Will the Court take this opportunity to strike down the Second Amendment?
"Supreme Court will decide challenge to District of Columbia handgun ban" by Mark Sherman/Associated Press November 20, 2007
WASHINGTON --The Supreme Court said Tuesday it will decide whether the District of Columbia can ban handguns, a case that could produce the most in-depth examination of the constitutional right to "keep and bear arms" in nearly 70 years.
The main issue before the justices is whether the Second Amendment of the Constitution protects an individual's right to own guns or instead merely sets forth the collective right of states to maintain militias. The former interpretation would permit fewer restrictions on gun ownership.
Gun-control advocates say the Second Amendment was intended to insure that states could maintain militias, a response to 18th century fears of an all-powerful national government. Gun rights proponents contend the amendment gives individuals the right to keep guns for private uses, including self-defense.
Mayor Adrian M. Fenty said that city officials were grateful the Supreme Court took the handguns case and said they would ultimately prevail. Fenty, speaking at a news conference in a District office building, called it "the most important court case the District of Columbia has been involved in and possibly the most important decision a city or state has been involved in for decades.
Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, said the Supreme Court should "reverse a clearly erroneous decision and make it clear that the Constitution does not prevent communities from having the gun laws they believe are needed to protect public safety."
Randy Barnett, law professor at Georgetown University, said that even if the court decides their is an individual right to have guns, it could still determine that broad restrictions short of a ban are legal. Such a decision won't "automatically determine the outcome of any challenge to the gun law," he said.
Arguments probably will be in March, with a decision expected before the end of June.
The Second Amendment reads: "A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."
I don't see anything about a standing army there, either!
The District is making several arguments in defense of the restriction, including claiming that the Second Amendment involves militia service. It also said the ban is constitutional because it limits the choice of firearms, but does not prohibit residents from owning any guns at all. Rifles and shotguns are legal, if kept under lock or disassembled. Businesses may have guns for protection.
Dick Anthony Heller, 65, an armed security guard, sued the District after it rejected his application to keep a handgun at his home -- about a mile from the court -- for protection.
The laws in question in the case do not "merely regulate the possession of firearms," Heller said. Instead, they "amount to a complete prohibition of the possession of all functional firearms within the home."
This guy will get to keep his because he is part of a "security company" -- read: militia -- while the average civilian will be out of luck.
Which is wrong and contrary to what the founding fathers wanted.
They were wary of central power, which is why they gave guard powers to the states (before Bush usurped them).
"Justices to Decide on Right to Keep Handgun at Home" by LINDA GREENHOUSE
WASHINGTON, Nov. 20 — The Supreme Court announced Tuesday that it would decide whether the Constitution grants individuals the right to keep guns in their homes for private use, plunging the justices headlong into a divisive and long-running debate over how to interpret the Second Amendment’s guarantee of the “right of the people to keep and bear arms.”
The federal appeals court here, breaking with the great majority of federal courts to have examined the issue over the decades, ruled last March that the Second Amendment right was an individual one, not tied to service in a militia, and that the District of Columbia’s categorical ban on handguns was therefore unconstitutional.
Both the District of Columbia government and the winning plaintiff, Dick Anthony Heller, a security officer, urged the justices to review the decision. Mr. Heller, who carries a gun while on duty guarding the federal building that houses the administrative offices of the federal court system, wants to be able to keep his gun at home for self-defense.
The Supreme Court last looked at the Second Amendment nearly 70 years ago in United States v. Miller, a 1939 decision that suggested, without explicitly deciding, that the right should be understood in connection with service in a militia. The amendment states, “A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.”
The justices chose their own wording for what they want to decide in the new case, District of Columbia v. Heller, No. 07-290. The question they posed is whether the provisions of the statute “violate the Second Amendment rights of individuals who are not affiliated with any state-regulated militia, but who wish to keep handguns and other firearms for private use in their homes.”
The court’s choice of words is almost never inadvertent, and its use of the phrase “state-regulated militia” was somewhat curious. The District of Columbia, of course, is not a state, and one of the arguments its lawyers are making in their appeal is that the Second Amendment simply does not apply to “legislation enacted exclusively for the District of Columbia.”
For that matter, the Supreme Court has never ruled that the Second Amendment even applies to the states, as opposed to the federal government. It has applied nearly all the other provisions of the Bill of Rights to the states, leaving the Second Amendment as the most prominent exception. The justices evidently decided that this case was not the proper vehicle for exploring that issue, because as a nonstate, the District of Columbia is not in a position to argue it one way or another.
Because none of the justices now on the court have ever confronted a Second Amendment case, any prediction about how the court will rule is little more than pure speculation.
Since the only claim in the case is that law-abiding people have the right to keep a gun at home, the court will not have occasion to address restrictions on carrying guns.
In fact, lawyers on both sides of the case agreed Tuesday that a victory for the plaintiff in this case would amount to the opening chapter in an examination of the constitutionality of gun control rather than anything close to the final word.
“This is just the beginning,” said Alan Gura, the lead counsel for the plaintiff.
Mr. Gura said in an interview that “gun laws that make sense,” like those requiring background checks, would survive the legal attack, which he said was limited to “laws that do no good other than disarm law-abiding citizens.”
In striking down the district’s ordinance, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit said that an individual-right interpretation of the Second Amendment would still permit “reasonable regulations,” but that a flat ban was not reasonable."
One wonders if the court will be setting the stage for further disarmament of the population.
There are no institutions the people can look to fro redress these days.
Not in AmeriKa!
