Sicilianthing

When judges and Courtships were abolished for siding against your basic constitutional rights...HINT !

I'd Like to hear the Clowns chime in here on this one...
Please someone come forth and make an A** of yourselves.


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Supreme Court smacks the Second Amendment

The U.S. Supreme Court recently delivered a big setback to Second Amendment supporters when it refused to hear an appeal (link is external)of a gun rights case out of San Francisco.

Gun owners there challenged a city ordinance that barred concealed carry, and required gun owners to keep their firearms at home, "stored in a locked container or disabled with a trigger lock."

If the facts of the San Francisco case sound familiar it is because they correspond so closely to the facts at issue in the Supreme Court's 2008 ruling in District of Columbia v. Heller (link is external).

In that decision, the Court voided not only D.C.'s ban on handguns, it also voided D.C.'s requirement that all firearms kept at home be "unloaded and dissembled or bound by a trigger lock or similar device."

According to Heller, the Second Amendment protects the right of the people to keep a "lawful firearm in the home operable for the purpose of immediate self-defense."

In other words, the San Francisco gun control law would appear to be plainly unconstitutional under Heller.

Yet the Court still refused to hear the case.

As is customary, the justices gave no explanation for their denial of the appeal.

Except for Justices Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia, who took the unusual step of writing dissents to the Court's decision not to hear the case.

You can read the Thomas dissent here. (link is external) Thomas concludes his opinion with a barb directed right at the appeals court:

We warned in Heller that “[a] constitutional guarantee subject to future judges’ assessments of its usefulness is no constitutional guarantee at all.” 554 U. S., at 634.

The Court of Appeals in this case recognized that San Francisco’s law burdened the core component of the Second Amendment guarantee, yet upheld the law.

Because of the importance of the constitutional right at stake and the questionable nature of the Court of Appeals’ judgment, I would have granted a writ of certiorari.

PaulPisces Loc: San Francisco

The SF law in question does not restrict handguns in the home, which is presumably the issue at the heart of most individuals Second Amendment guarantee - to keep one's home, family and property safe. The law merely sets up safety regulations regarding safe storage. If one finds the "lock" restrictions burdensome the law allows an easy solution: carry the firearm on your person at home:

"San Francisco requires handgun owners to secure weapons in their homes by storing them in a locker, keeping them on their bodies or applying trigger locks. The city also bans the sale of ammunition that expands on impact, has "no sporting purpose" and is commonly referred to as hollow-point bullets."

Marcus Johnson

You are the voice of reason. :thumbup:

Marcus Johnson

Do you ever get tired of being wrong?

CarolSeer2016

MJ, I posted a new comment to my thread "Standing Army--Further Exposition". I'm inserting it here, so that you not embarrass yourself further.

"So the Constitution provides for the Central Government to raise and support land and naval armies, but at the same time, left grounds for States to keep a M*****a, (now known as the National Guard, a French term, in honor of LaFayette); the States could appoint the Officers, and undertake their training.

Thus my interpretation of the 2nd Amendment: A well-regulated M*****a being necessary to the security of a free State--I wonder if the Constitution would have been ratified without that stipulation."

New remark:
It is precisely because States are entitled to a m*****a, that we have the 2nd Amendment to protect our rights as "individual citizens" lest the State M*****a, which could be a bulwark against a central Standing Army, becomes the enforcement arm of a Police State.

Sicilianthing

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Your points are valid here but mute...

Infringe is the key word in the 2nd

SCOTUS' silence is siding in the err of absentia rather than defending the 2nd under infringe...

This is where the lines are being drawn.

PaulPisces Loc: San Francisco

I disagree. SCOTUS simply chose not to hear the case, allowing the Federal Appeals Court to do their job. If there were disparate interpretations of the law among the courts the SCOTUS would have a responsibility to step in and clarify the law. I believe no such situation applies here.

I would tend to agree with this statement from the Appeals Court:

"The San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the requirements are reasonable attempts to increase public safety without trampling on Second Amendment rights."

I fail to see how common-sense restrictions are an abridgment of Second Amendment rights. Kind of like speed limits.

CarolSeer2016

A decision to NOT review, IS a decision.

PaulPisces Loc: San Francisco

Of course all are free to disagree or bellyache about the decision, but the reality is it is landed.

Plus I don't know what standing anyone who does not live in SF has regarding this law, as it applies only within our city limits. If you dislike the laws in your own communities, by all means work to change them. Almost everyone I know sees this particular regulation as no burden to their Second Amendment rights.

CarolSeer2016

Doesn't mean it's right, or even constitutional.

Sicilianthing

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Speed limits are a suggestion, look it up...

Infringing on Ammo and/ or one's rights to interpreting how they safeguard their weapons is intrusion.

Again, this is where the lines are being drawns and the T*****R administration & Agencies are doing run rounds the Constitution to tear away at it's language.

What will it take to get you guys to see this?

Comment Loc: California

I live 2 hrs from SF and I carry my hand gun loaded with hollow points every time I go there. I am a criminal and I don't hoot for the F*ggot SF town. Put a $5 outside the window and the hoes will chase after you till the next red light.

PaulPisces Loc: San Francisco

I remain in disagreement with you on this one. Your rights to interpretation end where others' right to live in safety begin.

Sicilianthing

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Naaaaahhhhhh, that's just how they spinnnnn it for you...

Nice try pal, and so the lines are being drawn and I can see what side you're going to choose.

How many times do the founders have to write it down for you... ?
Trading your freedoms for perceived safety is a FOOLS Game ! ! !

C'mon Paul ...

PaulPisces Loc: San Francisco

While i completely agree that trading freedoms for perceived safety is a fool's game (witness the post-Sept 11 infringements whose main result has been a society of paranoia) I don't think our founders thoughts could have possibly taken into account the culture in which we find ourselves living today.

With an est. 2.5M people in 1776 gun ownership by some accounts hovered around 78% and the greatest portion of those in rural settings. That results in just under 2M NON-AUTOMATIC guns in a largely rural setting.

We now live in a country of 320M people, largely concentrated in dense urban areas and an ownership at just a smidgen under 89%. That works out to almost 285M guns, many of them automatic, in densely populated areas. The number is staggering and the potential for misuse rises exponentially with all the current factors.

While I do believe gun ownership is a fundamental right (despite my commitment to never owning a gun) I see no reason why regulations regarding safe storage, type of gun allowed a non-military citizen, as well as types/volume of ammunition should not be regulated with public safety in mind.

I cannot help but believe that, were they to appear on the scene today, our founding fathers would be horrified at how we have interpreted the Second Amendment.