Today is the day!!!

[fasterbusa]

This is the last day before the SCOTUS (Supreme Court of the United States) goes on their summer break.

With that in mind, today is the day that they will make a decision on the Washington DC gun case.

I am keeping my fingers crossed!

[Flip]

http://www.scotusblog.com/wp/

the ticker is moving!!!!

[Flip]

heller affirmed!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!! :deathmetal: :deathmetal: :deathmetal: :deathmetal:

[fasterbusa]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080626/ap_on_go_su_co/scotus_guns

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that Americans have a right to own guns for self-defense and hunting, the justices' first major pronouncement on gun rights in U.S. history.

The court's 5-4 ruling struck down the District of Columbia's 32-year-old ban on handguns as incompatible with gun rights under the Second Amendment. The decision went further than even the Bush administration wanted, but probably leaves most firearms laws intact.

The court had not conclusively interpreted the Second Amendment since its ratification in 1791. The 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."

The basic issue for the justices was whether the amendment protects an individual's right to own guns no matter what, or whether that right is somehow tied to service in a state militia.

Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for four colleagues, said the Constitution does not permit "the absolute prohibition of handguns held and used for self-defense in the home."

In dissent, Justice John Paul Stevens wrote that the majority "would have us believe that over 200 years ago, the Framers made a choice to limit the tools available to elected officials wishing to regulate civilian uses of weapons."

He said such evidence "is nowhere to be found."

Joining Scalia were Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Samuel Alito, Anthony Kennedy and Clarence Thomas. The other dissenters were Justices Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and David Souter.

The capital's gun law was among the nation's strictest.

Dick Anthony Heller, 66, an armed security guard, sued the District after it rejected his application to keep a handgun at his home for protection in the same Capitol Hill neighborhood as the court.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled in Heller's favor and struck down Washington's handgun ban, saying the Constitution guarantees Americans the right to own guns and that a total prohibition on handguns is not compatible with that right.

The issue caused a split within the Bush administration. Vice President Dick Cheney supported the appeals court ruling, but others in the administration feared it could lead to the undoing of other gun regulations, including a federal law restricting sales of machine guns. Other laws keep felons from buying guns and provide for an instant background check.

Scalia said nothing in Thursday's ruling should "cast doubt on long-standing prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons or the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings."

The law adopted by Washington's city council in 1976 bars residents from owning handguns unless they had one before the law took effect. Shotguns and rifles may be kept in homes, if they are registered, kept unloaded and either disassembled or equipped with trigger locks.

Opponents of the law have said it prevents residents from defending themselves. The Washington government says no one would be prosecuted for a gun law violation in cases of self-defense.

[jjkGURU]

:icon14::icon14::icon14:

[flipf4ipilot]

i thought you were going to say that you were picking up the new Busa

[Luckystrike]

aren't guns more dangerous than motorcycles? :huh:

[jgreen]

aren't guns more dangerous than motorcycles? :huh:



:popcorn:

[flipf4ipilot]

that's why we need to keep ownership legal... when they come by to claim our dangerous bikes we can defend our property :2guns:

[Bufalojump]

i thought you were going to say that you were picking up the new Busa

That's what I thought he was going to say!!

[jgreen]

That's what I thought he was going to say!!

His Dad said NO! :sissy: :badteeth:

[xboxdynasty]

SAY HELLO TO MY LITTLE FRIEND!!!

:gattling2:

[Mudpuppy]

guess its prime time to go buy more guns.. you can never own too many guns..

[Mr.Awesome]

aren't guns more dangerous than motorcycles? :huh:


They are both only as dangerous as the idiots hands that they are in.

[marc_padin]

So let me see if I understand the new ruling... it is now legal to have a weapon? But wait, wasn't it legal to have a weapon in the past? Or is it that now any idiot can have a gun vs before it took a special one with special training and licence? :huh:

[Flip]

no all the ruling said was that washington d.c. used to not allow you to own a hand gun in washington d.c. they had outlawed them. The rulling was for a gentlemen that sued washington saying that that law was against his 2nd amendment rights. went all the way to the supreme court and they ruled that it is indeed wrong that a us citizen has the right to bare arms in his home to protect his family. which over turned washington law and makes it legal to own a hand gun in washington d.c. now.

