

Supreme Court rules that all Americans have fundamental right to bear arms - nearestneighbor
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/28/AR2010062802134_pf.html

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hga
_NO_ "cities have laws as restrictive as those in Chicago [and one of its
suburban towns] and Washington [, D.C.]", which have/had full, absolute and
total bans on handgun possession by ordinary citizens (maybe with some
grandfathering). Therefore the immediate and direct result will be limited
(although it should be noted that 3 other Chicago suburbs including the
infamous Morton Grove dropped their bans rather than fight (Chicago offered to
pay the legal costs of the one remaining suburb)).

As it is, some lower courts have already been writing decisions assuming
_Heller_ would be incorporated and there are two cases in California have been
on hold while waiting for this decision.

WRT Breyer's dissent WRT "democratic decision-making", Alito slammed him
pretty hard:

" _First, we have never held that a provision of the Bill of Rights applies to
the States only if there is a “popular consensus” that the right is
fundamental, and we see no basis for such a rule. But in this case, as it
turns out, there is evidence of such a consensus. An amicus brief submitted by
58 Members of the Senate and 251 Members of the House of Representatives urges
us to hold that the right to keep and bear arms is fundamental.

[...]

Third, JUSTICE BREYER is correct that incorporation of the Second Amendment
right will to some extent limit the legislative freedom of the States, but
this is always true when a Bill of Rights provision is incorporated.
Incorporation always restricts experimentation and local variations, but that
has not stopped the Court from incorporating virtually every other provision
of the Bill of Rights._"

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CWuestefeld
Right now I'm reading Scalia's opinion, in which he's tearing Stevens apart.
For example:

 _That JUSTICE STEVENS is not applying any version of Palko is clear from
comparing, on the one hand, the rights he believes are covered, with, on the
other hand, his con­clusion that the right to keep and bear arms is not
cov­ered._

I've never read a set of opinions in which one member of the court so clearly
slams the opinion of another (although IANAL, let alone a SCOTUS expert). Does
this signal anything about the future of the court, or about the Chief
Justice's leadership?

~~~
hga
Don't know, but today is Stevens last day on the Supreme Court....

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jsz0
I wonder how this will effect the provisions of the Brady bill such as
background checks, waiting periods, bans on felons buying weapons, etc. I'm
all for gun rights but these seem like common sense restrictions. If it
invalidates these provisions an escaped convict could walk into a gun store
and buy guns. A guy with a bunch of priors for beating his wife can walk in a
buy a gun. By the strictest sense of the law it probably raises doubts on age
limitations too. Why can't a 10 year old buy a gun? The second amendment
doesn't set any restrictions.

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russell_h
It wont.

This ruling (as I understand it) mainly has the effect of incorporating[1] the
2nd amendment onto state and local governments, and doesn't deal much with
with actual interpretations of the amendment itself.

In fact according to the article

 _Alito said government can restrict gun ownership in certain instances but
did not elaborate on what those would be. That will be determined in future
litigation._

 _Alito said the court had made clear in its 2008 decision that it was not
casting doubt on such long-standing measures as keeping felons and the
mentally ill from possessing guns or keeping guns out of "sensitive places"
such as schools and government buildings._

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incorporation_of_the_Bill_of_Ri...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incorporation_of_the_Bill_of_Rights)

(Edited for formatting)

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awzum
Yea but the anti-gunners say that a whole lot of new cases will inundate our
courts for the next 10 years...as if that's a bad thing. California passed AB
962 which bans ordering ammunition online, and requires a thumb print and ID
when purchasing ammo in person. I hope that gets fought.

~~~
hga
Well, states and municipalities could decide to observe the Constitution and
preemptively fix their laws; 4 Chicago suburbs with total handgun bans
including the notorious leader Morton Grove were defendants in the original
lawsuits and 3 gave up rather than fight.

And who knows, the really bad states are also in the worst financial shape by
and large (strange, that...), they're going to be under new management sooner
or later (already are in NJ, the other big ones would be NY, MA, IL and CA).

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nearestneighbor
NYT now also has an article about this:

<http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/29/us/29scotus.html>

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ramy_d
i dunno, i thought i would share this:
[http://current.com/shows/vanguard/89716716_fully-
automatic-a...](http://current.com/shows/vanguard/89716716_fully-automatic-
america.htm)

~~~
hga
I haven't watched this, but I'll note two facts:

There are about 100,000 full auto weapons legally owned by civilians in the
US.

There are 3 known crimes that have been committed using a legally owned one,
but two don't exactly count: one was by a cop and the most recent was that
insane case of criminal negligence where a pre-teen was handed a Micro-Uzi and
allowed to fire it without an adult helping.

I wouldn't fire a Micro-Uzi without slowing working up to the point where I
was sure I could handle it. One parent on a gun politics mailing list that I'm
on who owns full auto weapons and who let his kids fire them emphasizes how he
makes sure he has a "death grip" on the weapon to ensure it stays under
control.

That said, the large number of people who've fired rented or borrowed full
auto weapons at events like Knob Creek without incident shows it's not
terribly dangerous.

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CWuestefeld
I agree with the point you're trying to make, but I don't think it's a fair
argument to discount the negligent pre-teen. The fact that you and other
responsible adults would never allow this to happen really doesn't change the
fact that someone did allow it, so it's an honest data point.

Even so, 2 out of 100,000 compares quite favorably to the proportion of
automobiles that have been used in violation of the law, or 1040 forms that
have been used similarly.

~~~
hga
I discount it as a "true crime", it wasn't someone using his weapon to shoot
someone with malice, it was a criminally negligent accident. E.g. if you
bundled someone of the same age into a running car and let them have at it on
your own property we wouldn't say that had anything to do with driver's
licenses, if the vehicle was properly registered with up to date license
plates/tags, etc.

Heck, a Micro-Uzi is essentially a big handgun, you should never give a
handgun to someone that young without intense training and supervision. I
started shooting long guns in kindergarten but was a teen before my father
started me on handguns (other more handgun oriented parents have started their
children on handguns earlier; Massad Ayoob's daughter was winning competitions
as some insane age like 7 or 9).

And that's 100,000 over decades; the law dates back to FDR's first year or so
in power and the number was frozen by another law in 1986.

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dieterrams
I'm not sure science has progressed to the point where we can successfully
graft bear arms onto the human body, but it's nice to see the Supreme Court
thinking ahead.

~~~
awzum
Oh come on, upvote this man for the awesome reference!
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCgCceg042w>

