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SCOTUS Justice Hostile to RKBA in 1972

Citizen

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WOW!!

I was doing a little case law research in relation to another thread, and look at what I stumbled upon! Its a 4th Amendment (search and seizure) case, but there was a gun tied to it. Justice Douglas sure revealed his position on the 2A while dissenting from the majority opinion. Remember, this is from 1972:

The police problem [regarding suspects who might be armed] is an acute one not because of the Fourth Amendment, but because of the ease with which anyone can acquire a pistol. A powerful lobby dins into the ears of our citizenry that these gun purchases are constitutional rights protected by the Second Amendment, which reads, "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."

There is under our decisions no reason why stiff state laws governing the purchase and possession of pistols may not be enacted. There is no reason why pistols may not be barred from anyone with a police record. There is no reason why a State may not require a purchaser of a pistol to pass a psychiatric test. There is no reason why all pistols should not be barred to everyone except the police.

The leading case is US vs Miller 307 US 174, upholding a federal law making criminal the shipment in interstate commerce of a sawed-off shotgun. The law was upheld, there being no evidence that a sawed-off shotgun had "some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia." Id., at 178. The Second Amendment, it was held, "must be interpreted and applied" with the view of maintaining a "militia."
"The Militia which the States were expected to maintain and train is set in contrast with Troops which they were forbidden to keep without the consent of Congress. The sentiment of the time strongly disfavored standing armies; the common view was that adequate defense of country and laws could be 151*151 secured through the Militia—civilians primarily, soldiers on occasion." Id., at 178-179.
Critics say that proposals like this water down the Second Amendment. Our decisions belie that argument, for the Second Amendment, as noted, was designed to keep alive the militia. But if watering-down is the mood of the day, I would prefer to water down the Second rather than the Fourth Amendment.

http://scholar.google.com/scholar_c...9906407&q=Adams+vs+Williams&hl=en&as_sdt=2,47


Wow! Psychiatric tests? No pistols for nobody but police? Wow, just wow.

He sure seems to go out of his way to bash the 2A.
 
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Citizen

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Notice also that our dear Justice Douglas seems to have overlooked that:

1. Easy pistols predates police by nearly fifty years in this here republic.

2. Criminals don't obey gun laws any more than they obey other laws. Sheesh. And him a SCOTUS justice, too.
 
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Dreamer

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Notice also that our dear Justice Douglas seems to have overlooked that:

1. Easy pistols predates police by nearly fifty years in this here republic.

2. Criminals don't obey gun laws any more than they obey other laws. Sheesh. And him a SCOTUS justice, too.


Remember there is no requirement that a sitting Federal judge (including SCotUS Justices) be a Bar-certified lawyer, LET ALONE that he/she be capable of rational thought or familiar with US history. Opinions like this from Federal Judges of ANY level should come as no surprise--if they were legal historians, or capable of jurisprudential rational thought, they would be employed in the Legal Private Sector where they could make a LOT more money than sitting on the SCotUS bench.

SCotUS Justices are not there because they are the most briliant judges in the land--they are there largely because they are well-connected, they are ambitious and brown-nosing, and because they are, for the most part, sociopaths--just like people at the top of ANY branch of "government"...
 
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Gunslinger

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Douglas was incompetent and nothing more than a hack politician appointed to the SC by a hack president. He was so far to the left, that often times no other Justice would agree with him. He violated his oath, disregared established law and policy, and thought himself the only member so gifted intellectually to do so. The Constitution and precedent meant nothing to him. He pulled 'logic' out of his ass rather than write an opinion supported by fact and legacy. The Bill of Rights, in his view, only existed to protect criminals. It meant nothing to honest citizens. Longest serving Justice and one of the worst of all time with regard to separating judicial from activism philosophy.
 

gunscribe

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Misquoted Miller

(Quote: The leading case is US vs Miller 307 US 174, upholding a federal law making criminal the shipment in interstate commerce of a sawed-off shotgun. The law was upheld, there being no evidence that a sawed-off shotgun had "some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia." Id., at 178. The Second Amendment, it was held, "must be interpreted and applied" with the view of maintaining a "militia." :Closed Quote)

In his written opinion the "learned" Jurist misquoted the Miller decision. The High Court in Miller did not uphold "there was no evidence", SCOTUS at that time ruled that "we can not make that determination because WE HAVE NOT BEEN ASKED TO.

Miller was not DECIDED by SCOTUS it was REMANDED back to the lower court to make that DETERMINATION. The problem is Miller died before it was reheard in the lower court making the whole process a moot point.

Had Miller lived and the lower court decided that a sawed-off shotgun was a tool of the militia, and they likely would have, things would be far different today.
 
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