Supreme Court Holds Right to Bear Arms Applies to Individuals 2221
Now.Imperfect writes "In its last day of session, the Supreme Court has definitively clarified the meaning of the Second Amendment. The confusion is whether the Second Amendment allows merely for the existence of a state militia, or the private ownership of guns. This ruling is in response to a case regarding the 32-year-old Washington DC ban on guns." This is one of the most-watched Supreme Court cases in a long time, and Wikipedia's page on the case gives a good overview; the actual text of the decision (PDF) runs to 157 pages, but the holding is summarized in the first three. There are certainly other aspects of the Second Amendment left unaddressed, however, so you can't go straight to the store for a recently made automatic rifle.
Sweet (Score:5, Funny)
Now they can address more pressing issues. Like the right to bare chests.
Re:Sweet (Score:5, Funny)
Or the right to arm bears.
Re:Sweet (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Sweet (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Sweet (Score:5, Insightful)
That's the crux of the problem with gun laws in general. Criminals, by definition aren't interested in following the law, therefore, the stringent gun laws only hamper law abiding citizens.
Lies, damned lies... (Score:5, Insightful)
IIRC, that was from the New England Journal of Medicine and it classified "family" as anybody you knew, including rival gang members.
When it came out a very liberal columnist in Playboy (Scheer?) was screaming anti-gun with it as evidence. The next issue was a huge mea culpa as he exposed the lies of the study that had apparently been pointed out to him.
Re:Sweet (Score:5, Funny)
MY EYES! MY EYES!!
Re:Sweet (Score:5, Funny)
Lack of natural light = blindingly white skin.
We prefer the term "radiant", thank you very much.
Re:Sweet (Score:5, Funny)
I've gone all the way to translucent.
Re:Sweet (Score:5, Funny)
Fish. Now my turn:
What's in my pocket? :-P
Re:Sweet (Score:5, Informative)
I don't know what part of America you live in, but in Canada it is legal [www.tera.ca] for a woman to be topfree anywhere it is legal for a man to be.
Here's [michaelbluejay.com] a page that discusses Nudity and the Law in Austin TX.
If you are curious about whether women and men enjoy equal rights regarding being topfree in public where you live, you might find this [oshkosh.net] link helpful.
Re:Sweet (Score:5, Interesting)
So those of us who are less than (media stereotype of) perfect should be ashamed of our bodies?
You know, bodies are bodies, they are not purely for your vicarious titillation, to fuel your sexual fantasies. Some of us are fond of ours because they process our food and give us useful limbs.
It's a sad state of affairs when people assume that the human body is vulgar in certain cases simply because it does not conform to stereotypes of youthful beauty.
If you want to look at artificially-perfect bodies, you can buy a special magazine or DVD.
That's my encroaching mid-life crisis for today. Time for my pills...
Oh great... (Score:5, Insightful)
Now we get to hear from a bunch of people who normally bitch about the government taking away individual freedoms try to justify their hypocrisy while they argue for gun control, and how the supreme court wasn't thinking of the children...
Re:Oh great... (Score:4, Insightful)
Indeed. We will also hear those for whom the Second is the only Amendment that matters telling us that torture, wiretapping, and disregard of habeas corpus telling us that it's okay as long as we get to keep our guns. IOW, there's plenty of hypocrisy to go around here, spread across the political spectrum.
Re:Oh great... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Oh great... (Score:5, Interesting)
That's not annoying - that's helpful, isn't it?
When one party gets into power and abuses stuff, you can use your first amendment. When the other party gets into power and abuses stuff, you can use your second amendment. At least in theory.
I'm happy. The Supreme Court has been making some good decisions lately (ex: Guantanamo).
Re:Oh great... (Score:5, Insightful)
You've made a mistake. We don't need to convince gun owners to help us, we need to convince the people who have had enough to buy guns. Don't wait for others to save you. Save yourself.
Re:Oh great... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Oh great... (Score:5, Insightful)
And, by that point, it'd be too late anyway. No matter how many guns you've got, the US military has more, not to mention the training and tactics to deploy them effectively. The best you'd be able to hope for is a Iraq style guerrilla insurgency, but even that wouldn't work, since the troops you're fighting against would be from a similar cultural background as you.
The difference is... (Score:5, Insightful)
The difference is that 230 years ago,
1. a musket was the best any army had. Civilians even had the equivalent of sniper rifles, see the minutemen.
Heck, you could make a musket and ammo in a local smithy or in your shed. It was a simple weapon where the tolerances were _extremely_ generous.
Artillery? Sure. Anyone who could make a bell, could make a cannon just as good as the royal armourers in England.
Shock troops? That still meant cavalry. Any rancher who had a horse could be the equivalent of what today is a tank or a gunship.
2. Tactics were also more... lacklustre. Armies were trained to just march to 100 yards of each other and stand tall, shooting volley after volley at each other, until one looks like it's breaking. Then the other would do a cavalry charge or bayonet charge to finish it all. The only difference between a fully trained army and a militia was that the army was trained to stay in formation longer.