[marc_padin]

no all the ruling said was that washington d.c. used to not allow you to own a hand gun in washington d.c. they had outlawed them. The rulling was for a gentlemen that sued washington saying that that law was against his 2nd amendment rights. went all the way to the supreme court and they ruled that it is indeed wrong that a us citizen has the right to bare arms in his home to protect his family. which over turned washington law and makes it legal to own a hand gun in washington d.c. now.

Ah... I see said a blind man as he picked up his hammer and saw!

Good for the guy... he has the right to protect himself and his family!

[Flip]

There is alot more but that i believe is the basics!

[fasterbusa]

Here is a somewhat clearer explanation of the ruling but the Supremes.

http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1202422582170

Supreme Court Strikes Down D.C. Gun Ban
Tony Mauro
Legal Times
June 27, 2008


In a historic 5-4 decision Thursday, the Supreme Court declared for the first time that the Second Amendment protects an individual right -- not a collective or militia right -- to keep and bear firearms for self-defense.

The ruling ended the Court's nearly 70-year aversion to considering the meaning of the Second Amendment's oddly constructed language: "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 immediate result of the ruling in District of Columbia v. Heller was to strike down the District's tough 32-year-old ban on handguns and its trigger-lock requirement on other firearms, which the city had said were essential to contain violence in the nation's capital.

The original plaintiff, D.C. resident Dick Heller, said immediately after the decision was handed down that he would seek a handgun permit soon, but it may be weeks or months before the D.C. bureaucracy, unaccustomed to handling gun permits, is ready to act. Mayor Adrian Fenty expressed disappointment at a press conference, adding, "More handguns will lead to more handgun violence."

"This is a great moment in American history," Wayne LaPierre, vice president of the National Rifle Association, said in a statement. The NRA did not initiate the D.C. challenge but eventually embraced it. But Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, whose city has a handgun law similar to D.C.'s, said the decision could bring a "return to the days of the Wild West," according to news reports.

The high court ruling was the last opinion issued by the justices before adjourning for the summer, striking a discordant note at the end of an otherwise fairly harmonious term. The Court issued far fewer 5-4 decisions this term than it had handed down the previous term.

In the gun case, Justice Antonin Scalia led the majority in analyzing the words of the Second Amendment and the views of its framers and concluding that "they guarantee the individual right to possess and carry weapons in case of confrontation."

But the landmark ruling, which placed bitter divisions on the Court on full display, is likely to mark the beginning, not the end, of litigation over Second Amendment rights as gun owners and local governments test the contours of the right enunciated by the Court.

Scalia wrote that the right he was announcing, as with other constitutional rights, "is not unlimited." The ruling should not "cast doubt," he added, on restrictions such as barring possession of firearms by felons or the mentally ill or forbidding carrying arms near schools or in government buildings. He also indicated that the use of certain types of weapons could be restricted without running afoul of the Second Amendment.

But the majority did not define a standard of review for judging which restrictions are or are not constitutional, and it did not specifically rule that the Second Amendment applies to the states -- a step that the Court has taken in the past to ensure that other parts of the Bill of Rights limit state as well as federal restrictions on individuals.

Both omissions from the ruling virtually guarantee a wave, if not a generation, of legal battles. Scalia suggested as much in his 64-page opinion when he wrote, almost defensively, "Since this case represents this court's first in-depth examination of the Second Amendment, one should not expect it to clarify the entire field."

In dissent, Justice John Paul Stevens also said the majority's bottom line "does not tell us anything about the scope of that right."

Stevens clashed with Scalia over the meaning of United States v. Miller, the 1939 decision that briefly discussed the Second Amendment. To Stevens, that decision defined the Second Amendment as pertaining to militia gun use. But it meant the opposite to Scalia, who was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. and Justices Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito Jr.

Stevens' unusually pointed dissent accused the majority of injecting the Court into what are essentially political debates over gun control. The decision, he wrote, "will surely give rise to a far more active judicial role in making vitally important national policy decisions than was envisioned at any time in the 18th, 19th, or 20th centuries."

By contrast Scalia insisted that he was acting with judicial modesty.

