The Supreme Court Ruling on the Second Amendment

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First of all, please forgive me if this has already been addressed elsewhere on OCDO andfor not being well versed in the specifics of the upcoming ruling. I have a general idea of the case. My questions are as follows:

What happens if the Supreme Court rules in our favor? That is, it is an individual right, does not apply to militias, etc.

Does that open the door for national concealed carry/reciprocity laws?

Do all states adopt the same laws and rules? If so, who makes these national laws? Congress?

Do all states' current laws stand as they are now? That is, New York, Illinois, and DC still say no concealed carry permits given, none recognized, etc. If you have a gun, it must be unloaded, completely disassembled with the parts scattered in different rooms in your house with locks, ammo must be buried 2 feet into the ground and 27 1/2 feet from your back door (I think you know what I mean).

What happens if the Supreme Court rules against us? That is, it is a collective right, applies only to the national guard and military, not an individual right.

Willwehave to register our guns?

Will we have to turn them in? (I am not looking for "no way" or "over my dead body" answers here).

Will we have to keep them unloaded, disassembled, etc. (like I said above).

No more shall issue states? We have to turn in our permits? No more renewals?

Bottom line, what is the impact onus, positive or negative?

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Good questions, and worded well. I don't know enough about the topic to speculate, but I am curious what others will have to say.

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I don't think they are expected to make a ruling until sometime this summer. But I am one of the many on the edge of my seat watching.

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What supreme court ruling are you referencing?

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District of Columbia v. Heller

Shelly Parker, et al. v. District of Columbia and Adrian M. Fenty (pending appeal as District of Columbia v. Heller and Shelly Parker, et al. v. District of Columbia and Adrian M Fenty), 478 F.3d 370 (D.C. Cir. 2007), is a case in which the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit became the first federal appeals court in the United States to strike down a firearm ban for reasons based on the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution, and the second to interpret the Second Amendment as protecting an individual right to firearms for private use; the first being United States v. Emerson 5th Cir. (2001).

The 2-1 decision in Parker struck down parts of the District of Columbia Firearms Control Regulations Act of 1975, which is a local law enacted pursuant to District of Columbia home rule. The law is controversial because it limited the ability of residents to own side arms (excluding those grandfathered in by registration prior to 1975). This law restricted residents, except active and retired law enforcement officers, from owning handguns, while also requiring that rifles and shotguns be kept "unloaded, disassembled, or bound by a trigger lock."[1][/suP]

In April 2007, the District and Mayor Adrian Fenty petitioned for a rehearing from the full court of appeals on the grounds that the ruling creates inter- and intra-jurisdictional conflict.[2][/suP] On May 8, 2007, the Federal Court of Appeals for the D.C. circuit denied the request to rehear the case, by a 6-4 vote.

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I've answered this a few places elsewhere (you can search for it), but I'llre-answer here.

When the Bill of Rights was enacted, it only applied to the federal government. The states were bound by their own (often superior) state constitutions.

All that changed after the War Between The States and the 14th Amendment. After that, the Court began "incporporating" selective portions of the Bill of Rights and applying them to the states.

You referred to DC as a state. It's important to note that it's NOT. It's a city that's completely controlled and owned by Congress subject to the Bill of Rights. The mayor of DC is Congress (kinda).To the extent that they have autonomy, it's because Congress gives it to them. They're not a state and that's one of the reasons they were chosen for this lawsuit instead of Chicago...because the Court couldn't dismiss the case based on the fact that the 2nd Amendment has not yet been incorporated (because the right doesn't have to be incorporated against DC because it's a federally owned city...does that make sense?)

So, after Heller, no, the states will not immediately be effected.Heller will be a building block in that it will finally state that there's a second amendment right applied to citizens against their government and thus creating a new way to sue the feds. It'll take future suits to work out the boundaries of that right and future cases to decide whether the court will incorporate it against the fascist states like Illinois.

Does it open the door for national carry? Well, again, it depends on two things: Is the right applied to the states and what does the right actually mean? I think it'll be hard to say that the word "bear" doesn't mean carrying (note that Heller does NOT deal with carrying arms...ONLY with keeping them...again, that'll be decided in a future suit). But the Court is really good at writing rights out of the Constitution...they are professionals after all.

If we get national carry from this, it'll probably be 3-4 lawsuits in the future after/if the right's been incorporated and defined.

Do all states adopt the same laws and rules? If so, who makes these national laws? Congress?

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Absolutely not!! That's the beauty of our system: federalism. We do not have a national government, we have a federal government with limited, specific, enumerated powers.

Other than the enumerated powers, states can do whatever they want subject to the incorporated Bill of Rights and their respective state constitutions, and even within those boundaries, they do it in different ways. This means that states compete with each other and if you happen to live in a shit hole like Illinois, you can move toa better state. In other country's, if a bad law is passed, you have to move out of the country (as the Constitution is increasingly ignored and we move towards a national government, we're having the same problem).

If you look historically, the federal government was originally so small as to have a budget of only a few pages. Really, if it was in its constitutional role, we'd barely need to pay attention to the federal government.

What happens if the Supreme Court rules against us? That is, it is a collective right, applies only to the national guard and military, not an individual right.

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Nothing really. The Courts have been acting as if there is no 2nd Amendment for about 80 years now. If the Court says there's no 2nd Amendment, all our rights will be at the ballot box and we'll have to protect them by voting. It'll be a chance lost and a major blow to our system of government...perhaps the final blow...but it won't have immediate consequences.

If we win, it means that we get another method to protect our rights. We first vote and if that doesn't work, we go to the courts. Right now, we don't have the second option.

Willwehave to register our guns?

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The Court can't make that determination. They're not a legislature.

