Civil Rights

[ReelinRod]

Originally Posted by wdmso

Young cited a landmark 2008 Supreme Court decision that found that “weapons that are most useful in military service — M-16 rifles and the like” are not protected under the Second Amendment and “may be banned.”

Young's legal "reasoning" is laughable and is just an example of a leftist statist authoritarian grasping a straws.

Heller's statement that "if weapons that are most useful in military service—M-16 rifles and the like—may be banned, . . . " isn't comparing appearances, accessories or furniture, it is comparing the full-auto M-16 to other guns that fall under Title II of NFA-34.

The single characteristic that those guns share, making them both "bannable" and thus "like" each other, is the ability to fire more than one bullet with a single pull of the trigger.

That's it, full stop . . .

Collapsible stocks, pistol grips, removable magazines, barrel shrouds or flash hiders are NOT mentioned in NFA-34; NONE of those things are of any interest to ATF in determining what differentiates a Title II "banned" gun from a "legal" gun.

This Massachusetts district opinion is just an example of what is to be expected from liberal judges -- lie, cheat and misrepresent and in the end, violate their oaths to the Constitution and dishonor their office.


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[ReelinRod]

Originally Posted by wdmso

look who wrote this shocking! or was his a closet progressive judge???

the majority opinion, written by conservative bastion Justice Antonin Scalia, states: “Like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited…”. It is “…not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose.”

All Scalia is doing here is reciting the law and the unremarkable legal condition as it relates to the public carriage of arms by private citizens. Your chopping of the quote stomps the subject being discussed into a mudhole.

Originally Posted by wdmso

“Nothing in our opinion should 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.”

And what has become the most significant part of that paragraph is always left off by the left:

26 We identify these presumptively lawful regulatory measures only as examples; our list does not purport to be exhaustive.

Originally Posted by wdmso

“We also recognize another important limitation on the right to keep and carry arms. Miller (an earlier case) said, as we have explained, that the sorts of weapons protected were those “in common use at the time”. We think that limitation is fairly supported by the historical tradition of prohibiting the carrying of ‘dangerous and unusual weapons.’ ”

LMAO. When you learn what all that actually means, especially what "dangerous and unusual" weapons are, and why "dangerous and unusual" weapons are not protected arms, you will be much less likely to quote that passage.

Originally Posted by wdmso

The court even recognizes a long-standing judicial precedent “…to consider… prohibitions on carrying concealed weapons.”

There are two reasons that prohibitions on carrying concealed weapons were not considered to violate the 2nd Amendment -- First is that the 2nd Amendment had no effect on state laws (until 2010). Second, establishing in law the manner of carriage of arms by citizens has always been a power of the state.

Recently, federal courts have held that the rights that the 2nd Amendment does protect (to keep and bear arms) secures a right to openly carry a gun in public for self defense and states are bound to respect that right. https://www.nationalreview.com/news/...utional-right/

Whether that forces a state in the 9th Circuit's jurisdiction to institute a 'shall issue' concealed carry permit because they don't want to see a citizen's gun, is up to those states. One way or another, the state must recognize the citizen's right to be armed in public for self defense.


This, like state assault weapon bans, will soon be before the Supreme Court; you should enjoy your illegitimate laws while they last.


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[ReelinRod]

Originally Posted by TheSpecialist

Justice Scalia also wrote:

“. . . But the fact that modern developments have limited the degree of fit between the prefatory clause and the protected right cannot change our interpretation of the right.”

And that's what the left just doesn't get.



Redefining, reworking and remolding the original, fundamental, pre-existing, never surrendered right to arms is not within the purview of any court or legislature.


Scalia expands on this principle multiple times in Heller:

"The very enumeration of the right takes out of the hands of government—even the Third Branch of Government—the power to decide on a case-by-case basis whether the right is really worth insisting upon. A constitutional guarantee subject to future judges’ assessments of its usefulness is no constitutional guarantee at all. Constitutional rights are enshrined with the scope they were understood to have when the people adopted them, whether or not future legislatures or (yes) even future judges think that scope too broad."

And that scope of protection, of prohibiting government gaining a foothold to restrain the right, is not diminished with time, technological advancements or especially, the aggrandizing opinion of liberals about being enlightened and unburdened by the framer's intent.

"Just as the First Amendment protects modern forms of communications, . . . and the Fourth Amendment applies to modern forms of search, . . . 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."
(internal citations removed)

"Undoubtedly some think that the Second Amendment is outmoded in a society where our standing army is the pride of our Nation, where well-trained police forces provide personal security, and where gun violence is a serious problem. That is perhaps debatable, but what is not debatable is that it is not the role of this Court to pronounce the Second Amendment extinct."

While the right to arms is not an "unlimited" right, that doesn't mean that government's constitutional ability to restrain the right is limitless:

" . . . the enshrinement of constitutional rights necessarily takes certain policy choices off the table."

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[detbuch]

Originally Posted by ReelinRod

And that's what the left just doesn't get.

Redefining, reworking and remolding the original, fundamental, pre-existing, never surrendered right to arms is not within the purview of any court or legislature.


Scalia expands on this principle multiple times in Heller:

"The very enumeration of the right takes out of the hands of government—even the Third Branch of Government—the power to decide on a case-by-case basis whether the right is really worth insisting upon. A constitutional guarantee subject to future judges’ assessments of its usefulness is no constitutional guarantee at all. Constitutional rights are enshrined with the scope they were understood to have when the people adopted them, whether or not future legislatures or (yes) even future judges think that scope too broad."

And that scope of protection, of prohibiting government gaining a foothold to restrain the right, is not diminished with time, technological advancements or especially, the aggrandizing opinion of liberals about being enlightened and unburdened by the framer's intent.

"Just as the First Amendment protects modern forms of communications, . . . and the Fourth Amendment applies to modern forms of search, . . . 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."
(internal citations removed)

"Undoubtedly some think that the Second Amendment is outmoded in a society where our standing army is the pride of our Nation, where well-trained police forces provide personal security, and where gun violence is a serious problem. That is perhaps debatable, but what is not debatable is that it is not the role of this Court to pronounce the Second Amendment extinct."

While the right to arms is not an "unlimited" right, that doesn't mean that government's constitutional ability to restrain the right is limitless:

" . . . the enshrinement of constitutional rights necessarily takes certain policy choices off the table."

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The unqualified notion that constitutional rights are not absolute opens the door to limiting those rights. And it does so in a way that infers there need not be any end to further limitations.

Without specifically delineating how those rights are limited, and in what way they do have a claim to being absolute, leaves the uninformed with the impression that there are no limits to abridging any right so long as there is a compelling government interest to do so.

As Scalia said "A constitutional guarantee subject to future judges’ assessments of its usefulness is no constitutional guarantee at all." And yet we have this widespread acceptance of Progressive jurisprudence which thrives on the judicial practice of "interpreting" the Constitution via a Judge's opinion of what the text "should" mean in the light of his view of what is "just" in present circumstance. Which essentially concedes that there are no constitutional guarantees. That there are only rights promulgated by judicial opinion.