"Undoubtedly some think that the Second Amendment is outmoded in a society where our standing army is the pride of our Nation, where well-trained police forces provide personal security, and where gun violence is a serious problem," Scalia wrote. "That is perhaps debatable, but what is not debatable is that it is not the role of this Court to pronounce the Second Amendment extinct."

Justice Stephen Breyer also penned a dissent, arguing that even if the Second Amendment articulates an individual right, the D.C. gun ban is reasonable and constitutional. As a response to high levels of urban violence, Breyer said, the handgun ban is "a permissible legislative response to a serious, indeed life-threatening, problem."

Justices David Souter and Ruth Bader Ginsburg joined both dissents but did not write separately.

The ruling represented a victory for Scalia not only in its result but also in the methodology justices used in their opinions, said Northwestern University School of Law professor John McGinnis. "All justices adopted an originalist approach, suggesting that originalism commands consensus support, at least when the issue is whether a right that is in the constitution can be restricted." Cato Institute scholar Robert Levy, who was the financial backer of the challenge to the D.C. gun law, said Thursday the Court had finally rediscovered the Second Amendment. "Because of Thursday's decision, the prospects for reviving the original meaning of the Second Amendment are now substantially brighter."

The NRA's LaPierre said, "I consider this the opening salvo in a step-by-step process of providing relief for law-abiding Americans everywhere that have been deprived of this freedom."

Gun control supporters, while disappointed with the ruling, said it could have been worse.

"Our fight to enact sensible gun laws will be undiminished," said Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence in a statement. "While we disagree with the Supreme Court's ruling, which strips the citizens of the District of Columbia of a law they strongly support, the decision clearly suggests that other gun laws are entirely consistent with the Constitution."

[marc_padin]

Here is a somewhat clearer explanation of the ruling but the Supremes.

http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1202422582170

Supreme Court Strikes Down D.C. Gun Ban
Tony Mauro
Legal Times
June 27, 2008


In a historic 5-4 decision Thursday, the Supreme Court declared for the first time that the Second Amendment protects an individual right -- not a collective or militia right -- to keep and bear firearms for self-defense.

The ruling ended the Court's nearly 70-year aversion to considering the meaning of the Second Amendment's oddly constructed language: "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 immediate result of the ruling in District of Columbia v. Heller was to strike down the District's tough 32-year-old ban on handguns and its trigger-lock requirement on other firearms, which the city had said were essential to contain violence in the nation's capital.

The original plaintiff, D.C. resident Dick Heller, said immediately after the decision was handed down that he would seek a handgun permit soon, but it may be weeks or months before the D.C. bureaucracy, unaccustomed to handling gun permits, is ready to act. Mayor Adrian Fenty expressed disappointment at a press conference, adding, "More handguns will lead to more handgun violence."

"This is a great moment in American history," Wayne LaPierre, vice president of the National Rifle Association, said in a statement. The NRA did not initiate the D.C. challenge but eventually embraced it. But Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, whose city has a handgun law similar to D.C.'s, said the decision could bring a "return to the days of the Wild West," according to news reports.

The high court ruling was the last opinion issued by the justices before adjourning for the summer, striking a discordant note at the end of an otherwise fairly harmonious term. The Court issued far fewer 5-4 decisions this term than it had handed down the previous term.

In the gun case, Justice Antonin Scalia led the majority in analyzing the words of the Second Amendment and the views of its framers and concluding that "they guarantee the individual right to possess and carry weapons in case of confrontation."

But the landmark ruling, which placed bitter divisions on the Court on full display, is likely to mark the beginning, not the end, of litigation over Second Amendment rights as gun owners and local governments test the contours of the right enunciated by the Court.

Scalia wrote that the right he was announcing, as with other constitutional rights, "is not unlimited." The ruling should not "cast doubt," he added, on restrictions such as barring possession of firearms by felons or the mentally ill or forbidding carrying arms near schools or in government buildings. He also indicated that the use of certain types of weapons could be restricted without running afoul of the Second Amendment.

But the majority did not define a standard of review for judging which restrictions are or are not constitutional, and it did not specifically rule that the Second Amendment applies to the states -- a step that the Court has taken in the past to ensure that other parts of the Bill of Rights limit state as well as federal restrictions on individuals.

Both omissions from the ruling virtually guarantee a wave, if not a generation, of legal battles. Scalia suggested as much in his 64-page opinion when he wrote, almost defensively, "Since this case represents this court's first in-depth examination of the Second Amendment, one should not expect it to clarify the entire field."

In dissent, Justice John Paul Stevens also said the majority's bottom line "does not tell us anything about the scope of that right."

Stevens clashed with Scalia over the meaning of United States v. Miller, the 1939 decision that briefly discussed the Second Amendment. To Stevens, that decision defined the Second Amendment as pertaining to militia gun use. But it meant the opposite to Scalia, who was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. and Justices Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito Jr.

Stevens' unusually pointed dissent accused the majority of injecting the Court into what are essentially political debates over gun control. The decision, he wrote, "will surely give rise to a far more active judicial role in making vitally important national policy decisions than was envisioned at any time in the 18th, 19th, or 20th centuries."

By contrast Scalia insisted that he was acting with judicial modesty.

"Undoubtedly some think that the Second Amendment is outmoded in a society where our standing army is the pride of our Nation, where well-trained police forces provide personal security, and where gun violence is a serious problem," Scalia wrote. "That is perhaps debatable, but what is not debatable is that it is not the role of this Court to pronounce the Second Amendment extinct."

Justice Stephen Breyer also penned a dissent, arguing that even if the Second Amendment articulates an individual right, the D.C. gun ban is reasonable and constitutional. As a response to high levels of urban violence, Breyer said, the handgun ban is "a permissible legislative response to a serious, indeed life-threatening, problem."

Justices David Souter and Ruth Bader Ginsburg joined both dissents but did not write separately.

The ruling represented a victory for Scalia not only in its result but also in the methodology justices used in their opinions, said Northwestern University School of Law professor John McGinnis. "All justices adopted an originalist approach, suggesting that originalism commands consensus support, at least when the issue is whether a right that is in the constitution can be restricted." Cato Institute scholar Robert Levy, who was the financial backer of the challenge to the D.C. gun law, said Thursday the Court had finally rediscovered the Second Amendment. "Because of Thursday's decision, the prospects for reviving the original meaning of the Second Amendment are now substantially brighter."

The NRA's LaPierre said, "I consider this the opening salvo in a step-by-step process of providing relief for law-abiding Americans everywhere that have been deprived of this freedom."

Gun control supporters, while disappointed with the ruling, said it could have been worse.

"Our fight to enact sensible gun laws will be undiminished," said Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence in a statement. "While we disagree with the Supreme Court's ruling, which strips the citizens of the District of Columbia of a law they strongly support, the decision clearly suggests that other gun laws are entirely consistent with the Constitution."

Cliff Notes anyone? :eek:

[fasterbusa]

Nathan is mostly right.
Mr. Heller works security in DC.
He carries a gun to protect the persons in the Federal building where he is employed.
He tried to get a permit so that he could also have a gun in his home to protect himself.

He was denied that permit do to the law that DC passed in 1976.

Mr. Heller was part of a larger group that sued to overturn this law.
However, Mr. Heller was the only person found to have standing in the case and so he was the only one allowed to carry forth with his suit, the other people not having standing to sue.

Mr. Heller's case was based on the idea that he is allowed to have a gun to do his job (the protection of others) but he was not allowed to have a gun (or that same gun) in his own home for his own personal protection.

In the end, the DC law was struck down as being unconstitutional because it deprived a legal citizen of his 2nd Amendment right to own a gun and to keep it in his own home.

[marc_padin]

Nathan is mostly right.
Mr. Heller works security in DC.
He carries a gun to protect the persons in the Federal building where he is employed.
He tried to get a permit so that he could also have a gun in his home to protect himself.

He was denied that permit do to the law that DC passed in 1976.

Mr. Heller was part of a larger group that sued to overturn this law.
However, Mr. Heller was the only person found to have standing in the case and so he was the only one allowed to carry forth with his suit, the other people not having standing to sue.

Mr. Heller's case was based on the idea that he is allowed to have a gun to do his job (the protection of others) but he was not allowed to have a gun (or that same gun) in his own home for his own personal protection.

In the end, the DC law was struck down as being unconstitutional because it deprived a legal citizen of his 2nd Amendment right to own a gun and to keep it in his own home.

Thanks for the explanation... Now it all makes sense