Breaking News! Supreme Court Ruling

[NCLee]

Don't have any details or links, yet. Fox News just announced that the Supreme Court ruled that cities can't forbid gun ownership in homes. Thus, the Chicago ban on gun ownership is unconstitutional.

Thought I'd share what I've heard, so far, with you.

Lee

[backlash]

As usual the SCOTUS left a lot of room for Chicago to worm out of it.
The mayor said he will use every trick he can to keep people from owning handguns.
No rule will be to stupid for him.
Maybe a 1 bullet per month law or a shooting test nobody could pass.
Then it's back to court to force them every time.
SCOTUS need to rule the 2nd means what it says.
Shall not be infringed period.
They never will of course but I can dream.

[tufhelp]

It squeaked by (5-4 vote) and they left the door wide open for the cities/states to enact future stringent rules to limit access to guns...

"The victory might be more symbolic than substantive, at least initially. Few cities have laws as restrictive as those in Chicago and Washington.

Alito said government can restrict gun ownership in certain instances but did not elaborate on what those would be. That will be determined in future litigation.


Alito said the court had made clear in its 2008 decision that it was not casting doubt on such long-standing measures as keeping felons and the mentally ill from possessing guns or keeping guns out of "sensitive places" such as schools and government buildings.


"We repeat those assurances here," Alito wrote. "Despite municipal respondents' doomsday proclamations, [the decision] does not imperil every law regulating firearms."

Supreme Court rules that all Americans have fundamental right to bear arms
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/28/AR2010062802134_pf.html

By Robert Barnes
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, June 28, 2010; 1:11 PM

"The Supreme Court ruled for the first time Monday that the Second Amendment provides all Americans a fundamental right to bear arms, a long-sought victory for gun rights advocates who have chafed at federal, state and local efforts to restrict gun ownership.
The court was considering a restrictive handgun law in Chicago and one of its suburbs that was similar to the District law that it ruled against in 2008. The 5 to 4 decision does not strike any other gun control measures currently in place, but it provides a legal basis for challenges across the country where gun owners think that government has been too restrictive.
"It is clear that the Framers . . . counted the right to keep and bear arms among those fundamental rights necessary to our system of ordered liberty," Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. wrote for the conservatives on the court"

[MEBrian]

First, I couldn't be happier with the decision.

2nd, What's up with the 4 dissenting votes? What portion of the simple words that compose the Second Amendment can't they understand !!?? These are educated people? Morons, more like it.

3rd, makes no difference anyway, my rights come from YHVH and no person, repeat no person, will remove that right from me while I live. The 2nd Amendment merely enumerates the rights given to us by the ALMIGHTY.

I'd like to know who the dissenting votes were.

[tufhelp]

The dissenting votes were all liberal and they voted their "values" rather than the job they were hire to do; deciding if the law(s) meet constitutional standards...

[momma_to_seven_chi]

2nd, What's up with the 4 dissenting votes? What portion of the simple words that compose the Second Amendment can't they understand !!?? These are educated people? Morons, more like it.



Breyer said something that amounted to the argument that the federal government shouldn't take away the states rights to make laws. It didn't make any sense to me.
here's the quote--
""""incorporation of the Second Amendment right will to some extent limit the legislative freedom of the States"""

The discenting votes were Breyer, Stephens, and the two lady Justices.

[NCLee]

The government can't take away anything thing from the states that they don't have to begin with. He's saying, in essence, that states have the right to restrict guns. That's not the case. According to the constitution, states don't have that right, thus the federal government can't take it away from them.

At least that's the way I understand it.

Lee

[momma_to_seven_chi]

The government can't take away anything thing from the states that they don't have to begin with. He's saying, in essence, that states have the right to restrict guns. That's not the case. According to the constitution, states don't have that right, thus the federal government can't take it away from them.

At least that's the way I understand it.

Lee

I kind of translated it that way too... that he feels states have the right to make laws on guns and the federal government shouldn't take that away through the second amendment. It doesn't even make sense as an argument to me. .... or perhaps I should have said the supreme court shouldn't take that away through the second amendment. I guess he felt the states should have the right to make laws that ignore the constitution. At least that is what it sounded like. It doesn't make sense.

[Shoden]

I was really happy to hear this yesterday, since I've been following this from the beginning, and it was great to have the Supreme Court rule the way I hoped and expected.

Now, to clarify/answer a couple of questions that have been asked in this thread:

"According to the constitution, states don't have that right, thus the federal government can't take it away from them"

"I guess he felt the states should have the right to make laws that ignore the constitution."

The Constitution, as originally written, was a limit on the Federal government, not on the States. The Bill of Rights only prevented the Federal government from violating the enumerated rights. For example, the 1st Amendment forbade Congress making a law "respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof". This placed no restrictions on the States, and in fact this clause was part of the 1st Amendment partially because many of the original States had their own State religions and didn't want the new Federal government interfering with them.

It wasn't until the 14th Amendment that the protections in the Bill of Rights started to apply to the States, and even then, not all of the rights were treated equally. Prior to yesterday, most of them had been applied to the States, and yesterday the Supreme Court finally ruled that the right to keep and bare arms is a fundamental right and should be treated just like freedom of religion, speech, assembly, and other protected rights.

There are still some rights in the Bill of Rights that don't apply to the States, like the first part of the 5th Amendment: "No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury".

[NCLee]

Thanks for the clarification. Wish I didn't have to admit that I dont know as much about the Constitution as I should know. :o

Lee

[Shoden]

No problem. We're all constantly learning and it wasn't too many years ago that I would have asked the same questions or had the same opinion that you did, and then for a while I went to the opposite extreme with States' Rights.