buckwoods

RJ Stewart

Thanks for that link. I couldn't help but think about Chicago when comments were made like "DC is the only place that bans handguns", or "all other states allow 12 gauges" (Chicago only allows .410).

I can only hope there are more pro 2nd judges sitting on the SC than anti. I sometimes get hunches on things that always end up happening, but I have no feeling yet how this will be decided.

__________________
Robert John Stewart, The Lost King of Scotland

DaveH

Gun Owners of America E-Mail Alert

__________________
I am neither a lawyer, nor I do not play one on television or on the Internet. I hope no one assumes that I am giving legal advice.

Veni, Vidi, Velcro

MitchellCT

I guess the GOA should ask Gura for their money back...

Oh, yeah.

That's right. They didn't hire him. They didn't find the plaintiffs. They didn't file the suit which was argued yesterday...

So what was it that they contributed, exactly?

They filed a brief...

wow. I'm impressed.

Sergeant Mac

No offense intended, but at least they DID SOMETHING.

BushidoMarine

It doesn't...which is why I subscribe to, according to G. Gordon Liddy "a REAL newspaper!"



Justices Warm to Gun Rights
Advocates Hope Case Will Roll Back Regulations
By JESS BRAVIN
March 19, 2008; Page A4

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court appeared ready for the first time to read the Second Amendment as entitling individuals to keep firearms for private purposes, during the high court's first hearing on the controversial provision in nearly seven decades. At the same time, the justices appeared split over what regulations government can impose on that right.

• The News: The Supreme Court is weighing whether the Second Amendment guarantees a right to own handguns.
• The Case: Washington, D.C., has banned individuals from owning handguns since 1976. Last year a lower court ruled that the ban violated the Second Amendment.
• The Past: The Supreme Court hasn't heard a Second Amendment case since 1939, when it upheld a federal restriction on sawed-off shotguns.
• The Future: Yesterday, most of the justices seemed ready to say the amendment gives individuals a right to own guns -- but it was unclear what kind of gun regulations might still be constitutional.



Gun-rights advocates hope the case, which concerns the District of Columbia's handgun ban, will lead to a rollback of gun regulations. The case also has served as a rallying point for Republicans. If the court overturns Washington's law, it likely will be with the votes of President Bush's two appointees, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito. That would give the party a chance to remind voters in November about the impact of Supreme Court nominations. A decision is expected by July.

Last year, a lower court threw out the handgun ban, adopted in 1976, in a ruling that likened the right to keep and bear arms to other fundamental rights in the Constitution. The district appealed, prompting the first Supreme Court case on the Second Amendment since 1939 and a chance for the justices to settle a deep divide over the 18th-century text's meaning.

The issue caught the interest of the justices, who scheduled a rare 75-minute argument, instead of the typical 60 minutes. They held the attorneys for 17 minutes beyond their allotted time to answer questions invoking disparate facts such as the murder rate in Washington and the 1689 English Bill of Rights.

Because it has been so long since the court considered the amendment, none of the current justices have issued a ruling laying out an approach to the issue.

The Second Amendment reads, in its entirety, "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 district's lawyer, Walter Dellinger, a former acting solicitor general in the Clinton administration, began his argument by declaring the amendment entitled people to keep guns only as part of their service in a militia. States had their own militias before the American Revolution, and the amendment simply was intended to prevent the new federal government from disbanding them by outlawing firearms, he suggested.

Only Justice John Paul Stevens seemed to embrace that view. Of the state constitutions that predated the Second Amendment, only two protected firearm possession for "self-defense," he noted. The Second Amendment "doesn't mention self-defense," he said.

Justice Anthony Kennedy, a conservative who often casts the deciding vote, suggested he saw a broad individual right to keep and use weapons. The district's theory ignored "the concern of the remote settler to defend himself and his family against hostile Indian tribes and outlaws, wolves and bears and grizzlies and things like that," he said. Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Antonin Scalia and Alito raised similar concerns.


Mr. Dellinger conceded that in general, U.S. law contained an implicit right of self-defense and said that the district's ordinance, which permits ownership of rifles if they are kept unloaded and disassembled, or under trigger locks, allowed homeowners to obtain sufficient protection.

With a majority of the court seemingly inclined to uphold an individual right, the court's liberals tried to sketch out what kind of regulation might pass constitutional muster. Justice Stephen Breyer cited statistics that tens of thousands of people are killed or wounded by guns each year.

"Now, in light of that, why isn't a ban on handguns, while allowing the use of rifles and muskets, a reasonable or a proportionate response on behalf of the District of Columbia?" he asked Alan Gura, the lawyer challenging the gun ban.


That, Mr. Gura replied, would "weaken America's military preparedness," because "handguns are military arms" and citizens should be prepared to use them if called up.

The argument seemed to concede too much, Chief Justice Roberts suggested. "So a conscientious objector who likes to hunt deer for food, you would say, has no rights under the Second Amendment?" he asked.

The Bush administration tried to walk a narrow path, reconciling its formal position of the Second Amendment as an individual right to guns with its duty to defend federal firearms laws passed by Congress. Solicitor General Paul Clement urged the justices to find an individual right -- but one that gives authorities discretion to regulate guns.

If the justices follow that advice, the case would return to the lower courts for a review of the reasonableness of the district's regulations. As the justices made clear, different people may draw different conclusions about the same situation.

Can the city council "consider the extent of the murder rate in Washington, D.C., using handguns?" Justice David Souter asked. District officials have cited the crime rate as a reason for the law. Justice Scalia saw that as "all the more reason to allow a homeowner to have a handgun."

(District of Columbia v. Heller.)

Write to Jess Bravin at jess.bravin@wsj.com

__________________
"An unarmed man can only flee from evil, and evil is not overcome by fleeing from it."
- Col. Jeff Cooper, USMC

goldshellback

+1

They are there making a stand and we're only talking about/critiqueing it.
The discourse they've taken to the SCOUS is farther than I can/ am able to......but I'll support the fight the best I can just like we all will and want to. This is a bigger step than has ever been taken in the past WRT the 2nd Amendment and any foothold that is positive in our favor is ground gained.

__________________
"Just getting a concealed carry permit means you haven't commited a crime yet........CCP holders commit crimes." Daniel Vice, senior attorney for the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, as quoted on Fox & Friends, July 7th, 2008

Rock and Glock

Sorry........BTW, Thanks for cutting and pasting it in your post. Say, who's Gordon Liddy? Is he with Roto Rooter?

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Richard

NRA Life Member

"In this world a man must either be anvil or hammer" Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

tabsr

Only us old guys know Gordon, you must be younger than 45.

__________________
"Politicians and Bureaucrats, depend very much on the complicity of their victims, and like criminals, are flummoxed when we don't play the victim role."

cagueits

Has any one seen any video of the actual hearing? (not just the recorded argument with the pictures of who was speaking at the time) It is strange that C-SPAN didn't broadcast the argument live from SCOTUS's chambers in audio/video. So far the best audio/transcript combo I found was the one at the Oyez proyect (hit play and read the transcript as it is played in audio).