Pitmaster

The SCOTUS does not have video of the arguments. I suspect it will be at least a decade or two before the arguments are videotaped.

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Pitmaster

HELGA: Where are you going?
HAGAR: To sign a peace treaty with the King of England.
HELGA: Then why take all those weapons?
HAGAR: First we gotta negotiate...

inman

Judging Guns
The Supreme Court should not deprive governments of their ability to protect public safety.
Thursday, March 20, 2008; A14



BY THE END of oral arguments Tuesday in the case of District of Columbia v. Heller, a majority of Supreme Court justices seemed to embrace the notion that the Second Amendment recognizes an individual right to keep and bear arms. Such a conclusion, however, should not automatically prove fatal to the District's admittedly tough gun control law.

Every right, including freedom of speech, is subject to some limitations. The legal and public policy arguments for allowing broad government regulation of firearms are compelling. District law bans private ownership of handguns and requires long guns to be kept in the home disassembled or stored with a trigger lock. This approach reflects the grim realities of an urban setting where handguns account for a disproportionate number of homicides and are used in a great majority of robberies and rapes.

Speaking on the courthouse steps after the Supreme Court arguments, D.C. Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier reiterated that "a weapon that is easily concealed, that can be taken inside of schools, inside of churches, inside of government buildings without anyone's knowledge . . . is something that we don't want in the District of Columbia."

Six justices active in questioning during Tuesday's arguments seemed to at least contemplate an individual rights approach. If a majority embraces such an approach, it is far from clear what legal standard they would then apply to determine the constitutionality of the D.C. gun law. Reaching consensus on this issue may very well be the biggest challenge for Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. We urge the justices to adopt the lowest standard of review to allow governments maximum flexibility in enacting laws meant to protect public safety. If a majority cannot agree on this, we would hope that they would heed the suggestions of Solicitor General Paul D. Clement, who argued for a tougher standard but one that clearly permits sensible regulation, such as licensing, background checks and a ban on machine guns.

BigEFan

Not true!!!! I am 28 and I know who Liddy is. I also know that he is a convicted felon so his wife owns all of his guns.

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Lex et Libertas — Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus, et Fidelis!

"Not only do the people who put their lives on the line to protect the rest of us deserve better, we all deserve better than to have our own security undermined by those who undermine law enforcement." -Thomas Sowell

MitchellCT

Heller - Response from Alan Gura on Machine Guns


Thanks for your support.
The solution to 922(o) will have to be political in the end. The fact is,
outside the gun community, the concept of privately owned machine guns is
intolerable to American society and 100% of all federal judges. If I had
suggested in any way -- including, by being evasive and indirect and fudging
the answer -- that machine guns are the next case and this is the path to
dumping 922(o) -- I'd have instantly lost all 9 justices. Even Scalia.
There wasn't any question of that, at all, going in, and it was confirmed in
unmistakable fashion when I stood there a few feet from the justices and
heard and saw how they related to machine guns. It was not just my opinion,
but one uniformly held by ALL the attorneys with whom we bounced ideas off,
some of them exceedingly bright people. Ditto for the people who wanted me
to declare an absolute right, like I'm there to waive some sort of GOA
bumper sticker. That's a good way to lose, too, and look like a moron in
the process.
I didn't make the last 219 years of constitutional law and I am not
responsible for the way that people out there -- and on the court-- feel
about machine guns. Some people in our gun rights community have very....
interesting.... ways of looking at the constitution and the federal courts.
I don't need to pass judgment on it other than to say, it's not the reality
in which we practice law. When we started this over five years ago, the
collective rights theory was the controlling law in 47 out of 50 states.
Hopefully, on next year's MBE, aspiring lawyers will have to bubble in the
individual rights answer to pass the test. I know you and many others out
there can appreciate that difference and I thank you for it, even if we
can't get EVERYTHING that EVERYONE wants. Honestly some people just want to
stay angry. I'm glad you're not among them.
You want to change 922(o)? Take a new person shooting. Work for "climate
change."
Thanks,
Alan

LenS

Regrettably, I do agree with Alan Gura's response above.

Just wished that he had answered that "this case is not about mgs" when they were pushing that button.

edr9x23super

Kudos to Mr. Gura; I think he hits the nail on the head with the issue at hand, that is to take small steps first, and keep making progress.

