Reply
Fri 27 Jun, 2008 08:23 am
YESTERDAY WAS A GOOD DAY.
The USSC took the first step
in ending the sickness that is government control of guns.
I am reminded of how soon after the Berlin Wall was torn down, the death of communism followed.
How soon after D Day, the death of nazism followed, about 11 months.
D Day was not perfect. Both sides made mistakes, yet the inevitable result resulted.
Yesterday was rife with portent.
If gun control were a corporation (like Enron),
I 'd be glad that I have no stock in it.
Yesterday was a good day to be alive.
So many politically correct lies were refuted & disproven by the USSC.
I have not yet completed my jurisprudential analysis of it.
It looks good.
Here are a few of the more savory and jucier excerpts of the USSC's holding:
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA v. HELLER:VERDUGO that the same people are
protected by the First and Second Amendments, so that the USSC holds
that the citizens who can worship and speak freely are the people who can
keep and bear arms (tho the Court elsewhere limited that against criminals and the insane).
"We start therefore with a strong presumption
that the Second Amendment right
is exercised individually and belongs to all Americans."we find that they guarantee the individual right
to possess and carry weapons in case of confrontation.
This meaning is strongly confirmed
by the historical background of the Second Amendment.
We look to this because it has always been widely understood
that the Second Amendment, like the First and Fourth Amendments,
codified a pre-existing right. The very text of the Second Amendment
implicitly recognizes the pre-existence of the right and declares only that
it "shall not be infringed." As we said in United States v.Cruikshank,
92 U. S. 542, 553 (1876), "[t]his is not a right granted by the Constitution.
Neither is it in any manner dependent upon that instrument for its existence.
The Second amendment declares that it shall not be infringed. . . ."
[emphasis added by David]
"...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."
It may be objected that ifthe body of all citizens
capable of military service, who would bring the sorts of
lawful weapons that they possessed at home to militia
duty. It may well be true today that a militia, to be as
effective as militias in the 18th century, would require
sophisticated arms that are highly unusual in society at
large. [emphasis added by David]
"As the quotations earlier in this opinion demonstrate,
the inherent right of self-defense has been central
to the Second Amendment right. The handgun ban amounts to a
prohibition of an entire class of "arms" that is overwhelmingly
chosen by American society for that lawful purpose.
The prohibition extends, moreover, to the home, where the
need for defense of self, family, and property is most acute."
[emphasis added by David]
State v. Reid, 1 Ala. 612, 616-617 (1840)
("A statute which, under the pretence of regulating, amounts to a
destruction of the right, or which requires arms to be so borne as to
render them wholly useless for the purpose of defence,
would be clearly unconstitutional").
[emphasis added by David]
Respondent conceded at oral argument that he does not
"have a problem with . . . licensing" and that the District's law is
permissible so long as it is "not enforced in an arbitrary and capricious manner."
Tr. of Oral Arg. 74-75.
We therefore assume that petitioners' issuance of a license
will satisfy respondent's prayer for relief and do not address
the licensing requirement.
[emphasis added by David]
The foregoing is offered as proof that I wud never gloat.
David