For 2nd Amendment Fans, this is a biggie...

[Bill Mattocks]

Maybe the biggest so far. Amazing how little attention it's receiving in the press, pro or con. Folks, this could be a game-changer, seriously.

As usual, Reason.org has the skinny. Please read:

http://reason.com/archives/2010/02/26/getting-the-14th-amendment-rig

Getting the 14th Amendment Right

The Chicago gun case and the fight for economic liberty

Damon W. Root | February 26, 2010


When the Supreme Court hears oral arguments on March 2, 2010 in the landmark gun rights case McDonald v. Chicago, the Second Amendment won’t be the only thing on the justices’ minds. That’s because when it comes to protecting constitutional rights from the depredations of state and local governments, the Court must obey the 14th Amendment, which commands: “No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.”
McDonald will therefore turn on whether the right to keep and bear arms applies to Chicago via the 14th Amendment’s Privileges or Immunities Clause or via its Due Process Clause. That distinction matters because the Privileges or Immunities Clause has been a dead letter since the controversial Slaughterhouse Cases of 1873, which gutted the clause while upholding a state-sanctioned slaughterhouse monopoly in Louisiana. And despite overwhelming historical evidence that the Privileges or Immunities Clause was specifically written and ratified after the Civil War in order to secure individual rights against state abuse—including the right to armed self-defense—Slaughterhouse has never been overturned.
So the stakes in McDonald are high indeed. And they aren’t just limited to gun rights.

And by the way, this last bit applies to EVERYONE. Whether you agree with gun right or not, whether you're a fan of the 2nd Amendment or not:

That’s the historical context that produced the 14th Amendment. As the Institute for Justice writes in the friend of the court brief it filed in McDonald, “To enslave a class of people requires three basic things: destroy their self-sufficiency, prevent them from fighting back, and silence any opposition. Southern states did all of those things both before and after the Civil War, and the point of the Fourteenth Amendment was to make them stop.”

We will 'reform health care' to take away self-sufficiency (state control of wages, costs, and medical spending), silence any opposition (through new 'anti-terrorist' wiretap and cell phone tracking laws), and oh yeah, take away the guns (no more threat of fighting back). No thugs in our house, are there dear? Yeah, the thugs run the house.

 

[Deaf Smith]

You know gang, I teach CHL classes here in Texas and have never charged the prices they charge at most other CHL establishments. Why? Cause I feel it's a right, not a privilege as most licenses are. The idea of a license is you have to get permission. Basic rights don’t need permission. In fact the constitution says these rights are inalienable God given rights (and it also says these are not the only rights, just ones they wrote down.)

So if by incorporation they basically say anyone who is not a convicted felon or nut case, can own and pack heat (like they do now in Vermont and Alaska) then I'm all for it!

http://gunowners.org/vtcarry.htm

Explains what 'Vermont Carry' is about.

I hope SCOTUS says the '2nd Amendment' is just like the rest (and why shouldn't it be!!) As long as everyone who packs heat behaves themselves, there is no problem.

Deaf

 

[Bill Mattocks]

http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/03/01/supreme.court.gun.control/

Supreme Court to address limits of gun control

Chicago passed its ban on handguns in 1982, one of the most restrictive in the U.S. It is that law that is being challenged in the Supreme Court.
A study last year by economist Carl Moody of William & Mary College found that after the ban was imposed, city crime rates rose significantly, almost immediately. The city is more dangerous now than it was before the ban, the study concluded, relative to the 24 largest American cities.

 

[Cryozombie]

The Supreme court kinda tore Chicago a new one today. I'm not completely thru the transcripts yet... but man they tore into Feldman and his arguments.

 

[Marginal]

We will 'reform health care' to take away self-sufficiency (state control of wages, costs, and medical spending), silence any opposition (through new 'anti-terrorist' wiretap and cell phone tracking laws), and oh yeah, take away the guns (no more threat of fighting back). No thugs in our house, are there dear? Yeah, the thugs run the house.

This court? The same court that has already overturned precedent simply because a previous case had a dissenting opinion?

This court will gut the second amendment? I don't see that happening.

 

[Makalakumu]

I've been starting to talk to my neighbors and friends about this. If we win this, or even if we don't I think I'm going to try and get them to go out and buy a gun. Even if it's locked up in the closet somewhere, it serves the Founding Father's purpose.

 

[Carol]

I've been starting to talk to my neighbors and friends about this. If we win this, or even if we don't I think I'm going to try and get them to go out and buy a gun. Even if it's locked up in the closet somewhere, it serves the Founding Father's purpose.

Not that you asked for advice, but I'd personally recommend something different.

Rather than encouraging them to go out and buy a gun, encourage them to go out and try an NRA gun safety class. The basic class does a lot to demistify firearms and their usage. It also teaches lessons that everyone should know before they handle a firearm, and certainly before they bring one in to their home. :asian:

 

[Cryozombie]

One of my favorite parts of the transcript... Mr. Feldman, the lawyer for the city, trying to explain WHY the gun ban is not unconstitutional:

MR. FELDMAN: The overwhelming consensus among the State courts in interpreting the wide variety of different types of provisions that they have is that it imposes a reasonable regulation standard that is not violated by banning a particular weapon or a particular class of weapons, as long as you are allowing some kind of firearm, and that is not the right that this Court recognized in Heller.

JUSTICE SCALIA: Is that what you are asserting here, that the States have to allow firearms?

MR. FELDMAN: No.

JUSTICE SCALIA: Is that?

MR.FELDMAN: I -- I didn't think I was.

 

[Makalakumu]

Not that you asked for advice, but I'd personally recommend something different.

Rather than encouraging them to go out and buy a gun, encourage them to go out and try an NRA gun safety class. The basic class does a lot to demistify firearms and their usage. It also teaches lessons that everyone should know before they handle a firearm, and certainly before they bring one in to their home. :asian:

Thank you, Carol. I never neglect to talk about training. My JJ instructor is a licensed firearms instructor and he pretty much gives classes for free to people in the dojo ohana.

The point of doing this is to prevent further erosion of our rights by making sure as many people as possible are using their rights.

 

[LuckyKBoxer]

The way I understand it Scotus is going to decide that the 2nd Amendment applies to states, now the main hang up will be the ridiculous "reasonable restrictions" copout, that should be used to weed out the majority of our government instead of used as an excuse to take away our freedoms and rights, we should have "reasonable restrictions" on politicians common sense and abilities.
As far as the whole taking our guns away, I know several people they will never take guns away from, and I feel sorry for the first several traitors given the task of removing them if it ever does happen.

 

[LuckyKBoxer]

Not that you asked for advice, but I'd personally recommend something different.

Rather than encouraging them to go out and buy a gun, encourage them to go out and try an NRA gun safety class. The basic class does a lot to demistify firearms and their usage. It also teaches lessons that everyone should know before they handle a firearm, and certainly before they bring one in to their home. :asian:

I feel that any martial art today, and especially those that teach gun disarms should absolutely require hands on training for firearms. I do not want to dictate that my students should own a firearm, or be pro firearm, because that is a choice for them to make about themselves, but I would feel like a disgusting scam artist if I actually taught them how to handle a fake firearm, and never requested they get hands on experience.

 

[David43515]

One of my favorite parts of the transcript... Mr. Feldman, the lawyer for the city, trying to explain WHY the gun ban is not unconstitutional:

Just curious because I`d love to follow this more closely. Where are you finding the transcripts?

 

[Cryozombie]

Just curious because I`d love to follow this more closely. Where are you finding the transcripts?

I have a PDF of the transcript on my work PC sent to me by a member of a Pro carry board I belong to.