The Big-Bore Chronicles

by Gary Smith

This news release from the Citizens Committee For The Right To Keep And Bear Arms has an interesting 4th paragraph. It goes to explain a little more about how our constitution works.

Did you know that before the 2nd Amendment can be used to challenge laws at state and local levels that it must be incorporated through the 14th Amendment?

NEWS RELEASE

CCRKBA, NRA CIVIL RIGHTS COALITION SUES SAN FRANCISCO OVER PUBLIC HOUSING GUN BAN

Yesterday’s United States Supreme Court ruling in District of Columbia vs. Heller confirmed what the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms has been saying all along: the Second Amendment does indeed protect a fundamental individual right to keep and bear arms. But because Washington, D.C. is a federal enclave, the Heller ruling applies to the federal government only.

Today, using the Heller decision as the basis for the challenge, the Citizens Committee, in partnership with the National Rifle Association (NRA), filed a civil rights lawsuit to confirm that the Second Amendment restricts state and local governments from infringing on the right to keep and bear arms as well.

The lawsuit was filed in federal court against the City of San Francisco and the San Francisco Public Housing Authority to invalidate the City’s ordinance (Police Code section 617) and lease provision that bans the possession of firearms in public housing

Before the Second Amendment can be used to challenge unconstitutional regulations laws at the state or local level, it must be “incorporated” through the Fourteenth Amendment to apply to the state and local governments. The lawsuit will serve to establish the incorporation doctrine in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal, including California, and invalidate the existing ban on firearms in public housing in San Francisco in the process.

“As with the advancement of any civil right throughout history, subsequent litigation is essential in order to establish both the parameters of the Second Amendment’s protections, and initially to establish that the Second Amendment restricts state and local governments from infringing on your right to self-defense,” said Chuck Michel, civil rights attorney for the plaintiffs in the case.

“Just because someone lives in public housing does not mean that person must surrender his or her civil rights, or their right of self-defense,” said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb. “This lawsuit seeks to restore the rights of those living in public housing to choose to own a gun for sport or to defend their families.”

by Gary Smith

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by Gary Smith

VICTORY

I hope Sarah Brady is having a nice day, not.

Here are some of the highlights of this morning’s decision. The entire  document is linked below and is worthwhile reading. If you are a gun owner you owe it to yourself to know how the court has interpreted this right. Not that this should be a surprise, but I feel it’s important to note that the court also affirmed that the 2nd Amendment provision is only related to the ability to defend one’s self. It never has had anything to do with hunting or the “right” to hunt.

In short we have the right to bear arms but there are still going to be a lot of laws that we’re going to be subjected to when it comes to regulations on purchasing them and possessing them. This is simply the first step in restoring our 2nd Amendment rights as they were intended.

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA ET AL. v. HELLER (Click to download PDF)

Held:
1. The Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia, and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home. Pp. 2–53. (a) The Amendment’s prefatory clause announces a purpose, but does not limit or expand the scope of the second part, the operative clause. The operative clause’s text and history demonstrate that it connotes an individual right to keep and bear arms. Pp. 2–22.of the operative clause. The “militia” comprised all males physically capable of acting in concert for the common defense. The Antifederalists feared that the Federal Government would disarm the people in order to disable this citizens’ militia, enabling a politicized standing army or a select militia to rule. The response was to deny Congress power to abridge the ancient right of individuals to keep and bear arms, so that the ideal of a citizens’ militia would be preserved. Pp. 22–28.
(c) The Court’s interpretation is confirmed by analogous armsbearing rights in state constitutions that preceded and immediately followed the Second Amendment. Pp. 28–30.
(d) The Second Amendment’s drafting history, while of dubious interpretive worth, reveals three state Second Amendment proposals that unequivocally referred to an individual right to bear arms. Pp. 30–32.
(e) Interpretation of the Second Amendment by scholars, courts and legislators, from immediately after its ratification through the late 19th century also supports the Court’s conclusion. Pp. 32–47.
(f) None of the Court’s precedents forecloses the Court’s interpretation. Neither United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U. S. 542, 553, nor Presser v. Illinois, 116 U. S. 252, 264–265, refutes the individual rights interpretation. United States v. Miller, 307 U. S. 174, does not limit the right to keep and bear arms to militia purposes, but rather limits the type of weapon to which the right applies to those used by the militia, i.e., those in common use for lawful purposes. Pp. 47–54.
2. 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: For example, concealed weapons prohibitions have been upheld under the Amendment or state analogues. 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. Miller’s holding that the sorts of weapons protected are those “in common use at the time” finds support in the historical tradition of prohibiting the carrying of dangerous and unusual weapons.
Pp. 54–56.3. The handgun ban and the trigger-lock requirement (as applied to self-defense) violate the Second Amendment. The District’s total ban on handgun possession in the home amounts to a prohibition on an entire class of “arms” that Americans overwhelmingly choose for the lawful purpose of self-defense. Under any of the standards of scrutiny the Court has applied to enumerated constitutional rights, this prohibition—in the place where the importance of the lawful defense of self, family, and property is most acute—would fail constitutional muster. Similarly, the requirement that any lawful firearm in the home be disassembled or bound by a trigger lock makes it impossible
for citizens to use arms for the core lawful purpose of self-defense and is hence unconstitutional. Because Heller conceded at oral argument that the D. C. licensing law is permissible if it is not enforced arbitrarily and capriciously, the Court assumes that a license will satisfy his prayer for relief and does not address the licensing requirement.
Assuming he is not disqualified from exercising Second Amendment rights, the District must permit Heller to register his handgun and must issue him a license to carry it in the home. Pp. 56–64.

478 F. 3d 370, affirmed.
SCALIA, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which ROBERTS, C. J., and KENNEDY, THOMAS, and ALITO, JJ., joined.

STEVENS, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which SOUTER, GINSBURG, and BREYER, JJ., joined.

BREYER, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which STEVENS, SOUTER, and GINSBURG, JJ., joined.

4 JUSTICE STEVENS criticizes us for discussing the prologue last. Post, at 8. But if a prologue can be used only to clarify an ambiguous operative provision, surely the first step must be to determine whether the operative provision is ambiguous. It might be argued, we suppose, that the prologue itself should be one of the factors that go into the determination of whether the operative provision is ambiguous—but that would cause the prologue to be used to produce ambiguity rather than just to resolve it. In any event, even if we considered the prologue along with the operative provision we would reach the same result we do today, since (as we explain) our interpretation of “the right of the people to keep and bear arms” furthers the purpose of an effective
militia no less than (indeed, more than) the dissent’s interpretation. See infra, at 26–27.
5 JUSTICE STEVENS is of course correct, post, at 10, that the right to assemble cannot be exercised alone, but it is still an individual right, and not one conditioned upon membership in some defined “assembly,” as he contends the right to bear arms is conditioned upon membership in a defined militia. And JUSTICE STEVENS is dead wrong to think that the right to petition is “primarily collective in nature.” Ibid. See
McDonald v. Smith, 472 U. S. 479, 482–484 (1985) (describing historical origins of right to petition).

by Gary Smith

Sometime on June 26, 2008 the Supreme Court of the United States of America is supposed to deliver their ruling on whether the Constitution guarantees an individual right to keep and bear arms. Despite the fact that I am a gun owner and enjoy recreational and competitive shooting and hunting, I pray that they don’t sell this country down the river.

Of all the rights declared in the Constitution and its Amendments, the only personal property mentioned are guns. Large numbers of guns in the hands of private citizens are probably the only thing that has kept this country from being invaded and there can be no argument that guns in the hands of private citizens is the reason we’re free today and not subjects of British or someone else’s rule.

The amount of anti-gun bills currently being proposed at the state and local level is mind boggling. If you don’t believe it check the NRA ILA feed. I think one reason for this is that the anti-gunners are very afraid that our rights will be upheld. I have also noticed that outside of the Hollywood entertainment industry there is beginning to be some positive change in the amount of bias that I see on a regular basis.

Tonight on ABC’s Nightline they covered a picnic in Norfolk, VA hosted by the Virginia Citizens Defense League. The picnic was an event to celebrate our right of open carry in Virginia and the folks at ABC did a pretty good job at giving it fair coverage although they did use several cliche’s like “High Noon in Norfolk” and showed several vintage photos of “Wild West” characters. Fortunately, the gun owners interviewed were also fairly well spoken in what were likely impromptu interviews.

Let’s hope we’ll all be celebrating when the sun sets today and the anti-gunners are forced to ride off into insignificance. I can’t think of a better time in history to start a gun blog than on the day Heller v. The District of Columbia is decided.