Custom Search

Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Supreme Court Remains Divided Over Gun Control

“A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.”

Pardon the language ,But This is pretty fucking self explanatory !

well regulated may be considered an issue for some , but really it means nothing More than being kept in check , much like the police , military ,the Government and so on .
So none may rule over the other !

something our Government and some Douchbag lawyers seem to have forgotten !
Just because a person does not like guns , it does not allow them to infringe on my rights , and try to tell me I may not own them !
Who is anyone to say that I may keep and bear arms to protect my country but not myself ?

I could go on , But i need to clean my guns !

the New York Times
WASHINGTON — An unusually intense Supreme Court argument Tuesday showed that the justices remain bitterly divided about the meaning and scope of the Second Amendment. And it suggested that the five-justice majority in the 2008 decision that first identified an individual right to keep and bear arms was prepared to take another major step in subjecting gun control laws to constitutional scrutiny.

The case the justices considered Tuesday was a sequel to the blockbuster 2008 decision, District of Columbia v. Heller.

The Heller case placed limits on what the federal government could do to
regulate guns, and the issue before the court now was whether the Second Amendment applies to state and local laws as well. It seemed plain that at least the five justices in the Heller majority would say yes without reservation.

But the two justices who wrote dissents in Heller, Justices John Paul Stevens and Stephen G. Breyer, peppered the lawyers with questions about how the court might apply the Second Amendment to the states in only a limited way.

Justice Breyer asked Alan Gura, a lawyer for residents of Chicago challenging its strict gun control law, whether the city should remain free to ban guns if it could show that hundreds of lives would be saved. Mr. Gura said no.

Justice Antonin Scalia, who wrote the majority decision in Heller, objected to the inquiry. A constitutional right, he said, cannot be overcome because it may have negative consequences.

But Justice Scalia was less receptive to an idea that has excited constitutional scholars in recent months.

“What you argue,” he told Mr. Gura, “is the darling of the professoriate, for sure, but it’s also contrary to 140 years of our jurisprudence.”

Justice Scalia was referring to Mr. Gura’s assertion that the court has been going about making parts of the Bill of Rights applicable to the states in the wrong way.

The Second Amendment, like the rest of the Bill of Rights, was originally a restriction on only the power of the federal government. The Supreme Court later ruled that most but not all of the protections of the Bill of Rights apply to the states under the due process clause of the 14th Amendment, one of the post-Civil War amendments.

Many judges and scholars, including Justice Scalia, have never found that methodology intellectually satisfactory. “Due process,” after all, would seem to protect only fair procedures and not substance. The very name given to the methodology — substantive due process — sounds like an oxymoron.

Mr. Gura, supported by scholars all along the political spectrum, argued that the court should instead rely on the 14th Amendment’s “privileges or immunities” clause, which says that “no state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States.” There is evidence that the authors of the clause specifically wanted it to apply to allow freed slaves to have guns to defend themselves.

So does mr Guru , Not like the fact that Freed Slaves were allowed to own guns to protect themselves ?

No comments: