Category: 2nd Amendment

At least that’s what Barack Obama says:

But the campaign of Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama said that he “…believes that we can recognize and respect the rights of law-abiding gun owners and the right of local communities to enact common sense laws to combat violence and save lives. Obama believes the D.C. handgun law is constitutional.”

Obama need to learn two things here: One, local governments don’t have rights, they have powers. People have rights. One would presume to ask whether we think it’s appropriate for the federal government to give up protecting the free speech rights of Americans in favor of local regulation.

Two, the rest of the country isn’t Chicago. Outside of the reality distortion field that emanates from the windy city, believing in a total prohibition on firearms is way outside mainstream viewpoints.

This is a big part of why I think you can stick a fork in Obama.  Bill Richardson give a lot more to Hillary as a VP pick than Obama, and  I expect she’ll make that choice.  Obama offers Hillary nothing at this point, because he’s a caricature of a lot of ideas that make people uncomfortable about Hillary.  Richardson might help Hillary take a few more states than she otherwise would.

Assuming we prevail in Heller, Joe Huffman has a good suggestion on how to proceed…. that is cautiously.  One of my chief fears is that people will start pushing second amendment claims against things like machine gun possession.   While I would like to see the second amendment include a right to possess automatic firearms, it’s not something to start out of the gate with.

As for what to try after the DC ban?   There’s not much easy pickings at the federal level.   The ban on National Parks is the only thing that comes to mind, but I think incorporation is probably a better thing to try to get before going after the “bearing” part, rather than the “keeping” part.  We could go after the “sporting purposes” clause, but then someone has to get prosecuted for importing a firearm before it can be challenged.

That was Uncle’s statement to me in an e-mail, in reaction to the Supreme Court agreeing to take Heller.  What kind of things would be useful to do between now and then?  I have some ideas for our gun rights organizations to consider.

The Supreme Court is supposed to be non-political, but we all know that’s a half-truth.  The fact is, The Courts in the latter part of the last century were very reluctant to interfere with the exercise of legislative power.  We want the justices on The Court to have some idea what the sentiment of Congress is.

What I would propose is to lobby Congress to pass a non-binding (meaning not law) resolution stating that it’s the opinion of the lawmakers that the second amendment protects an individual right.  That would put the legislative branch in agreement with the executive branch, and give any possible fence sitters on the court some breathing room.  It would also serve to get certain politicians on record (*cough* Hillary *cough*) as to how they stand on the second amendment.

Why would Nancy Pelosi and the Democratic leadership in Congress support such a measure?   Because if the Supreme Court rules the wrong way in the Heller case, they can kiss goodbye their ambitions for taking the White House in 2008.  Gun control will be on top of the agenda, and whether their nominee is Hillary or Obama, a Republican who touts that he will put conservative justices on The Court will look a lot better in comparison to either of those two.  Democrats are not going to want this issue to come to a boil in 2008, so I think they could be convinced to pass something like this.

What say you all?

SCOTUSBlog has it.  Great news, but I’m going to be crapping thumbtacks over this until we get a positive ruling.

 After a hiatus of 68 years, the Supreme Court on Tuesday agreed to rule on the meaning of the Second Amendment — the hotly contested part of the Constitution that guarantees “a right to keep and bear arms.”  Not since 1939 has the Court heard a case directly testing the Amendment’s scope — and there is a debate about whether it actually decided anything in that earlier ruling. In a sense, the Court may well be writing on a clean slate if it, in the end, decides the ultimate question: does the Second Amendment guarantee an individual right to have a gun for private use, or does it only guarantee a collective right to have guns in an organized military force such as a state National Guard unit?

Read the whole thing.

SCOTUSBlog tells us that The Court has not said whether or not they’ll hear the case. Looks like we’re waiting a while longer folks.

The next date for possible action on it is likely to be November 26, following a pre-Thanksgiving Conference set for November 20.

It’s interesting. I wonder whether they didn’t get to it? Or did were they unable to come to an agreement? I don’t really know how this stuff works. Perhaps someone could enlighten.

UPDATE: I kind of wonder whether they perhaps would prefer to deal with it before the holidays, when people aren’t paying much attention to the news cycle. Pure speculation on my part. What think you all?

UPDATE: SCOTUSBlog has updated:

The Court, of course, does not explain inaction. But among the possible reasons for delaying the case are these: one or more Justices simply asked for more time to consider the two cases; the Court may be rewriting the question or questions it will be willing to review — especially in view of the disagreement between the two sides on what should be at issue; the Court may have voted initially to deny review of one or both cases and one or more Justices are writing a dissent from the denial. The appeal in 07-290 (District of Columbia v. Heller) raises the key issue about the Second Amendment’s meaning and the appeal in 07-335 (Parker v. District of Columbia) poses a question about who may bring lawsuits to challenge laws before they are actively enforced. Together, the cases thus present a somewhat complex mix for the Court, and it perhaps was not much of a surprise that no order issued on Tuesday. At no point is there likely to be an answer to what happened to bring about the delay. Both cases are expected to be re-listed for the Nov. 20 Conference.

Not sure if this indicates anything about what result we might be able to expect.  My guess is no.

Today is the day we hear about the Heller case.  Are you nervous?  I’m crapping thumbtacks.

Armed Canadian asks that question: What if we lose at the Supreme Court?   I think he’s more optimistic than I am.  While I agree that in the short term, it would be a huge boost to the gun rights movement, I would note that after the Kelo decision, there was a persistent outcry from quite a lot of directions, but to date I’ve seen very little movement on eminent domain reform.  People have gotten tired and moved on.

A defeat at the Supreme Court will hurt us very much over the long term, because the anti-gun groups will be able to say “The second amendment doesn’t mean anything,” and for all practical purposes, they’d be right.

Dave Hardy dug up an unpublished decision from the 6th circuit that you all need to read to believe.

The court essentially rules that since the State Guard can be armed by the State when activated, and the governor *probably* would do that, ownership of the guns was not reasonably related to its purposes. Nevermind the question of training before being activated, or that the governor might find it convenient for the units to have their own equipment.

So if this is the case, then the court is basically saying the Second Amendment has no meaning whatsoever.  This isn’t collective rights, this is no rights.

Jeff links to this article in the November ABA Journal via this piece and asks whether NRA tried to deliberately scuttle Parker. There’s little doubt in my mind that there was an attempt to undermine Parker. There is disagreement as to the wisdom of pursuing relief through the courts. It’s legitimate disagreement. The NRA-bashers offer it up as evidence of trying to scuttle the case to keep gun control alive for fund raising purposes (A silly argument. A loss at the Supreme Court would be far better for fund raising and membership numbers than keeping the DC gun ban), when the real purpose is because losing is a real risk. I’m sure there’s also some ego issues at play, but I think that’s the case on both sides of the coin.

NRA was wrong to try to undermine Parker. The attorneys in the case make a good point that second amendment’s time of reckoning is here, and we probably won’t see a better case under more favorable conditions on the court. Nonetheless, it’s a real risk we’ll lose in the end. If Heller prevails, Levy, Gura and the rest of his team will be everyone’s hero. If not, we’re all going to have to eat crow and tell the Parker detractors they were right.