McDonald v City of Chicago

[davidwiz]

US Supreme Court opinion issued today in McDonald v City of Chicago. A 5-4 decision that the 14th Amendment does incorporate the Second Amendment right recognized in Heller to keep and bear arms in self defense. The Appellate decision was overturned the court remanded it back to the 7th Circuit.

RKBA prevails again!

Edited June 28, 2010 by davidwiz

[davidwiz]

McDonald opinion here.

[Flexmoney]

We wanted to open this back up to allow a bit of information discussion. (Please, refrain from a bunch of political banter, and keep it about the information exchange.)

- Moderator Team

[Sarge]

Flex, that sure is asking alot! Political Banter? If I said something like the Second Ammendment is a constitutional ammendment why was a mere city ever allowed to ban gun ownership in the first place? Would that be OK?

It is a great step in the right direction for all of us! A 5-4 victory worries me since Stevens voted for us but it was his last official act before retiring, so he is going to be replaced. The most recent appointee, Sotomayor, voted against us. Gee who did that surprise? And the current candidate has expressed anti second ammendment views.

I would not break out the champagne just yet.

[Flexmoney]

Flex, that sure is asking alot! Political Banter? If I said something like the Second Ammendment is a constitutional ammendment why was a mere city ever allowed to ban gun ownership in the first place? Would that be OK?

Good question, really.

Ask yourself why you are saying it? Is your motivation for such a grumble...or an exchange of information. We'd like the exchange of information, and not the grumble. (There are plenty of places to grumble besides here.)

Thanks for asking.

- Admin.

[DWFAN]

Ive read some views on this ruling that say, "yeah, its good for guns, but BAD for state and local government, and only makes the FEDERAL govt bigger, and more powerful."

Anyone share that point of view(or not) and can explain it to a non-political science educated person ?

[Sarge]

I'm not a grumbler. And this is the only forum I visit, period. Just like everybody else here right?

My question was legit.

[M ammo]

5-4 Is Scary to think that 4 of the Supreme Court Judges Cannot read What is written in English.

"Shall not be Infringed"

Yes I don't have a degree in Law but I understand that just fine with my Public School Education.

[BritinUSA]

I think the issue here is that the Justices have seen a 'Right to bear Arms' that does not specify the definition of 'Arms'. Therefore I think what they are saying is that you have the Right and the States cannot infringe on that right to own guns, but they (the 'States') can restrict the type of guns, but not to the point where it becomes an essential ban.

What Chicago has done is to essentially ban guns which infringes on the Right. They may restrict based on type and/or number but they may not prevent a citizen from owning a gun.

I don't see that this gives the Federal Government more control over this issue.

[XRe]

Ive read some views on this ruling that say, "yeah, its good for guns, but BAD for state and local government, and only makes the FEDERAL govt bigger, and more powerful."

Anyone share that point of view(or not) and can explain it to a non-political science educated person ?

It does nothing to make the Federal government bigger or more powerful. It's only bad for state and local government in the sense that it removes (falsely obtained) power. It makes The People more powerful by reaffirming a right they had all along (in most of our thinking) - that, in effect, makes all government just a tad smaller and less powerful, across the board.

While pretty much any reasonable person would realize that the Bill of Rights applies to all, especially with the presence of the 14th, the courts and legislatures like to think it doesn't, so they've tested that situation through the years, resulting in this current phenomenon of "incorporation in the 14th" that has required the SCOTUS to go through and positively affirm each Amendment as applying to all governments, and not just the Federal government. This happened with most of the other amendments, as well - the 2nd was conspicuously left out of SCOTUS case law until these two recent decisions. Like it or not, this is the legal machinery as it works in our country - just be happy that it appears to have moved in the right direction here.

As to what will happen w/o Stevens on board ... well, I don't like a lot of his politics, but he was good here, and he's been good in the technology areas (see Ars Technica's article on him: http://arstechnica.c...yptographer.ars )... so his retirement may mean a lot more than just replacing one relatively liberal judge with a much more liberal judge... Let's just be glad we got Heller and McDonald decided, at this point, and hope that the court doesn't go through any other changes any time soon....

ETA - I opined on my Facebook page that it might be very interesting to see what would result, now, if someone were to bring forward cases based on the "... and bear ..." part of the Amendment, since a number of states still have no CHL process, or effectively have none (ie, so-called "shall issue" permits)... Composition of the courts aside, and leaving the argument of whether the government should be able to put so-called "reasonable restrictions" on our right to carry arms (Heller reaffirms that they believe they have this right) alone, for the moment... This could also result in those states now having to provide a "must issue" CHL, and force reciprocity across the board, etc... I won't hold my breath, but the implications of incorporation are many and great, and this could lead to a number of better things...

Edited June 29, 2010 by XRe

[Jman]

Justice Alito's references to the 39th congress (pg 28 of the opinion) is a stroke of pure judicial brilliance in my very limited opinion.

Here is an excerpt...

In debating the Fourteenth Amendment, the 39th Con-gress referred to the right to keep and bear arms as afundamental right deserving of protection. Senator Sam-uel Pomeroy described three “indispensable” “safeguards of liberty under our form of Government.” 39th Cong.Globe 1182. One of these, he said, was the right to keep and bear arms:

“Every man . . . should have the right to bear arms for the defense of himself and family and his home-stead. And if the cabin door of the freedman is broken open and the intruder enters for purposes as vile as were known to slavery, then should a well-loaded musket be in the hand of the occupant to send the pol-luted wretch to another world, where his wretched-ness will forever remain complete.” Ibid.

...awesome.

[addicted]

Its a great victory for us, but it is really sad that something as clear as "shall not be infringed" needed to be decided by the supreme court.

[XRe]

n

since Stevens voted for us

BTW - where did you get this? I didn't follow up before responding above, but did just now... Stevens wrote one of the two dissenting opinions in the decision, and was one of the four voting against (against were Stevens, Breyer, Sotomayor, and Ginsburg... for were Scalia, Alito, Kennedy, Thomas, and Roberts).

So... no change in the makeup of this vote should Kagan be confirmed...

[GentlemanJim]

Its a great victory for us, but it is really sad that something as clear as "shall not be infringed" needed to be decided by the supreme court.

The truly sick part of this is that four of the Judges will over ride the constitution for their own opinions

This is a victory, but our rights are still very fragile

Jim

[XRe]

Potentially interesting reading... I'm getting through these as I have time today - the quick skim says "interesting" to me, though...

http://joshblackman.com/blog/?p=4764&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+JoshBlackmansBlog+(Josh+Blackman's+Blog)&utm_content=Bloglines

http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/2010/06/29/a-few-more-points-on-mcdonald/

[jar]

ETA - I opined on my Facebook page that it might be very interesting to see what would result, now, if someone were to bring forward cases based on the "... and bear ..." part of the Amendment, since a number of states still have no CHL process, or effectively have none (ie, so-called "shall issue" permits)... Composition of the courts aside, and leaving the argument of whether the government should be able to put so-called "reasonable restrictions" on our right to carry arms (Heller reaffirms that they believe they have this right) alone, for the moment... This could also result in those states now having to provide a "must issue" CHL, and force reciprocity across the board, etc... I won't hold my breath, but the implications of incorporation are many and great, and this could lead to a number of better things...

There are two 'bear' cases pending. Sykes v McGinness in California and Palmer v DC.

Also pending are two cases challenging the 'safe handgun roster' in CA (Pena v Cid) and DC (Hanson v DC). The Calguns wiki is a great source of info on this stuff: http://wiki.calgunsfoundation.org/index.php/Main_Page#Important_Cases

[XRe]

I didn't know about the "bear" cases, but did know about the "safe handgun" cases... Thanks for the calguns link...

[Sarge]

n

since Stevens voted for us

BTW - where did you get this? I didn't follow up before responding above, but did just now... Stevens wrote one of the two dissenting opinions in the decision, and was one of the four voting against (against were Stevens, Breyer, Sotomayor, and Ginsburg... for were Scalia, Alito, Kennedy, Thomas, and Roberts).

So... no change in the makeup of this vote should Kagan be confirmed...

I swore I heard it said on the nightly news. Maybe they misspoke or I probably Misheard.