My question to the editorial in the Washington Post is this: If you agree with the individual rights theory, then why are you so afraid to adopt "shall issue" legislation for CCW in the district of Columbia for responsible, law abiding citizens?

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"Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are inevitably ruined". - Patrick Henry

nutz4utwo

None of them on this forum... Kudos to Mr Gura, I do not agree with everything he said, but he took us a giant leap in the right direction. He has a pretty pragmatic hold on the situation too.

...

Rock and Glock

Read my "Title" ("Watergate, Anyone") there, you whippersnapper........

BTW, The WSJ is a real newspaper, it just doesn't have color pictures (print version) and large print..........

I think Gura did an execellent job, BTW, and kept it focused and on target.

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Richard

NRA Life Member

"This world is not a playground where children at play are pampered by friendly nannies," Wendelin Wiedeking

Resurgam

Comments on this perspective, anyone?

Gun Owners Fooled By Mammoth Supreme Court Hoax

Paul Joseph Watson & Steve Watson
Prison Planet
Thursday, March 20, 2008

Comments made by justices in an ongoing landmark case have been heralded as a "victory" for the individual right to bear arms by the media and embraced by self-proclaimed conservatives, but in reality gun owners are the victim of a mammoth hoax and the second amendment is being destroyed.

As Gun Owners of America point out today in a USA Today op-ed, the second amendment is the very bedrock of America and shouldn’t even be the subject of a Supreme Court debate.

Individual Right to Bear Arms Wins Favor in Court Argument, the headline from the New York Law Journal, was typical of the media output after most of the nine Supreme Court justices hinted that the right to bear arms is a "general right."

However, the case is likely to conclude with the introduction of several new regulations on hand gun ownership at the very least, and, if the government gets its way, a total ban on handguns.

The outcome will set the precedent for gun laws nationwide.

The NY Law Journal writes:

Justice Kennedy’s comments appeared to spell trouble for efforts by the District of Columbia to revive its strict handgun ban, although lawyers for both the Bush administration and gun-rights advocates acknowledged that some lesser regulation of the right would be acceptable.

Counting Justice Kennedy, it appeared that five or more justices were ready to recognize some form of an individual right to keep and bear arms that is only loosely tethered, if at all, to the functioning of militias. What kind of regulation of that individual right will be allowed by those justices is uncertain.

When the arguments were over, gun-control advocates seemed less pessimistic than before the session began, though they did not predict victory.

Joshua Horwitz, director of the Education Fund to Stop Gun Violence, who filed a brief in the case and watched the arguments, conceded he cannot count five votes for a strictly militia-rights view of the Second Amendment that would allow for almost unlimited regulation of firearms. But he could conceive of five justices adopting an individual-rights view that will mean "a lot of regulations will be OK. The outcome is not necessarily poor for us."

In a USA Today op-ed piece, Herbert W. Titus and William J. Olson, attorneys for Gun Owners of America, outline how thee second amendment was intended to apply to individuals and that it’s pre-eminent reason was for the purposes of defense against a tyrannical state or invading army.

Knowing that words and parchment barriers alone would prove inadequate to restrain those elected as servants from becoming tyrants, they added the Second Amendment to secure "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms" — not to protect deer hunters and skeet shooters, but to guarantee to themselves and their posterity the blessings of "a free State."

Entrusting the nation’s sovereignty to the people, the amendment breaks the government’s military monopoly, guaranteeing to the people such firearms as would be necessary to defend against the sort of government abuse of their inalienable rights the British had committed.

Thus, the amendment’s "well regulated Militia" encompasses all citizens who constitute the polity of the nation with the right to form their own government. The amendment’s "keep and bear Arms" secures the right to possess firearms such as fully-automatic rifles, which are both the "lineal descendant(s) of … founding-era weapon(s)" (applying a 2007 court of appeals’ test), and "ordinary military equipment" (applying a 1939 Supreme Court standard).

Click here to listen to Alex Jones and Gun Owners’ President Larry Pratt discuss the case.

The case, DC v. Heller, stems from proceedings filed by lawyers for security guard Mr Dick Anthony Heller, which state that the District’s categorical restrictions are so broad that they cannot comply with the Second Amendment’s protection of the right to bear arms.

An amicus curiae brief filed by U.S. Solicitor General Paul D. Clement, on behalf of the Bush administration and the government, says that federal gun control measures should not be limited and proposes that a court may determine that a full scale ban on almost all self-defense firearms may be upheld as constitutional if it constitutes a “reasonable” restriction of constitutional rights.

Lawyer Alan Gura, opposing the law and representing Mr Heller said "We have here a ban on all guns for all people in all homes at all times in the nation’s capital."

Read the transcript of yesterday’s argument. (PDF)

Read briefs in D.C. v. Heller.




Advocates of the ban and the representatives of the District of Columbia have attempted to argue that the history and context of the second amendment applies to the rights of militias and not to individuals.

However, there are thousands of quotes from the founding fathers that pour water on this weak argument. The founders said over and over that when a government seeks to take away individual weapons it constitutes tyranny and that government must be removed.

Here are a few choice quotes:

A strong body makes the mind strong. As to the species of exercises, I advise the gun. While this gives moderate exercise to the body, it gives boldness, enterprise and independence to the mind. Games played with the ball, and others of that nature, are too violent for the body and stamp no character on the mind. Let your gun therefore be your constant companion of your walks.
— Thomas Jefferson to Peter Carr, 1785. The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, (Memorial Edition) Lipscomb and Bergh, editors.

We established however some, although not all its [self-government] important principles . The constitutions of most of our States assert, that all power is inherent in the people; that they may exercise it by themselves, in all cases to which they think themselves competent, (as in electing their functionaries executive and legislative, and deciding by a jury of themselves, in all judiciary cases in which any fact is involved,) or they may act by representatives, freely and equally chosen; that it is their right and duty to be at all times armed;
—Thomas Jefferson to John Cartwright, 1824. Memorial Edition 16:45, Lipscomb and Bergh, editors.

No freeman shall ever be debarred the use of arms.
—Thomas Jefferson: Draft Virginia Constitution, 1776.

[The Constitution preserves] the advantage of being armed which Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation…(where) the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms.
—James Madison,The Federalist Papers, No. 46.

To suppose arms in the hands of citizens, to be used at individual discretion, except in private self-defense, or by partial orders of towns, countries or districts of a state, is to demolish every constitution, and lay the laws prostrate, so that liberty can be enjoyed by no man; it is a dissolution of the government. The fundamental law of the militia is, that it be created, directed and commanded by the laws, and ever for the support of the laws.
—John Adams, A Defence of the Constitutions of the United States 475 (1787-1788)

Furthermore, even if you argue that the second amendment applies to militias, the very definition of the militia, according to the founders and their contemporaries, is THE PEOPLE:

Who are the militia? Are they not ourselves? Is it feared, then, that we shall turn our arms each man gainst his own bosom. Congress have no power to disarm the militia. Their swords, and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birthright of an American…[T]he unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or state governments, but, where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the people.
—Tenche Coxe, The Pennsylvania Gazette, Feb. 20, 1788.

Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom in Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops that can be, on any pretence, raised in the United States. A military force, at the command of Congress, can execute no laws, but such as the people perceive to be just and constitutional; for they will possess the power, and jealousy will instantly inspire the inclination, to resist the execution of a law which appears to them unjust and oppressive.
—Noah Webster, An Examination of the Leading Principles of the Federal Constitution (Philadelphia 1787).

Last month a majority of the Senate and more than half of the members of the House issued a brief in which they urged the Supreme Court to uphold it’s previous ruling that the District’s handgun ban violates the second amendment.

The brief asked the Supreme Court to uphold the lower courts decision and allow the precedent of applying a stricter standard of review for gun control cases to stand.

In a separate letter, other representatives, including Congressman Ron Paul, called for the Clement/Bush administration brief to be withdrawn as it sets a precedent for further erosion of individuals’ Second Amendment rights to keep and bear arms.

Citing Constitutional concerns the letter stated:

“If the Supreme Court finds that the D.C. gun ban is a “reasonable” limitation of Second Amendment rights, the Court could create a dangerous precedent for the nation in the future. Such a decision could open the door to further regulation on American citizens’ Second Amendment rights on a large scale.”

Essentially the government is saying "You have the right to bear arms, unless we say so."

Where there is individual ownership of weapons there is liberty, where there is not there is tyranny because powerful organizations and governments will have a monopoly on it. The latest developments in this case are not a "victory" for the second amendment, on the contrary, they constitute its very undoing.

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http://www.survivalblog.com • I Support Gun Owners Of America • http://www.truthnews.us/

CaptOFD92

Good ol' Mallard Fillmore.

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Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote!

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN