High court to look at local gun control laws

[bayern]

What if the Court rules in favor of Chicago? Will that also mean that the 2d Amendment along with others will be up to the states to decide for or against?

High court to look at local gun control laws
By MARK SHERMAN

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WASHINGTON (AP) - The Supreme Court has agreed to decide whether strict local and state gun control laws violate the Second Amendment, ensuring another high-profile battle over the rights of gun owners.
The court said Wednesday it will review a lower court ruling that upheld a handgun ban in Chicago. Gun rights supporters challenged gun laws in Chicago and some suburbs immediately following the high court's decision in June 2008 that struck down a handgun ban in the District of Columbia, a federal enclave. The new case tests whether last year's ruling applies as well to local and state laws.

[MacLean]

Nice. I want to see Scalia spank Sotomayor.

[ANI4ANI]

Something must be brewing. I received a phone call from the NRA yesterday wanting me to join. They play a tape of a message from the president of the NRA regarding a bill Hilary and Obama are going to introduce to stop gun ownership and change the 2nd amendment. I also read where the income tax form is suppose to have a section where gun owners have to claim all their firearms and will be taxed $50.00 per firearm. RIGHT! Come and get 'em.

[Five-0]

I also read where the income tax form is suppose to have a section where gun owners have to claim all their firearms and will be taxed $50.00 per firearm. RIGHT! Come and get 'em.

Anyone want to take a report on the theft of some firearms for me?

[dadyswat]

Something must be brewing. I received a phone call from the NRA yesterday wanting me to join. They play a tape of a message from the president of the NRA regarding a bill Hilary and Obama are going to introduce to stop gun ownership and change the 2nd amendment. I also read where the income tax form is suppose to have a section where gun owners have to claim all their firearms and will be taxed $50.00 per firearm. RIGHT! Come and get 'em.

I think if you do a little research you'll find that one is a hoax. It actually started going around in the 1990's. HR45 is a different story it's an actual bill but has no co-sponsors.

As far as joining the NRA it's probably not a bad idea as they're our largest lobby group even though I don't agree with everything they want to do.

I'm curious to see how the court will rule as most of their recent decisions have been very narrow in scope and this will be the first time I'm aware of the equal protection clause will enter into 2nd Amendment debate.

[pgg]

Anyone want to take a report on the theft of some firearms for me?

I lost mine in a boating accident

[Jenna]

I lost mine in a boating accident

I'm sure the fish appreciate it!

[pgg]

I'm sure the fish appreciate it!

... are you blonde

[Jenna]

... are you blonde

[MacLean]

Tragic loss. *sniff*

[TXCharlie]

The bill wasn't exactly a hoax, but a bill or amendment like it failed several years ago - They will vote in as many controls as they can get away with while no one is looking. One big thing is a hefty tax on ammo, ammo which deteriorates after a year or two, the little micro-tags and registration of ammo, etc.

Luckily, there's a lot of organizations like the NRA out there who are watching - closely - and we have news outlets like Fox who won't ignore it.

I don't have a lot against micro-tagging ammo, if there were a way to only permit pulling the records of who bought it by court order (i.e., a search warrant) in a criminal trial - The government already knows that CHL holders have guns, and a good percentage of serious gun owners have CHL's, so registration is almost a moot point - and of course virtually all LE's have personal guns - No brainwork required to print out a list of homes to confiscate guns from in either case, if it ever came to that.

The registration of micro-tags will complete that list eventually, however.

[MacLean]

Chuck, microtagging would drive the price of ammunition to unbelievable levels.

Do. Not. Compromise.

[TXCharlie]

Yeah probably so... It would really screw up ammo manufacturer's processes, because it would no longer be sufficient for them to track the ammo in lots. They would have to be tracked by the smallest box.

I think little multilayer color-coded microtags are pretty cheap to mix up for combination coding, because it's the combination of different tags that is significant (like a binary code). Therefore they don't have to be etched individually, they just have to be dispensed in unique combinations. They also suffer from the fact that if ammo soot from two boxes are mixed, then the serial number isn't decipherable.

But 1-tag coding is VERY expensive because they have to be individually Laser-etched with a code. They also suffer from a different problem, which is that they must be intact. It doesn't matter if the multilayer tags are broken or partially burned, as long as all the color layers are intact on part of them.

[dadyswat]

I don't have a lot against micro-tagging ammo, if there were a way to only permit pulling the records of who bought it by court order (i.e., a search warrant) in a criminal trial - The government already knows that CHL holders have guns, and a good percentage of serious gun owners have CHL's, so registration is almost a moot point - and of course virtually all LE's have personal guns - No brainwork required to print out a list of homes to confiscate guns from in either case, if it ever came to that.

I don't favor anything like that it's just another way for the Feds to get control. I think this administartion and Congress will make a push to get your firearms if not the first 4 years the second if they're still there. We need to get rid of them in 2010.

[TXCharlie]

We need to get rid of them in 2010.

And with it, four years of lame-duckiness for Obama

[MacLean]

And with it, four years of lame-duckiness for Obama

Two years, Chuck.

[Morris]

The action by the high court to find itself agreeing with Chicago would begin the ugly drive of low grade civil wars in this nation. Being a history buff and one time history major, the signs clearly point that way, no matter how sheeple most folks are.

[pgg]

And with it, four years of lame-duckiness for Obama

Math isn't your strong suit?

[TXCharlie]

Two years, Chuck.

dUHHH

[dadyswat]

I thought this was pretty good.

The U.S. Supreme Court announced on Wednesday that it plans to hear the next major gun rights case, a move that will decide whether the Second Amendment can invalidate state laws and municipal ordinances.

A 5-4 Supreme Court decision last year did say that the U.S. Constitution protects an individual right to own a handgun. But the majority opinion never concluded that the Second Amendment applied to states; it didn't say what kind of laws beyond a flat ban are acceptable or unacceptable; it didn't even say what kind of standards lower courts should apply when evaluating anti-gun laws.

One result was to leave lower court judges scratching their heads about which laws were permissible. Another was to create what one pro-gun attorney last week dubbed an "apartheid of civil rights," where gun rights vary by state.

The current case before the justices arose out of Chicago's restrictive gun laws, which prohibit anyone from possessing firearms -- even in their homes -- "unless such person is the holder of a valid registration certificate for such firearm." That's virtually identical to the Washington, D.C. law that the court said was unconstitutional last year, and violations in both cities include criminal penalties.

Deciding whether or not the Second Amendment restricts state and local governments might sound straightforward enough. After all, the First Amendment starts out by saying "Congress shall make no law," but the Supreme Court has interpreted that language to prevent states (and even state universities) from engaging in censorship.

So if much of the rest of the Bill of Rights applies to state governments -- a concept called "incorporation" -- why not the Second Amendment as well?

This topic sounds like one that only a law professor would love, but in the last half-century or so, the Supreme Court has ruled that only "fundamental" rights crucial to "ordered liberty" are incorporated. (A wag might say that the justices were simply picking and choosing portions of the Bill of Rights that they find attractive while ignoring others. Call it the à la carte school of constitutional law.)

The city of Chicago, in a 43-page brief submitted to the Supreme Court, has argued that the right to own a firearm is not fundamental: "In urban environments, where handgun abuse is so rampant, the protection of a right to handguns simply because they are in common use undermines, rather than guarantees, ordered liberty. It is, instead, the very governmental power to protect residents that is critical to the concept of ordered liberty, since enforcing handgun control laws can make an enormous difference in curbing firearms violence."

In last year's Heller decision, both the majority and the dissenters reviewed the history of ratification of the Second Amendment. This time, when reviewing Chicago's ordinance, they'll likely look to the debate over the 1868 adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment (which is what provides an avenue for the federal Bill of Rights to apply to the states).

Sen. Jacob Howard's speech to the U.S. Senate in 1866 provides a glimpse into what was going through the minds of the people who actually drafted the Fourteenth Amendment. Howard said:

To these privileges and immunities, whatever they may be – for they are not and cannot be fully defined in their entire extent and precise nature – to these should be added the personal rights guaranteed by the first eight amendments of the Constitution; such as the freedom of speech and of the press; the right of the people peaceably to assemble and petition the Government for a redress of grievances, a right pertaining to each and all of the people; the right to keep and bear arms; the right to be exempt from unreasonable searches and seizures, and from any search or seizure except by virtue of a warrant issued upon a formal oath or affidavit; the right of an accused person to be informed of the nature of the accusation against him, and his right to be tried by an impartial jury of the vicinage; and also the right to be secure against excessive bail and against cruel and unusual punishments. (Emphasis added.)

Stephen Halbrook, a lawyer and historian who has written a book titled [ame="http://www.amazon.com/Freedmen-Fourteenth-Amendment-Right-1866-1876/dp/0275963314"]Freedmen, the Fourteenth Amendment, and the Right to Bear Arms[/ame], has [ame="http://www.stephenhalbrook.com/law_review_articles/fba.PDF"]extensively reviewed[/ame] the debate in the U.S. Congress over extending the right to bear arms to the newly-freed slaves after the Civil War. He concludes: "The framers of that amendment understood from hard experience that the rights to personal security and personal liberty are inseparable from the rights to self defense and to keep and bear arms."

The Fourteenth Amendment was enacted largely to overrule the Supreme Court's infamous Dred Scott v. Sandford (1856) case, which said that if the "large slaveholding states regarded (blacks) as included in the word citizens," then they would be granted rights including the ability to travel freely, the right to speak freely, and "to keep and carry arms wherever they went."

It also was intended to eliminate the notorious black codes, which in some states provided harsher criminal punishments for blacks than whites, regulated domestic relations of blacks, and, in the words of the Supreme Court in a 1964 decision, meant blacks "were not allowed to bear arms." (Justice Antonin Scalia's opinion in the Heller case echoes this, saying: "Blacks were routinely disarmed by Southern States after the Civil War. Those who opposed these injustices frequently stated that they infringed blacks' constitutional right to keep and bear arms.")

There's no guarantee, of course, that the Supreme Court's eventual decision in the current case, called McDonald v. Chicago, will focus on the congressional debates of some 120 years ago. But if you're the betting type, I'd give you good odds that it will.

And here's another bet: If the Supreme Court justices can define a fundamental right to privacy that "is broad enough to cover the abortion decision" and render certain state laws invalid -- even though the words "privacy" and "abortion" appear nowhere in the text of the U.S. Constitution -- would they really want to risk a public outcry by ruling a well-documented right to self-defense is somehow less fundamental?

I'm betting the answer is no. Not even the Supreme Court likes to deviate too much from public opinion and academic consensus, and when you have two-thirds of the states and three-quarters of Americans holding broadly pro-gun views, this would be one grassroots revolt that the justices have no interest in creating.

PS: The next brief from Alan Gura, who is representing the Chicago residents with the help of the Second Amendment Foundation, is due November 16. Chicago's brief is due December 16; the plaintiffs' reply brief is due January 15. Gura said that he expects oral arguments to take place in February 2010.

Gun Rights Case Could Turn On Civil War-Era Laws - Taking Liberties - CBS News