure.
There is nothing in your sentence that either indicates or implies the possibility of a restricted interpretation.

Professor Copperud had only one additional comment, which he placed in his cover letter: "With well-known human curiosity, I made some speculative efforts to decide how the material might be used, but was unable to reach any conclusion."

So now we have been told by one of the top experts on American usage what many knew all along: the Constitution of the United States unconditionally protects the people's right to keep and bear arms, forbidding all government formed under the Constitution from abridging that right.
As I write this, the attempted coup against constitutional government in the Soviet Union has failed, apparently because the will of the people in that part of the world to be free from capricious tyranny is stronger than the old guard's desire to maintain a monopoly on dictatorial power.
And here in the United States, elected lawmakers, judges, and appointed officials who are pledged to defend the Constitution of the United States ignore, marginalize, or prevaricate about the Second Amendment routinely. American citizens are put in American prisons for carrying arms, owning arms of forbidden sorts, or failing to satisfy bureaucratic requirements regarding the owning and carrying of firearms -- all of which is an abridgement of the unconditional right of the people to keep and bear arms, guaranteed by the Constitution.
And even the ACLU, staunch defender of the rest of the Bill of Rights, stands by and does nothing.
It seems it is up to those who believe in the right to keep and bear arms to preserve that right. No one else will. No one else can. Will we beg our elected representatives not to take away our rights, and continue regarding them as representing us if they do? Will we continue obeying judges who decide that the Second Amendment doesn't mean what it says but means whatever they say it means in their Orwellian doublespeak?
Or will we simply keep and bear the arms of our choice, as the Constitution of the United States promises us we can, and pledge that we will defend that promise with our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor?

:urla9ub:
 
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