most of the FOR were republican appointee's and most of the AGAINST were democrat appointee's................imagine that!!
Do we really want Osama appointing judges??? The "BLACK DEMOCRATIC" mayor of Washington has stated on the news that he was against the ruling and have already thrown a lot of paper work out there to slow the process down!!
Phil,
I'm trying very hard to read your posts and believe you can't possible be like your posts. I'm not sure you needed to call the mayor of D.C. the "BLACK DEMOCRATIC" mayor????? I know you dislike Democrats, but why put BLACK in caps also?? Come on Phil!!
The function of SCOTUS is to do just what it did. Some managed to miss the whole point of the decision. It simply said that "unreasonable regulation" is unconstitutional and attacks the citizen's right to keep and bear arms! Good!
The decision simply did what I predicted. It struck down D.C.'s
sweeping, unreasonable ban on guns as it should have, but it did not say that no regulation about gun ownership could exist. It just put the country on notice that "unreasonable regulation" like in D.C. is unconstitutional. Good for them!!
(NOTE WHAT THE DISSENTING OPINION HELD BELOW)
Yet the lead dissent, by Justice John Paul Stevens,
did not dispute that the Second Amendment protects an individual right. Rather, he wrote, the question was the "scope of that right," which protected militia service but left additional regulation to the judgment of the legislature. The Second Amendment's drafting history revealed the founders' "concern about the potential threat to state sovereignty that a federal standing army would pose," something that could be checked by state militias, he wrote, joined by Justices David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer.
S
calia does not even believe all gun regulation is unconstitutional.
In a footnote, Justice Scalia noted that the issue known as "incorporation" -- whether federal rights also are binding on state governments -- wasn't before the court, and observed that prior cases "reaffirmed that the Second Amendment applies only to the Federal Government." In a 1997 book, he suggested views even more ominous for gun enthusiasts, writing that
"properly understood, [the amendment] is no limitation upon arms control by the states."
My reading of the decision is that the (1.) 2nd Amendment rights apply to individual citizens which the dissenting opinion did not oppose (no change since 1939 decision), and (2.) gun regulation must be "reasonable" or it is unconstitutional. In effect the ruling said that D.C. and like political areas cannot make unreasonable, sweeping anti gun laws which is great news! Don't expect all gun regulation to disappear!
The historical (hysterical) argument:
The main argument has always been as to whether the Founding Fathers referred to the "keeping and bearing of arms" (1.) as including cannon, armories, all weapons of war needed by the militia to protect itself from the newly formed Federal Standing Army, or (2.) It meant to protect the average farmer's right to keep personal arms for hunting and self defense against Indians, etc.
Who could possible believe the Founding Fathers could have even considered that the Federal Government would try to take away hunting rifles in the 1780's? A ridiculous, but a convenient interpretation today! Remember that even at the writing of the 2nd Amendment there were restrictions as to where a firearm could be kept and born. If a group of men had entered the area where the Constitution was being debated with pistols under their coats do you believe that the Founding Fathers would have said, "No problem, that is their right!" Not a chance!