Will we have to turn them in? (I am not looking for "no way" or "over my dead body" answers here).

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The Court can't make that determination. They're not a legislature.

The only thing they can do is interpret the Constitution and knock down bad laws.
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That's their job. There's nothing in the Constitution that the Court could say would require registration or confiscation. Now, they could uphold a bad confiscation law (if they completely ignored the Constitution as they like to do), but they can't make that law. They can only uphold it or knock it down once a legislature has made the law and someone has sued and brought the case before them.

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deircrfan wrote:

First of all, please forgive me if this has already been addressed elsewhere on OCDO andfor not being well versed in the specifics of the upcoming ruling. I have a general idea of the case. My questions are as follows:

What happens if the Supreme Court rules in our favor? That is, it is an individual right, does not apply to militias, etc.

Does that open the door for national concealed carry/reciprocity laws?

Do all states adopt the same laws and rules? If so, who makes these national laws? Congress?

Do all states' current laws stand as they are now? That is, New York, Illinois, and DC still say no concealed carry permits given, none recognized, etc. If you have a gun, it must be unloaded, completely disassembled with the parts scattered in different rooms in your house with locks, ammo must be buried 2 feet into the ground and 27 1/2 feet from your back door (I think you know what I mean).

What happens if the Supreme Court rules against us? That is, it is a collective right, applies only to the national guard and military, not an individual right.

Willwehave to register our guns?

Will we have to turn them in? (I am not looking for "no way" or "over my dead body" answers here).

Will we have to keep them unloaded, disassembled, etc. (like I said above).

No more shall issue states? We have to turn in our permits? No more renewals?

Bottom line, what is the impact onus, positive or negative?

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Well first off, the last thing you'd want to see is a national, as in federal, concealed carry permit. This would be very bad.

If the court rules in favor of the Original Intent, I suspect there will be a host of law suits filed to overturn strict and harsh laws in cities and state where the Second Amendment has been greatly infringed upon.

If the court rules that tjheir interpretation of the amendment is one of a collective right, then you will most likely not seen much change at all. Those states where the people have enjoyed their freedoms will most likely continue to do so.. for the time being, anyway. Until they become polluted by people from other areas where strict gun control has been the way of life. This could eventually hurt native Virginians because so many people come into our state and don't leave their ideological baggage at the border.

As for mass registration.. yes, there is that possibility should the court rule "against" us. And even confiscation of certain classes of firearms such as handguns and what they love to call, "assault weapons". If that day ever comes, I hope to God that there are enough Americans who will open hostilities against the traderous bastards and give them the only gift they understand.. violent and deadly force.

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SouthernBoy wrote:

As for mass registration.. yes, there is that possibility should the court rule "against" us. And even confiscation of certain classes of firearms such as handguns and what they love to call, "assault weapons". If that day ever comes, I hope to God that there are enough Americans who will open hostilities against the traderous bastards and give them the only gift they understand.. violent and deadly force.

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Then again, the states would have to pass the laws, I believe. The court can't declare that registration is necessary, or anything like that.

At any rate, it might be time to stock up on the 7.62x39 rounds... Maybe get in on the US's order for 78 million rounds? http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/05/22/warms22.xml

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I remind that the court narrowed the question that it is addressing beyond even what either of the partys requested.

http://www.supremecourtus.gov/

SCOTUSBlog http://www.scotusblog.com/wp/commentary-and-analysis/dc-guns-blog-round-up/

http://dcguncase.com/blog/2007/11/2...ear-second-amendment-challenge-to-dc-gun-ban/

http://www.scotuswiki.com/index.php?title=DC_v._Heller

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imperialism2024 wrote:

SouthernBoy wrote:

As for mass registration.. yes, there is that possibility should the court rule "against" us. And even confiscation of certain classes of firearms such as handguns and what they love to call, "assault weapons". If that day ever comes, I hope to God that there are enough Americans who will open hostilities against the traderous bastards and give them the only gift they understand.. violent and deadly force.

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Then again, the states would have to pass the laws, I believe. The court can't declare that registration is necessary, or anything like that.

At any rate, it might be time to stock up on the 7.62x39 rounds... Maybe get in on the US's order for 78 million rounds? http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/05/22/warms22.xml

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Mind you, I am not at all advocating indiscriminate and intransigent actions. What I am saying is that should the day ever come when the federal government takes the decision to disarm the American people, then the nation and its system of freedom and individual liberty would have already been lost. So we might as well terminate the aggressor just like we did with the Brits in the late 1700's.

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SouthernBoy wrote:

Mind you, I am not at all advocating indiscriminate and intransigent actions. What I am saying is that should the day ever come when the federal government takes the decision to disarm the American people, then the nation and its system of freedom and individual liberty would have already been lost. So we might as well terminate the aggressor just like we did with the Brits in the late 1700's.

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Absolutely. It's a patriot's duty.

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I don't know WHY people keep ignoring this...

http://uscode.house.gov/download/pls/10C13.txt

(a) The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age and, except as provided in section 313 of title 32, under 45 years of age who are, or who have made a declaration of intention to become, citizens of the United States and of female citizens of the United States who are members of the National Guard.

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(b) The classes of the militia are -
(1) the organized militia, which consists of the National Guard and the Naval Militia; and
(2) the unorganized militia, which consists of the members of the militia who are not members of the National Guard or the Naval Militia.

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I've been repeating it for a few days, and no one wants to pick up on it...

Am I just inflating the implications of this law in my mind or something? :banghead:

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What Abno said plus.As I posted on another thread."When reviewing the constitution the term 'the people' is always used when referring to individuals. As in we the people. So the right of the people is the same as the right of individual citizens to keep and bear arms, whatever the justification."