The U.S. Supreme Court has granted certiorari in the much-discussed District of Columbia v. Heller case (Docket 04-7041), previously known as Parker vs. District of Columbia. This means the High Court WILL review the decision by the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals striking down the D.C. statute banning residents from owning handguns.
The Court of Appeals held that the District of Columbia's anti-gun law violated the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. In reaching its decision, the Appellate Court found, as a matter of law, that the Second Amendment provides an individual right to keep and bear arms.
This was a "breakthrough" finding. Other Circuit Courts of Appeal have held that the Second Amendment merely confers a "collective right" to keep and bear arms. In practical terms, this means that the Second Amendment applies to an organized militia (i.e. the National Guard), but not to individuals.
The High Court's decision to hear D.C. v. Heller is historically significant. This will represent the first time the Supreme Court rules directly on the meaning of the Second Amendment since the U.S. v. Miller case in 1939. The decision in Miller was poorly reasoned and left many basic issues unresolved, including the key question "Does the Second Amendment confer an individual or collective right?"
The "collective right" interpretation of the Second Amendment is disfavored among legal scholars, despite what anti-gun advocacy groups claim. Many of the nation's most respected law professors, including Lawrence Tribe of Harvard Law School, Akhil Reed Amar of Yale, William Van Alstyne of Duke, and Sanford Levinson of the Univ. of Texas, have strongly argued that the Second Amendment secures an individual right to keep and bear arms.
BACKGROUND The mayor of Washington, D.C., Adrian M. Fenty, filed the appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, setting the stage for the High Court to rule. According to FBI statistics, Washington D.C., despite its gun ban, ranks as one of the most dangerous cities in the United States and maintains one of the highest per-capita murder rates in the country.
In March, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, in striking down the District's gun ban, held in Parker, et al., v. District of Columbia that "The phrase 'the right of the people' . . . leads us to conclude that the right in question is individual." This was the second time in recent history that a Federal Circuit Court upheld the view that the Second Amendment was an individual right. In 2001, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled in the case of U.S. v. Emerson that "All of the evidence indicates that the Second Amendment, like other parts of the Bill of Rights, applies to and protects individual Americans." Published Nov 21 2007, 08:15 PM by Al Nyhus Filed under: News of Interest, 2nd Amendment Comments
R.G. Robinett said:
Al, I read this, then saw a very BRIEF report on the 6:00 O'Clock news Tuesday evening – I'm betting it may pay to purchase some of that down-trodden Smith & Wesson stock, which as pointed out in Ryan's last BLOG, had, in one trading session, mysteriously fallen to 1/2 it's recent per share value! ;) Maybe, because I haven't followed the stock – perhaps there WAS some real cause for the drop???
The long-time media/liberal arguement, that thr RIGHT to keep and bear arms is a collective RIGHT is in DEEP doo doo . . and THEY KNOW it! :) They have several, self evident TRUTHS to deny: not the least of which being that the GOVERNMENT has NO RIGHTS – only THE PEOPLE HAVE RIGHTS! Then, for anyone who can read English, they have that nasty, "the RIGHT of the PEOPLE shall NOT be infringed", to wrestle with – if THEY could successfuly convince THE COURT that, "the PEOPLE", indicates collective . . . well, then it would be , "welcome to Oz" !
Thus, the nightly news' short mention of this monumental court hearing . . . the only reason it made the evening news at all was due to THEM being afraid to "miss out" . . . the acceptance of any other case, by THE U.S. Supreme Court, to settle a MAJOR issue regarding INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS, would be analized (intentional mis-spelling) and discussed to death – the propaganda campaign would have begun on Monday and never ceased . . . yep, THEY know they're "DEAD-in-the-water" on this issue . . . we won't soon become poor hapless Austrailia!
I'm calling my broker . . . ;) RG November 22, 2007 8:16 AM
Al Nyhus said:
Well said, Randy.
People that are observant of the political process in our country have long realized that the Supreme Court of the United States is where individual rights can be protected or eroded.
The liberals in our country are very, very good at incrementalism…the slow, steady chipping away of our rights as individuals as guaranteed us by the U.S. Constitution. What the Left can't push through by way of the vote they try to push through by using the judicial system by using activist judges.
Thank goodness we have some strict contitutionalist judges on the Supreme Court…John Roberts, Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas.
Liberal activist judges like Stephen Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsberg believe in rewriting the Constitution into what they consider to be a document that can change with the times rather than recognizing it as the very foundation on which our country is based. November 22, 2007 6:27 P