This is preliminary, but it looks as if our individual right to protect ourselves with firearms is alive and well. wOOt!!!
Foxnews.com: Supreme Court Strikes Down D.C. Gun Ban, Upholds Right to Keep and Bear Arms
Court: A constitutional right to a gun: "Answering a 127-year old constitutional question, the Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to have a gun, at least in one’s home. The Court, splitting 5-4, struck down a District of Columbia ban on handgun possession. Justice Antonin Scalia’s opinion for the majority stressed that the Court was not casting doubt on long-standing bans on gun possession by felons or the mentally retarded, or laws barring guns from schools or government buildings, or laws putting conditions on gun sales.
In District of Columbia v. Heller (07-290), the Court nullified two provisions of the city of Washington’s strict 1976 gun control law: a flat ban on possessing a gun in one’s home, and a requirement that any gun — except one kept at a business — must be unloaded and disassembled or have a trigger lock in place. The Court said it was not passing on a part of the law requiring that guns be licensed."
6 comments:
And so begins the long hard slog of gaining, piece by piece our gun rights in total.
What I find amazing is that SCOTUS was split 5-4 on the decision ... as if this Right, the 2nd as its appears in the Constitution, isn't really there. This was close. Although I do not see how the Fed's would ever execute a house to house ban ... I do not think this would go over very well, and with 500,000 semi auto rifles of "assault" designation in private hands(+1, since this ruling leaves me inspired)this is going to be interesting. We, America, will not roll over like those in England and Australia did.
Resist any entity which fears free men.
I agree. A 5-4 decision is a very close one and it could have easily gone the other way. I think of what the outcome would have been had Alito and Roberts not been recently appointed.
I myself have been inspired but money is a bit tight so I am holding steady at 6. What did you buy?
I am going to purchase a Saiga(Russian made)carbine in .223 I think. The price is right, they come "sporterized" but this is legally and easily fixed by buying and installing American made parts(adjustable A4 style stock, 30 rd mags, etc.)which brings it into compliance and makes for a great light handling carbine.
As a city dweller(but a gun LOVER)I never looked at the rifle as a need for me, but then its the Bill of Rights and not the Bill of Needs, isn't it?
Yes, it IS the Bill of Rights. Please send along some pics of the Saiga once you purchase it: drkenksc@yahoo.com
Will do ......
Some interesting facts worth reading:
http://smithrecruiting.com/supreme_court_dc_v_heller
P 53:..re "Miller" Scalia states:
"....This holding is not only consistent with, but positively suggests, that the Second Amendment confers an individual right to keep and bear arms (though only arms that “have some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia”)...."
P.59:
"..We may as well consider at this point (for we will have to consider eventually) what types of weapons Miller permits. Read in isolation, Miller’s phrase “part of ordinary military equipment” could mean that only those weapons useful in warfare are protected. That would be a startling reading of the opinion, since it would mean that the National Firearms Act’s restrictions on machineguns (not challenged in Miller) might be unconstitutional, machineguns being useful in warfare in 1939. We think that Miller’s “ordinary military equipment” language must be read in tandem with what comes after: “[O]rdinarily when called for [militia] service [able-bodied] men were expected to appear bearing arms supplied by themselves and of the kind in common use at the time.” 307 U. S., at 179...."
"...It may be objected that if weapons that are most useful in military service—M-16 rifles and the like—may be banned, then the Second Amendment right is completely detached from the prefatory clause. But as we have said, the conception of the militia at the time of the Second Amendment’s ratification was the body of all citizens capable of military service, who would bring the sorts of lawful weapons that they possessed at home to militia duty. It may well be true today that a militia, to be as effective as militias in the 18th century, would require sophisticated arms that are highly unusual in society at large. Indeed, it may be true that no amount of small arms could be useful against modern-day bombers and tanks. 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."
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