Court rules in favor of Second Amendment gun right

[John Edward Mercier]

"In dissent, Justice John Paul Stevens wrote that the majority "would have us believe that over 200 years ago, the Framers made a choice to limit the tools available to elected officials wishing to regulate civilian uses of weapons."

He said such evidence "is nowhere to be found."

Stevens is a liar or a fool, there is plenty of evidence
that the framers wanted to limit the governments
"tools".
These were radicals who had just blown peoples heads off
for putting a tax on their breakfast drink.


His quote shows he believes that we are cattle to be
controlled by the tools of our betters.

The decision itself is what I expected.
Just a small step away from the status quo
while still leaving way to much open to government
interference.

The Preamble to the BoR is pretty comprehensive in the fact that the People weren't willing to just elect the next tyranny... without the BoR, the US Constitution would never had been affirmed.

[John Edward Mercier]

The amusing part of the 5-4 split, was that even the minority held that the 2nd is an individual right.

That's right: the vote was 9-0 that the 2nd Amendment guarantees an individual right. And yet somehow Stevens, Souter, Ginsberg and Breyer found that the DC total ban didn't infringe that right. And Kennedy had to be persuaded to the majority by way of a milquetoast ruling.

The four most likely believe the 2nd to be an individual right, but the type of firearm to be regulated.

[dalebert]

Anyway, W is right. The Constitution is nothing but a God-damned piece of paper. If it was anything else, this case would have been dismissed in one sentence, "what part of 'shall not be infringed' do you fail to grasp?"

One of the few honest things to come out of his mouth. I would find it ironic if a tyrant did a better job of convincing minarchists of the mystical nature of their beliefs than any anarchist was able to do.

This ruling has encouraged me to do a gun rights comic today. It's in the works.

[John Edward Mercier]

They don't seem any more mystical than believing that everyone that is self-governed will act in an orderly manner... especially since orderly manner will be self-defined and not common.

Nor does it seem mystical in belief that a social animal will form imperfect common order...

[dalebert]

They don't seem any more mystical than believing that everyone that is self-governed will act in an orderly manner...

I don't believe in some sort of utopia just by ending authoritarian government. I just think using violence to prevent violence is bass-ackwards. It's not that we won't have problems without an authoritarian government. It's that a stupid solution makes things worse than a smarter solution.

[Kat Kanning]

The general view is that government will somehow act in an orderly manner.  Not true.

[K. Darien Freeheart]

They don't seem any more mystical than believing that everyone that is self-governed will act in an orderly manner... especially since orderly manner will be self-defined and not common.

I'm going to have to ponder on those last few statements, and perhaps write something on it... somewhere.

I was raised as a "liberal" and once I came to see the goverment as violence, I because a voluntaryist and free marketteer. While I appreciate anyone who wants to advance liberty, I really REALLY struggle sometimes with people who come from the "conservative" side. I just see so much negativity in that world-view.

If I seriously believed that left to their own choices that people would be "bad", I'd not support liberty. If a free humanity would "destroy" itself as all the negativity surfaced, then I wouldn't really see anything wrong with that happening. I mean, if humanity isn't good, what's the point in preserving it? I think humanity is DAMN good, and that with the rare individual, people don't want to harm other people.

[dalebert]

In Bizarro World, Gun Laws Work
http://anarchyinyourhead.com/2008/06/27/in-bizarro-world-gun-laws-work/
Please, someone submit to Digg. I think this could potentially get a lot of buzz.

This is sort of bench mark, a sink-or-swim time for the comic. I'm going to stop posting a notice here, and elsewhere, every time I post a new comic. This comic is just taking a lot of my time and I have to find ways to make it more efficient so I'm looking at ways to draw it faster and reduce all the related tedium. I don't mind if others choose to do so. In fact, I encourage it. I also strongly encourage people to take advantage of the subscription page where you can choose the RSS feed or the email list. I try very hard not to abuse the list. You should get an average of two emails a week about new strips and sometimes it has a little extra inside information about what's going on.

[Free libertarian]

 I wonder if any cops in MANCHESTER, NH read this Supreme Court decision today? There were a couple articles published in the Union Leader.  I too find it interesting that it was 5-4, pretty scary that 4 interpreted things different than most who can understand english would. How they can manufacture a different meaning than the words 'shal not infringe" state with a straight face is amazing.  As an aside, I'm not real sure I like that appointed for life thing either for Supreme Court Justices.  Maybe we should draw names out of a hat or something? 

So let's say the vote had gone the other way? How long before things got interesting and what if any "rights" would a State or local mucipality have to allow or disallow guns? Would the Feds use this as an opportunity to grab states rights and restrict guns even more..."legally".
What are the likely legal battles that would have come up if this had gone the other way, anyone?     