The Brits essentially did little more than pout when the rifled guns of the minutemen just sniped their officers in the first volley.
Modern infantry tactics and indeed combined arms tactics are a bit more effective than that. A militia whose claim to glory is shooting a few vermin now and then, and a bit of penis-size posturing at the shooting range on sundays, would sustain heavier casualties even if they had the exact same weapons the army had.
3. While willy-waving about the independence war is good and fine, let's not forget that it was mostly won because there was an ocean in between _and_ because France went bankrupt supporting you guys against the Brits. The whole French navy, as much as there was of it, fought hard to make that ocean a bigger problem for the Brits than it already was. And there was military help on the ground too from the French and from the northern indian tribes they had worked hard to befriend.
In fact, if you look at the French Revolution, soon there after, and at the king getting beheaded, that's what started it: eventually the peasants and burgeoisie had enough of paying the debt for a war that wasn't theirs and gained nothing for them. But I digress.
At any rate, you fought, only a fraction of the English army and you didn't fight it alone. And yeah, you repeated it a few years later, when the Brits were busy with Napoleon and made little more than a token show of force to keep you from trading with Napoleon. And gave up as soon as Napoleon was no longer a threat, and they had no more reason to keep you from trading with France.
Don't let it go to your head. Just a few rag-tag militias against the full might of England, _could_ have went a lot differently.
Re:Oh great... (Score:5, Informative)
Why yes I can. The first the comes to mind is the American Revolution, maybe you have heard about it. The second in more recent times was the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. Maybe you have heard about that as well. Sorry to burst your bubble but it has happened on several occasions throughout history.
Re:Oh great... (Score:5, Informative)
March on the White House to storm it eh?
Look at this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonus_Army [wikipedia.org]
That is only one example.
For instance, did you know that according to the supreme court there is NO expectation of protection against crimes by the police? They are there to maintain the peace, not to protect you. That's your responsibility.
The purpose of guns is not to protect your freedoms. That's what voting is for. The guns are to protect your person. To make the soldiers think twice before coming in. If you debate that look at the third amendment.
Essentially, the idea is that a democracy puts power in the hands of the people. Ask any political scientist about the political uses of lethal force. To have political power one must ultimately be willing to wield lethal force.
In short, yes, the point of all those guns is so crowds of angry citizens can overthrow their corrupt leaders. Whenever they want.
Re:Oh great... (Score:5, Insightful)
Yep, but there is no formal constitution-level document declaring that a police force must exist. That, too is Our responsibility. That's big "O" our, as in "we, the people". The statutes that create the police forces across the nation are not written in stone and may be changed. We, the people, created them and we must pass rules to control them.
Right again. But honestly, unless you have a whole lot of people with a whole bunch of fire power neither the police nor the military will be stopped. They might be slowed but not stopped. And the type of firepower that would be needed to stop even a squad of government solders tends to attract the attention of the FBI who frown on that sort of thing, for obvious reasons. So although you are technically correct, the point is moot.
Couldn't agree more. And going on you can say the point of power is to maintain the power of those who have it. Any type of power. Let's be honest here, the point of all those bullets and bombs the government has is to maintain and increase their power. Those can and have been used on citizens. It used to be that the military would be called in to "put down riots" or "maintain the peace". Now its to "stop terroists". It amounts to the same thing; the people in power stopping the people without power from taking power away.
In short, your Second amendment rights are meaningless except to allow you to hold a weapon. These days that just makes you fair game.
Re:Oh great... (Score:5, Insightful)
Right, sure.
Angry rebels could never hold off the combined might of the US Army. Unless it's in Afghanistan, Iraq, Vietnam, Lebanon...
Not all soldiers are highly trained commandos.
Re:Oh great... (Score:5, Insightful)
All those places are a long way from home. The rebels know the land while the US army doesn't, and the rebels have massive popular support while the US army doesn't.
It's a very different scenario from a hypothetical military action within the USA, in which it's very likely that the majority of the population would believe that the rebels were traitors. The best you could hope for would be for a significant portion of the army to refuse to take up arms against fellow Americans. However, I doubt they'd go so far as to join the rebels and take up arms against their own military comrades either.
Re:Oh great... (Score:5, Insightful)
"There comes a point when the military stops obeying orders."
That may be so, but you should NEVER EVER count on that. The Milgram experiment and further experience proves that.
Re:Oh great... (Score:5, Insightful)
March on the white house to storm it ? Or what exactly ?
What is the point of those "freedom protecting" guns all the US people are supposedly so fond of ?
Yes. This isn't something you do casually. It's for when things are so bad you're willing to die to make them better and so are most of the people around you. The people who wrote this amendment had done exactly that. They fought in a war. They were willing to get themselves killed to be free of British rule.
Don't think George W. Bush and a few hundred terror suspects at Gitmo. Think Stalin's gulags and Hitler's gestapo. That is what the second amendment is there to prevent.
hopelessly outgunned... (Score:5, Interesting)
Correct me if I'm wrong, but the thinking behind the 2nd amendment is "in case of tyranny, take up arms, overthrow the government", right?
So let me get this straight: Individual citizens armed with handguns and rifles and shotguns are going to go up against government forces, who have artillery, cruise missiles, and attack helicopters?
So unless 2nd amendment advocates are going to actually advocate private ownership of stinger missiles and anti-tank weapons and what-not, it makes no sense at all.
Re:hopelessly outgunned... (Score:5, Interesting)
From a discussion elsewhere [metafilter.com]:
Re:hopelessly outgunned... (Score:5, Insightful)
First off, about half the army will likely defect. Civilian targets? Marshall law? Blow up towns?
Second, you have guns so when the Nazis march into your town to start yanking you out of your houses, you're fuckin' armed. It worked for Hitler, it won't work here; Hitler collected up all the guns, if we have them all still then when the gestapo wants to take us they can take us through the bullet spray.
Re:hopelessly outgunned... (Score:5, Insightful)
The military is our brothers and sisters, our sons and daughters, our fathers and mothers -- they do not want to shoot a single US citizen. Most will follow orders so long as they do not include shooting and harming US citizens, and that's exactly why we need the guns; more than likely only a few minor incidents would be needed, because the aftermath would further ignite public outcry and also dampen military resolve to use weaponry on its own citizens.
Re:hopelessly outgunned... (Score:5, Insightful)
it seemed to work pretty well for the Vietnamese, the Iraqis, the Mujaheddin. The entire point of guerrilla warfare is that it almost completely eliminates the military advantage that large standing forces have. Artillery and other massive weapons are only useful against other standing militaries. Cruise missiles are only useful against infrastructure and other persistent targets. Attack helicopters are no use at picking one soldier out of a crowd of civilians. Aircraft carriers are useless against someone poisoning your barracks' food supply. ICBMs don't frighten someone who lives 2 miles from your own military base. Stealth fighters can't protect you from roadside bombs.
Of course, your argument is pointless anyways. As the decision states, whether resistance is a practical option in the 21st century has no bearing on whether it is a protected right. You don't say that the freedom of speech is no longer protected just because Rupert Murdoch can easily speak louder than any protester, you don't say that the fourth amendment is no longer valid since the police can easily find out tons of information about you without entering your home. I don't think there's any risk that the government will want to quarter soldiers in private homes to save some money, that doesn't mean the constitutional prohibition against it ceases to be the law of the land.
Re:Oh great... (Score:5, Insightful)
I think you do miss the point. Allowing the entire citizenry to own guns is like the getting involved in a cold war. It establishes an uneasy armed truce between the citizens and the leading class (politicians), with the ideal situation being that leaders do not take away freedoms, and in turn, the citizens don't take their lives. Sort of like Mutually Assured Destruction, only with the weight placed much more on the ruling class, because they are few, and the mob is legion. I think many of the founding fathers understood this, just like most of the ruling class understands this today, if somewhat unconsciously.
Sure, it's true... A single hunting rifle will be, and always has been utterly ineffective against an army. Still, I think people underestimate the power a few small chunks of lead could have. Devices which effectively poke holes in game animals will continue to be effective at poking holes in (much more frail) humans. I.E. You can hide some of the politicians all of the time, but you can't hide all of the politicians all of the time. This explains why our rights are slowly eroding. It makes the changes less tangible, less dramatic... Then the doublespeak begins.
Re:Oh great... (Score:5, Insightful)
The "black helicopter" conservatives are a subset of conservatives. "Gun rights" conservatives are a subset of conservatives. The two overlap, but they are not the same. If you actually knew any "black helicopter" conservatives, you would know that they have been predicting this crap for years and they hold no allegiance to Bush or the police state. They believed Reagan was evil, for crying out loud--Look up REX-84, which we seem to be currently implementing (tongue in cheek, sorta.)
What happened to all those militias in the 1990's? I'll tell you what happened, they got infiltrated by the FBI and the groups basically realized they were ineffectual, became demoralized and disbanded. Whether or not you agree with them, this sort of proves that a vigilant and motivated minority of the population stands no chance against the state. So while Democrats may laugh at the poor stupid rednecks, it's a kind of Pyrrhic victory because their "defeat" came about because their worst fear was realized, the government became an overpowering oppressive state. Where are these people today? They were probably Ron Paul supporters, not Bush supporters. For the most part they don't vote because they think the whole thing is rigged anyway.
Re:Oh great... (Score:5, Interesting)
That's part of why we need a right to own guns. Not because we're planning for a civil war, but because lots of people who disagree with you already own them.
Re:Oh great... (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's back down from the larger and, at this point in time, less likely picture of black helicopters and civil wars. Let's look at what this means for most people:
If you live in DC (and other, similarly restrictive cities soon) you can own a handgun for self-protection and you don't have to have a trigger lock, disassembled or in another manner to make it totally useless. And if someone breaks into your house, you can blow his shit away and not have to worry about being 1) unable to defend your family or 2) arrested alongside the burglar for defending your family.
And that's a good thing.
Let's watch the DC crime rates go down.
Re:Oh great... (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, that's what'll happen.
Because as anyone who has ever lived in a large city knows the main form of crime is armed assailants killing innocent grandmothers in their bedrooms...
It's not as if violence between family members and gang violence accounts for the majority of violent crime. This is a very good thing, because if guns were inserted into relationships where people who know each other or are members of violent gangs are trying to hurt each other, one might expect the rate of homicides to go up...
Re:Oh great... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Oh great... (Score:5, Insightful)
Also, while an armed populace that's sufficiently pissed off to rebel may indeed be the final option in the case of governmental tyranny, it's not a solution anyone should hope for. Civil wars are ugly, ugly things, and we should try every possible legal solution before resorting to blood in the streets.
The best deterrents (an armed populace in this case) are the ones which you end up not having to use. Although one should be prepared to shoot a burglar if necessary, it's best if the burglar runs away, and even better if the burglar never breaks into your house in the first place because they think you may have a gun. Similarly, it's better to have the possibility of having to deal with an armed revolt keeps a government's actions in check, rather than have an actual revolt.
One might think that individual rights in the U.S. are encroached upon quite a bit, but just compare it to someplace like the U.K. (where gun rights are essentially non-existent) and you'll notice quite a difference.
And when it comes to.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Oh great... (Score:5, Insightful)
This is one of my pet peeves. What is the difference between a hunting rifle and an assault rifle?
Hunting rifles are brown, assault rifles are black. If I am shot, the color of the gun would be the last thing on my mind.
Assault rifles have an upper gas tube. Once again, if I am shot, I would not care.
Assault rifles may have a place to put a bayonett. If I have a gun pointed at me, I would probably not notice a knife on the end.
Assault rifles have a pistol grip. Yup, that would make anybody shot with a hunting rifle feel better that at least there was no pistol grip.
Also, just for the record, let's look at the most popular "assault rifle" out there -- the AR-15. It shoots a .223 cartridge. If I was told that I was going to be shot by a center-fire rifle, and I could choose the cartridge, the .223 would be near the top of the list. The AR-15 was designed mostly to injure (not kill) the enemy. Also, with smaller bullets, you can carry more ammo. The humble 30-06 cartridge (extremely popular for hunting) does a LOT more damage.
The Washington Sniper used a .223 AR-15, and some people lived. If "assault weapons" were illegal, and he chose to use a bolt-action 30-06, there would not have been any survivors.
Basicly, some people want to ban "assault rifles" because they look scary. If we painted them day-glow orange and had pictures of kittens and unicorns on them, they would be OK.
Re:Oh great... (Score:5, Insightful)
I always understood it to mean that when the torture, wiretapping and disregard of habeas corpus gets bad enough, we are supposed to bear the arms and water the garden of liberty with the blood of tyrants, or something.
Here in Philly, the murder epidemic is bad enough that they're talking about random "stop and search" in an effort to crack down. Since we have an underfunded police department, city courts and prison system I'm not sure any further restrictions would really make a difference anyway. There's too few cops to enforce too many laws, too few courts to handle too many cases, and too little prison space to house too many criminals.
Regardless of the societal problems that lead to the endemic poverty, drug abuse and crime it doesn't seem like more rulemaking will make a difference.
Re:Oh great... (Score:5, Insightful)
The majority of laws passed these days target law abiding citizens as a means of control rather than crime prevention. Gun control laws are no different.
Re:Oh great... (Score:5, Insightful)
Kill the drug trade... (Score:5, Insightful)
you could open up ten police forces the size of the NYPD.
Not necessarily a good option. While I'm sure there are areas that could use more police protection, there are already a good amount where additional police would simply result in more speeding tickets(because they're easy).
No, my solution would be to legalize, regulate, and tax the currently illegal drugs. Killing the illegal drug trade would drop our violence levels to near european levels overnight.
Re:Oh great... (Score:5, Interesting)
Interestingly enough, I am quite liberal and used to be very much for gun control. The past eight years of torture, wiretapping, and suspension of Habeas Corpus made me realize that the 2nd amendment is not just an issue of rednecks and their right to hunt.
I feel the Bush administration shows what can happen when the gov't no longer regards the people it serves. Governments need to fear their citizens, even if only a little bit. An armed populace may be the ultimate check and balance.
Re:Oh great... (Score:5, Insightful)
The vast majority of legal gun owners (proper license, clean background, etc) in the US commits a disproportionally lower percentage of the violent crime. You have less to fear from them than the rest of society. Violent, armed criminals almost never own guns in compliance with the law, and so further restrictions won't help stop them from shooting you
Re: Your last point, I'm all for naked tits in public.
Re:Right, because POWs have always gotten trials (Score:5, Interesting)
Your statements seem to imply that there is nothing wrong with torturing our enemies, and I, like many, many U.S. citizens, have an extreme problem with that. We are supposed to be better than our enemies. We are supposed to uphold the ideals of our Consitution. How can we talk about liberty, while we deny it to others? How can we expect countries to follow our example, become "free" and "democracies", when our example is kidnapping and torture?
I want to remind you here of the stance we took when we decided to rebel against England:
The dissenting argument is that these evils are being perpetrated to protect us. The president claims he has to stomp all over our civil liberties, tap our phones, read our mail, torture our enemies, and dispose of due process to save American lives. I'll leave you with another quote, by Patrick Henry:
Re:Right, because POWs have always gotten trials (Score:5, Insightful)
Bush himself has used the "not at war" tactic to justify circumventing the Geneva Conventions, claiming our prisoners are not POWs but "enemy combatants." This despite the fact that
FDR and Truman were wartime presidents. We declared war in WWII.
"Police action" was invented to circumvent the Senate. It was invented to take advantage of the ambiguity in Article 2 of the Constitution, which simply states that the president shall act as Commander in Chief. Presidents use this to order troops to war, without having to get the Senate to actually declare war.
Yes, war is hell. But we are better at killing our enemies than they are at killing us. That does not mean we should debase ourselves to use their tactics, tactics which we have agreed are illegal when we signed the Geneva Conventions. It certainly does not mean we should willingly sacrifice our core values because they are inconvenient. If we do that, we have already lost, because that is exactly what the enemy wants.
Re:Oh great... (Score:5, Insightful)
Some of us, who favor gun control, do not have any problem whatsoever with this decision. It seems like a perfectly reasonable view of the constitution as written. Trying to say otherwise is intellectually dishonest.
What I question is the constitution itself: Is the right to bear arms really a key element to protest against excessive government control? India didn't gain their independence through guns. Today, we don't need them.
On the other hand, the right of privacy, not clearly stated in the American constitution, is necessary, and should be added. There was no need for it in the 1800s, if just because it was impossible to violate with their technology. It was pretty easy to keep the content of your conversations private: don't talk near a government official. Today, you can be snooped on alone in your home, over a phone, or on the internet. Technology has created a new issue, that deserves a constitutional amendment. Some European countries with constitutions that came after the telephone do cover the right of privacy explicitly. To become a freer country, America must follow their lead.
Re:Oh great... (Score:5, Insightful)
If owning a gun made sense in 1776, well, that's great. Let's just leave it in there and not ban it.
If there are new protections which we must add, to further limit the government, such as the protection of privacy (unreasonable search and seizure?), perhaps we need a new amendment.
Re:Oh great... (Score:5, Insightful)
Read up on the Deacons for Defense, armed blacks, mostly WW II and Korean War veterans, who used their right to keep and bear arms to stare down corrupt state and local governments which were run by the KKK.
This was 40 years ago.
Now tell me how much more enlightened we are today and tell me how unnecessary the 2nd amendment is.
Re:Oh great... (Score:5, Insightful)
As affirmed by this decision, part of the reason the 2nd Amendment exists is
Note that last part, the "depredations of a tyrannical government". The 2nd exists to ensure that, should the government devolve into a tyranny, the citizens will possess the means to overthow it, just as the founding fathers overthrew theirs.
The people who wrote the first ten Amendments were not naive and idealistic. They knew very well that power corrupts, so they put in a safety valve. Should the system of checks and balances fail the citizens would retain the power to put it back.
The Executive Branch of the U.S. government has been consolidating power unto itself for a long time. We have "police actions" and "operations" which, while clearly acts of war, have not been declared as such. Instead the president has decided that, as Commander in Chief, he does not need the Senate's approval. We have a degradation of the 1st Amendment, with warrantless wiretaps. The 5th is gone. If you refuse to incriminate yourself you can be declared a terrorist and shipped off to Gitmo to be tortured.
We are all familiar with the list.
If the current trend continues, if presidents continue to subvert the Constitution, gathering more and more power unto themselves while destroying the system of checks and balances, we are going to need those guns. Yes, we all pray that it is never necessary, but we certainly can't preach about how wonderful our "rights" are if we are not prepared to do what is necessary to keep them.
As the saying goes, "the price of freedom is eternal vigilance."
Re:Oh great... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Oh great... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Oh great... (Score:5, Interesting)
Perhaps you should re-evaluate what you question. The US Constitution doesn't grant or create any rights. That was true before there was a Bill of Rights, and is no less true afterward. It merely recognizes them. That's a great distinction. We believe that people have certain inalienable rights. And our Constitution recognizes those. And per the 9th Amendment, its specific recognition of a very small subset of our rights does not imply that we do not have more. Notwithstanding that the Supremes historically don't like the 9th Amendment and would prefer to find asinine things like 'penumbras' of other rights.
We the people are sovereign, we hold all power, and we have all rights. My rights don't come from a piece of paper, a court, or Congress, or my neighbors.
Regarding the right to keep and bear arms: there are those, such as I, who would argue that a free person has that right, regardless of the existence of the 2nd amendment. An unfree person does not have that right. A free person has a right to the means necessary to protect his or or liberty, life and property from all enemies, foreign or domestic. The question is not whether we have the right. The question is to what extent can that right be regulated, and that is a good question. And now, the Supreme Court has finally set us on the path of answering THAT question, not debating over whether we have a fundamental right or not.
To the point of not needing guns: we need arms to protect ourselves from a tyrannical government. I'm not saying that we need to overthrow our government now or at any foreseeable time, or even that we could. I am saying that as free people we have the right to the means to do so, even if the need seems implausibly remote, and a good way to continue to ensure that implausibility is to continue to let free people arm themselves. A people stripped of their fundamental right to protect their liberty, by force of arms if necessary, can only be stripped of more rights. The fact that we retain the right to arms, that we remain vigilant and cognizant of our fundamental rights as free people, is a strong indicator that we retain our other equally important rights.
Larry
Re:Oh great... (Score:5, Interesting)
Guns do not make a revolution. Pepole do.
America has a gun for every citizen. Somalia does too. One is a war zone. The other isn't.
Re:Oh great... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Oh great... (Score:5, Interesting)
Nowhere did the Court say that there was an unlimited right to bear arms. They specifically said:
"From Blackstone through the 19th-century cases, commentators and courts routinely explained that the right was not a right to keep any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose."
Perhaps one of the most likely to be overlooked lines comes at the end of page 57, where Scalia writes: "Although we do not undertake an exhaustive historical analysis today of the full scope of the Second Amendment, 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."
Moreover, he then continues to write: "We also recognize another important limitation on the right to keep an carry arms. Miller 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'."
Further, interestingly, at page 64, Scalia appears to leave open the possibility for attaching summary judgment offenses to the discharge and/or loading of firearms, so long as those penalties are minor.
In any case, the meat and bones of the judgment appears to be this, as stated at pages 58 and 60: The weapons protected by the Second Amendment are those that 'were in common use at the time'. However, this appears to extend to 'classes' of weapons, rather than specific designs (for example, semi-automatic and automatic firearms were not around until the middle of the 19th century, and would therefore certainly not have been 'in common use at the time' and would likely be prohibited), so essentially limits the second amendment to pistols and rifles; I am unsure how this would apply to things like submachine guns, assault rifles, and sniper rifles which likely did not even exist as 'classes' at the time; they don't really say, except to say that "It may be objected that if weapons that are most useful in military service -M-16s and the like- may be banned..." which does imply in fact that assault rifles as a class do not survive the 'in common use' test.
Fairly interestingly is the Court's statement at page 59, that "The handgun ban amounts to a prohibition of an entire class of 'arms' that is overwhelmingly chosen by American society for that lawful purpose." This interestingly folds back into its prior decision in Kennedy v. Louisiana of earlier this week that 'what the public thinks' is becoming a relevant constitutional test. I'm not sure, and they don't elaborate, on how this would come into conflict with the 'in common use' test. For example, imagine the American public decided that automatic grenade launchers were the best method of hunting- would they then also be allowed? If that is not true, I'm not really sure what Scalia's purpose for pointing out that Americans like handguns happens to be. It seems like he's saying that weapons which are overwhelmingly used for a lawful purpose are to be given more legal defense than those which are not.
At page 61, the court overturns the requirement that 'firearms in the home be rendered and kept inoperable at all times'; as this apparently invalidates their core lawful purpose, it is unconstitutional. However, the Court appears to say, that were a self-defense exception included it would be acceptable. How this would work is sort of confusing. The District's statute says, essentially, that every handgun should be kept unloaded and dissassembled or trigger locked unless the firearm is kept at a place of business or being used for lawful recreational purposes. It is unclear exactly what self-defense exemption the Court would prefer; i.e., whether such an exemption would require that firearms be able to be kept loaded and ready to fi
Re:Oh great... (Score:5, Insightful)
This is a monumental and historic decision (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This is a monumental and historic decision (Score:4, Insightful)
Among others (Score:4, Interesting)
I haven't done a comparison, but I wonder if they are the same 5 and 4? If so, maybe we should clean out the court and start again.
Re:Among others (Score:5, Insightful)
That should have read "conservative" justices in the Breyer case, but it's clear what you meant.
It's unbelievably sad that there's currently only one justice on the Supreme Court who supports our Constitution-guaranteed individual rights regardless of the swings of left/right politics.
Re:Among others (Score:5, Insightful)
States can still regulate firearms, as long as they don't infringe upon the second amendment. Individual rights, in this case, trump state rights.
Re:This is a monumental and historic decision (Score:5, Funny)
It's so nice to have a new immigrant to our country, how long have you been in the US? One week or two?
Re:This is a monumental and historic decision (Score:5, Funny)
How can you mess up "you must be new here?" like that?
You must be new here.
Re:This is a monumental and historic decision (Score:5, Insightful)
So the right to have an abortion is bullshit whereas the right to own a gun is God-given. Nice personal freedoms, there. Way to go with your own intellectual honesty.
What the hell is with the current collection of issues in the present political divide, anyway? How is "the right to own a gun" on the same team as "ban abortions and gay marriage"? This doesn't make any sense to me.
Re:This is a monumental and historic decision (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This is a monumental and historic decision (Score:5, Funny)
How is "the right to own a gun" on the same team as "ban abortions...
If fetuses could carry guns, there would be no need to outlaw abortions.
The melacholy of gun control laws (Score:5, Insightful)
Law abiding citizens will obey the law and revoke ownership of guns. Criminals on the other hand already have a mind to break the law, and having a law against guns won't stop them for a second.
Re:The melacholy of gun control laws (Score:5, Insightful)
You know what they say: when seconds count, the police are only minutes away.
Re:The melacholy of gun control laws (Score:5, Insightful)
Hrm. It seems the DC gun ban would have reduced gun crime if criminals were truly that altruistic.
Re:The melacholy of gun control laws (Score:5, Insightful)
I live in a country with strict gun control. Its surprising how often we manage to not get robbed by anyone with a gun.
Do we have shootings? Yes, however, there is quite a long way between shootings and usually its the police doing the shooting. Do people get robbed? Yes of course they do, but strangely seldom with a gun - usually its a knife being wielded. The fear surrounding a gunless society is absolutely bonkers.
Good; Gun "Control" is bad (Score:5, Insightful)
Gun Control only serves to take guns out of the hands of people that give a shit about the law.
Lets have more law abiding citizens with guns with the ability to defend themselves against criminals.
Police aren't there to defend you, they are there to arrest people (generally after they commit a crime).
Re:Good; Gun "Control" is bad (Score:4, Insightful)
It's about damn time (Score:5, Informative)
Scalia and co, make this very point in their decision (found at http://www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/07slipopinion.html [supremecourtus.gov] -- a wonderful site for Supreme Court decisions. The site, really.):
It's dead on.
On a related note, why don't new sites ever link to the actual decision? It makes no sense.
--sabre86
Re:It's about damn time (Score:5, Insightful)
What about the fact that it doesn't say "guns", just "arms"? I want my personal nuclear weapons!
Re:It's about damn time (Score:5, Informative)
Elsewhere, he writes:
Breyer's dissent notes a logical problem with the majority opinion:
Re:It's about damn time (Score:4, Interesting)
What a moot issue (Score:5, Insightful)
What's the point?
The real intention of the 2nd amendment is to allow citizens to revolt (or at least threaten to). And that is a right that I savor.
Re:What a moot issue (Score:5, Funny)
American citizens are already revolting. They don't need guns for that. ;)
Re:What a moot issue (Score:5, Insightful)
If the purpose of the second amendment is to allow for armed revolt against an oppressive government, it is currently outdated and ineffective. Given the weapons available to the general public right now, no such armed revolt could ever succeed.
Really? Ask the marines and soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. They're generally not fighting against an enemy with equivalent arms or training, yet the insurgency has done a very good job keeping the government unstable, and may well force the US (and allies) out. I would argue that while such weapons are not effective in a fair fight, rebellions tend not to fight fair.
Gun Rights (Score:5, Interesting)
There are tons of arguments against guns, such as safety in the home or availability to criminals. But in my mind it comes down to just one thing -
The availability of guns to the general public is the last safeguard against tyrrany. It becomes much easier to fight an oppressive government if you have the weapons to do it with.
And let me preempt a few arguments right here - a few of you might ask how a bunch of rag-tag resisters can fight against the most powerful, technologically advanced military in the world?
For your answer, take one look at Iraq.
Dissenting opinion - Stevens is an idjit (Score:5, Insightful)
Apparently Stevens needs to learn how to read. Of course the framers wanted to reserve the tools for revolution to the people.
Kansas (Score:5, Interesting)
Ah, but soon you /can/ get an automatic weapon in Kansas. Starting on 1 July this year, Kansas residents may own automatic weapons, silencers, and sawed-off shotguns.
Brietbart.com? (Score:5, Informative)
How about a link to a real newspaper?
here [latimes.com] ;)
As someone who tries to avoid RTFAs, I was annoyed that the summary dodn't even HINT at what the actual decision was, obviously to drive traffic to the submitter's site.here [nytimes.com]
here [cnn.com]
here [foxnews.com] (oops, my bad
here [google.com]
here [reuters.com]
here [washingtonpost.com]
or how about one from a city that is directly impacted by the decision, like here? [chicagotribune.com]
I'm disappointed in you, timothy. I'm sure there were a lot more submissions than this one. Since this is Thursday, I hereby nominate you as "Aurthur Dent" (Monday is my Dent Day).
Why do I have to <p> on my paragraphs when I've selected "plain old text"??
How Effective are Bear Arms For Home Defence? (Score:5, Funny)
First hand experience (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:First hand experience (Score:5, Informative)
you are correct that that is not proof it wasn't working.
The fact that they had a gun ban in place for over 30 years and still had one of the highest gun related crime rates in the country shows it wasn't working.
