10 years after Heller, anti's fight on

Discussion of Firearm Politics & Legislation. This forum is now strictly limited to discussions directly related to firearms.

Moderators: Chuck, Mustang380gal, Coordinators, Moderators

Post Reply
bignflnut
Volunteer
Volunteer
Posts: 8135
Joined: Mon Jun 30, 2008 12:14 pm
Location: Under Naybob Tinfoil Bridge
Contact:

10 years after Heller, anti's fight on

Post by bignflnut »

The Supreme Court decided the landmark Second Amendment case District of Columbia v. Heller 10 years ago Tuesday, recognizing for the first time an individual right of “law-abiding, responsible citizens” to have a gun in the home for self-defense. But as students from Parkland to Chicago focus our attention on the scourge of gun violence, it’s important to remember what Heller also made clear: the constitutional right to keep and bear arms is not absolute. Despite efforts by the National Rifle Association to distort the meaning of that right, courts of all ideological perspectives around the country have overwhelmingly confirmed that there is no conflict between reasonable, commonsense gun laws and the Second Amendment.

SNIP

The explanation for this overwhelming pattern of courts upholding gun laws is not complicated, although it is often ignored in the heated public debate around guns and the Second Amendment. While the Heller decision controversially recognized an individual right to own guns, it also recognized that “Like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited.” The Supreme Court emphasized that its decision did not “cast doubt on” laws prohibiting the possession of firearms by felons and people with dangerous mental illnesses; laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places like schools; regulations on gun sales; and prohibitions on certain dangerous weapons.

As a result, judges of diverse geographic and political backgrounds have repeatedly upheld reasonable gun laws as consistent with the Second Amendment, recognizing that states and cities have a substantial and important government interest in promoting public safety and reducing gun violence.
If Rights are not absolute, they're meaningless.
For the principal aim of society is to protect individuals in the enjoyment of those absolute rights, which were vested in them by the immutable laws of nature, but which could not be preserved in peace without that mutual assistance and intercourse which is gained by the institution of friendly and social communities. Hence it follows, that the first and primary end of human laws is to maintain and regulate these absolute rights of individuals. Such rights as are social and relative result from, and are posterior to, the formation of states and societies: so that to maintain and regulate these is clearly a subsequent consideration. And, therefore, the principal view of human laws is, or ought always to be, to explain, protect, and enforce such rights as are absolute, which in themselves are few and simple: and then such rights as are relative, which, arising from a variety of connections, will be far more numerous and more complicated. These will take up a greater space in any code of laws, and hence may appear to be more attended to—though in reality they are not—than the rights of the former kind. Let us therefore proceed to examine how far all laws ought, and how far the laws of England actually do, take notice of these absolute rights, and provide for their lasting security.

The absolute rights of man, considered as a free agent, endowed with discernment to know good from evil, and with power of choosing those measures which appear to him to be most desirable, are usually summed up in one general appellation, and denominated the natural liberty of mankind. This natural liberty consists properly in a power of acting as one thinks fit, without any restraint or control, unless by the law of nature; being a right inherent in us by birth, and one of the gifts of God to man at his creation, when he endued him with the faculty of free will. But every man, when he enters into society, gives up a part of his natural liberty, as the price of so valuable a purchase; and, in consideration of receiving the advantages of mutual commerce, obliges himself to conform to those laws, which the community has thought proper to establish. And this species of legal obedience and conformity is infinitely more desirable than that wild and savage liberty which is sacrificed to obtain it. For no man that considers a moment would wish to retain the absolute and uncontrolled power of doing whatever he pleases: the consequence of which is, that every other man would also have the same power, and then there would be no security to individuals in any of the enjoyments of life. Political, therefore, or civil liberty, which is that of a member of society, is no other than natural liberty so far restrained by human laws (and no farther) as is necessary and expedient for the general advantage of the public.[3] Hence we may collect that the law, which restrains a man from doing mischief to his fellow-citizens, though it diminishes the natural, increases the civil liberty of mankind; but that every wanton and causeless restraint of the will of the subject, whether practised by a monarch, a nobility, or a popular assembly, is a degree of tyranny: nay, that even laws themselves, whether made with or without our consent, if they regulate and constrain our conduct in matters of more indifference, without any good end in view, are regulations destructive of liberty: whereas, if any public advantage can arise from observing such precepts, the control of our private inclinations, in one or two particular points, will conduce to preserve our general freedom in others of more importance; by supporting that state of society, which alone can secure our independence.
“It’s not that we don’t have enough scoundrels to curse; it’s that we don’t have enough good men to curse them.”–G.K. Chesterton-Illustrated London News, 3-14-1908

Republicans.Hate.You. See2020.

"Avarice, ambition, revenge and licentiousness would break the strongest cords of our Constitution, as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." John Adams to Mass Militia 10-11-1798
bignflnut
Volunteer
Volunteer
Posts: 8135
Joined: Mon Jun 30, 2008 12:14 pm
Location: Under Naybob Tinfoil Bridge
Contact:

Re: 10 years after Heller, anti's fight on

Post by bignflnut »

Thomas has repeatedly complained about his colleagues' neglect of the right to arms, calling it "this Court's constitutional orphan." Antonin Scalia, who wrote the majority opinion in Heller and died in 2016, joined Thomas's dissent from the decision not to scrutinize the Highland Park "assault weapon" ban, and Scalia's replacement, Neil Gorsuch, agreed with Thomas that the Court should have reviewed California's "near-total prohibition of public carry."

Three other current justices joined the majority in Heller. Since it takes four votes for the Court to accept a case, at least two of them seem reluctant to say anything further about the Second Amendment. Judging from Samuel Alito's concurring opinion in the stun gun case, which faulted his colleagues for a "grudging" decision that stopped short of overturning the ban, the two holdouts are probably John Roberts and Anthony Kennedy.

"You have to imagine that at some point in the future of our country the Supreme Court will take another Second Amendment case," Gura said on Gun Talk. "But until that happens, Heller has become optional."
“It’s not that we don’t have enough scoundrels to curse; it’s that we don’t have enough good men to curse them.”–G.K. Chesterton-Illustrated London News, 3-14-1908

Republicans.Hate.You. See2020.

"Avarice, ambition, revenge and licentiousness would break the strongest cords of our Constitution, as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." John Adams to Mass Militia 10-11-1798
bignflnut
Volunteer
Volunteer
Posts: 8135
Joined: Mon Jun 30, 2008 12:14 pm
Location: Under Naybob Tinfoil Bridge
Contact:

Re: 10 years after Heller, anti's fight on

Post by bignflnut »

Image
“It’s not that we don’t have enough scoundrels to curse; it’s that we don’t have enough good men to curse them.”–G.K. Chesterton-Illustrated London News, 3-14-1908

Republicans.Hate.You. See2020.

"Avarice, ambition, revenge and licentiousness would break the strongest cords of our Constitution, as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." John Adams to Mass Militia 10-11-1798
M-Quigley
Posts: 4783
Joined: Wed Jun 24, 2015 10:06 pm
Location: Western Ohio

Re: 10 years after Heller, anti's fight on

Post by M-Quigley »

There's an inaccuracy in the picture. The people at the bottom of the pic aren't going to take anything from anybody, that's not how they operate. They vote for sherifffs or politicians who appoint the police chiefs, and those people might order these guys to enforce the gun laws. :(

Image
Post Reply