[Lex]

Okay, this doesn't make sense:

Some have made the argument, bordering on the frivolous,
that only those arms in existence in the 18th century
are protected by the Second Amendment. We do not interpret
constitutional rights that way. Just as the First
Amendment protects modern forms of communications,
e.g., Reno v. American Civil Liberties Union, 521 U. S. 844,
849 (1997), and the Fourth Amendment applies to modern
forms of search, e.g., Kyllo v. United States, 533 U. S. 27,
35–36 (2001), the Second Amendment extends, prima
facie, to all instruments that constitute bearable arms,
even those that were not in existence at the time of the
founding.

VS.

We also recognize another important limitation on the
right to keep and carry arms. Miller said, as we have
explained, that the sorts of weapons protected were those
"in common use at the time." 307 U. S., at 179. We think
that limitation is fairly supported by the historical tradition
of prohibiting the carrying of "dangerous and unusual
weapons." See 4 Blackstone 148–149 (1769); 3 B. Wilson,
Works of the Honourable James Wilson 79 (1804); J.
Dunlap, The New-York Justice 8 (1815); C. Humphreys, A
Compendium of the Common Law in Force in Kentucky
482 (1822); 1 W. Russell, A Treatise on Crimes and Indictable
Misdemeanors 271–272 (1831); H. Stephen, Summary
of the Criminal Law 48 (1840); E. Lewis, An Abridgment
of the Criminal Law of the United States 64 (1847); F.
Wharton, A Treatise on the Criminal Law of the United
States 726 (1852). See also State v. Langford, 10 N. C.
381, 383–384 (1824); O'Neill v. State, 16 Ala. 65, 67 (1849);
English v. State, 35 Tex. 473, 476 (1871); State v. Lanier,
71 N. C. 288, 289 (1874).

WTF?

[Russell Kanning]

I would find it ironic if a tyrant did a better job of convincing minarchists of the mystical nature of their beliefs than any anarchist was able to do.

I wonder if that is how it actually happens .... you see how bad the government thugs really are ... so you turn away from using government power to decide things.

[ByronB]

I'm really disappointed that they didn't strike down IL and WI's ban on concealed (and open) carry, I guess I still don't have a right to defend myself when I'm on public property.

[K. Darien Freeheart]

Lemme say this.. I think I speak legalese... That said, IANAL and all standard disclaimers apply. I have read the opinions of the court, and it really is perhaps one of the neatest decisions if you like that kind of thing. For the most part, if you can ignore the way law is cited, it's pretty easy to read. They broke the entire 2nd amendment apart and defined everything in a legal, common and historical context.

Okay, this doesn't make sense:

Second Amendment extends, prima facie, to all instruments that constitute bearable arms, even those that were not in existence at the time of the founding.

We also recognize another important limitation on the right to keep and carry arms. Miller said...

The reason you're confused is because every Supreme Court ruling contains the assenting and dissenting opinions. The 5 people people who said 'Individual right' explained their opinions in the first quote. The opinion of the court was, just as the first amendment covers the internet, the second amendment covers modern arms.

The 4 people who DISAGREED said "There is already legal precedent for limiting weapons, this was established in Miller...".

Put bluntly, Heller's official findings put doubt on the ability to REGULATE the TYPE of weapon. The term "arm" was defined in Heller as:

The 1773 edition of Samuel Johnson's dictionary defined "arms" as "weapons of offence, or armour of defence." Timothy Cunningham's important 1771 legal dictionary defined "arms" as "any thing that a man wears for his defence, or takes into his hands, or useth in wrath to cast at or strike another."   The term was applied, then as now, to weapons that were not specifically designed for military use and were not employed in a military capacity.

Again, I'm not a lawyer, but it seems that this ruling ALSO indirectly created case law that would provide a SERIOUS challenge to things like assault weapons bans. The Supreme Court, for reasons of law and image, can't decide on issues that are NOT before the bench. They can't say "You can't regulate the kind of guns that are allowed" except in to rule that the case before them way unfair. They've got an amazing ability to leave basis for other challenges though.

The court's own footnotes say "The Court's opinion should not be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms". Weed through the specifics of this and they're clear. This case didn't touch if a felon can carry, but we HAVE ruled that bans on specific types of weapons do violate the 2nd amendment.

Okay, lawyer mode OFF!

The case also says "Like most rights, the Second Amendment right is not unlimited. It is not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose" and that's a loss, IMO.

[Giggan]

What they call commonsense restirctions on the first amendment are those which cause direct harm. The most used example is screaming fire in a crowded theatre. Those words cause a riot, so of course you've violated people for doing such. However, claiming that restricting one's right to carry falls under a commonsense regulation makes no sense. The equivalent of yelling fire in a threatre with speech is like waving a firearm at a crowd to cause a panic. This is assault already, that's the commonsense regulation. To restrict ones abilty to 'keep and bear' is outright Unconstitutional, but they'll just ignore that.

[erisian]

What are the likely legal battles that would have come up if this had gone the other way, anyone?

I'm qualified on that last part, at least.
The first thing that pops into my head is a direct and unavoidable conflict with the NH State Constitution [Art.] 2-a. [The Bearing of Arms.] All persons have the right to keep and bear arms in defense of themselves, their families, their property and the state.

Which, interestingly, was added on December 1, 1982.