People (Score:5, Insightful)
Amendment 2.
The term "people" is also used elsewhere in the US Constitution:
Article I, Section 2.
Amendment 1.
Amendment 4.
Amendment 9.
Amendment 10.
Amendment 17.
Anyone having trouble understanding what the word "people" was understood to mean by the writers of the US Constitution, Bill Of Rights, and the Seventeenth Amendment?
More Guns, Less Crime... (Score:5, Insightful)
Besides, everyone knows that if you make laws prohibiting gun ownership, that only affects law-abiding citizens. The criminals always manages to have guns anyway, thus leaving the law-abider at a severe disadvantage.
Responsible Gun Ownership is the way to go, and will result in less crime, lessen the need for police (which themselves figure into the crime component), and fix a host of other ills.
Many liberals will disagree with me, but I have yet to see a sound counter-argument. And no, I am NOT a conservative -- I am a Libertarian.
Dissenting Opinions Worth a Careful Read (Score:5, Interesting)
No matter what side of this issue you are on, the dissenting opinions are worth a careful read. They highlight and document in detail the errors made in the Majority decision, the most blatant of which being a complete misquote of a supreme court precedent used to support their opinion:
Majority, page 47: "We (the supreme court, in 1876, in United States v. Cruikshank) describe the right protected by the Second Amendment as 'bearing arms for a lawful purpose'."
The actual precedent set in 1876 was in fact the /exact opposite/:
Stevens, J., Dissent, page 39: "The Court wrote, as to counts 2 and 10 of respondents' indictment: 'The right there specified (in the indictment that they were overturning) is that of "bearing arms for a lawful purpose" This is NOT (emphasis added) a right granted by the Constitution.' ... 'This is one of the amendments that has no other effect than to restrict the powers of the NATIONAL (emphasis added) government.'"
Justice Stevens continues: "The Cruikshank Court explained that the defective indictment contained such language, but the court did not itself describe the right, or endorse the indictment's description of the right."
There are many other such contradictions in the ruling that merit serious reading. No matter what side of the fence you are on, it seems this ruling is based on very shaky grounds and dubious interpretations of precedents.
The accusations that one should expect more "intellectual honesty from Supreme Court judges", attacking the dissenters are completely unfounded and could only have come from someone who didn't bother to read their well-referenced and well-argued opinions.
Re:Crime rate high? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Crime rate high? (Score:5, Insightful)
In case you don't see the connection, I'll spell it out: "Oh judge, what good are your laws?" They represent the consensus of the governed. The bad man will not follow them but the government will enforce them. This will always be true.
The good man absolutely does need laws, as the laws spell out what the consensus is, and as long as the rule of law exists, where laws are applied equally and fairly to all the governed, then the good man will accept them if they are acceptable, and will work through legitimate channels if they must be changed.
Or would it make sense to say, "Oh Grocery Store, what good are your prices? The shoplifter will not follow them, and the good shopper does not read them." -- no, of course not.
Re:Crime rate high? (Score:5, Insightful)
On the other hand, even if the mugger didn't think you had a gun, he may shoot you just to be safe. Then take your wallet and run.
If the mugger is armed, you're screwed either way. (Assuming he's a decent shot.) But if you're armed, (A) you might be able to frighten off the attacker, even if he were armed (cuz he knows he's a bad shot), or (B) you might take the bastard down, saving yourself, or (C) you might take the bastard with you, even if he got ya.
So explain to me again why unarmed is better?
Now, to weaken my argument: a gun is an awful responsibility. One wild round or accidental discharge and you may have killed an innocent bystander. So, for a lot of people, that's too much of a risk. Me, for instance. I may not have any compunction about defending myself with lethal force, if I could assure myself to nearly 100% certainty that only my attacker and possibly myself will suffer. But bullets don't stop when you miss your target, and that's why I won't risk 'em.
That's just me, though. YMMV. FWIW, I think the Supremes got it right.
Re:Your rights online? (Score:5, Interesting)
This is obviously not belonging to "Your Rights Online".
The second amendment obviously covers online munitions as well, which are known to include cryptography and intrusion detection systems.
Re:"you can't go straight to the store" (Score:4, Informative)
Well, he's right - the May '86 law still stands....
Re:Who Goes to the Store for Guns? (Score:5, Informative)
DEALERS at Gun Shows and flea markets have to do the standard background checks, but you don't have to be a dealer to sell a gun. There's a hazy grey area on the volume you need to be moving before you're considered to be "engaging in the business of selling firearms" and hence in need of a dealer's license.
Not saying that I have a problem with any of this (uncheck private sales are fine by me), just saying that not "every" sale at a gun show needs a NICS check.
Re:fuck yes (Score:5, Informative)
Well, consider reading the Federalist Papers on the Bill of Rights. It tells you exactly what the writers of the Constitution thought about the issue, since the Federalist Papers were written by writers of the Constitution.
I note a single example:
What is the militia? The militia is the whole body of the people, except for certain government officials.