Thread: Second Amendment - "There is No Right to Carry Any Weapon in Any Manner" (per SCOTUS)

Originally Posted by Rasselas

I'm saying that the 2nd Amendment no longer provides the protection you think it does--unless we start creating private armies. Is that what you want?

Don't ask me. I'm not a 2nd Amendment adherent. I'm putting out a debate for those who are.

It seems that there is a trend in the courts to limit the Second Amendment to being only a right to have a gun at home, not in public. When you think of it, it makes sense. Just because you are in the military doesn't mean you can take your personal issue weapons with you in public, so why should a mere militia have greater rights than the regular forces?

A telling part (bolded and blued below) is where a conservative judge says that unless ordered to by the SCOTUS, he and his fellow judges are not willing to "be even minutely responsible for some un-speakably tragic act of mayhem because in the peace of our judicial chambers we miscalculated as to Second Amendment rights.” He and the other senior judges recognize that America has a serious gun problem, and will not be responsible for making the Second say what the extremists want it to say.

Revisiting the right to bear arms

Vancouver Sun, Tuesday, August 30, 2011

David G. Savage

WASHINGTON – The Second Amendment’s “right to keep and bear arms” is proving to be a right to keep a gun at home, but so far not a right to bear a loaded firearm in public.

The Supreme Court breathed a new life into the amendment when it struck down strict handgun bans in Washington and Chicago and spoke of the “inherent right of self defence.”

But to the dismay of gun rights advocates, judges in recent months have read those decisions narrowly and rejected claims from those who said they had a constitutional right to carry a loaded gun on their person or in their car. Instead, these judges from California to Maryland have said the “core right” to a gun is limited to the home.

Now, the National Rifle Association is asking the high court to take up the issue this fall and “correct the widespread misapprehension that the Second Amendment’s scope does not extend beyond the home.”

Stephen Halbrook, an NRA lawyer, said “some judges have buried their heads in the sand and have refused to go one step further” than saying there is a right to have a gun at home.

The Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence hailed the trend and called the high court’s rulings a “hollow victory” for gun enthusiasts. “The gun lobby has tried to expand (the Second Amendment) into a broad right to carry any type of gun anywhere. And they have been almost unanimously rejected by the courts,” said Jonathan Lowy, director of legal action. He conceded, however, that “this battle is far from over.”

The uncertainty began with the Supreme Court itself. In 2008, Justice Antonin Scalia said the history of the Second Amendment shows it “guarantees the individual right to possess and carry weapons in case of confrontation.” But other parts of his 5-4 opinion stressed there is no right to “carry any weapon in any manner,” and that bans on “carrying concealed weapons were lawful” in the 19th century [sic].

Since then, hundreds of lawsuits have been filed to challenge gun restrictions. In California, federal judges in San Diego and Yolo counties rejected suits from law-abiding gun owners who were denied “concealed carry” permits.

The Second Amendment does not create a fundamental right to carry a concealed weapon in public,” US District Judge Morrison England ruled in May.

“That’s the cutting-edge issue: whether the Second Amendment applies outside the home,” said Chuck Michel, an NRA lawyer in Long Beach, Calif., who has appealed the question to the US 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

State judges in Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts and New York have also ruled recently that there is no constitutional right to carry a loaded gun for self-defence. And in Virginia, the US 4th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the federal conviction of a man who fell asleep in his car near Washington’s Reagan National Airport with a loaded gun.

Despite setbacks in court, gun owners are winning on the political front. Now, 40 states grant concealed-carry permits to qualified gun owners. California, Maryland and Illinois are among the handful of states with large urban populations that deny most or all permits, except to those who show they face a specific danger.

Judges have been wary of second-guessing these restrictions. If the right to bear arms is to apply “outside the home environment, we think it is prudent to await direction from the Supreme Court itself,” US Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson, a prominent conservative on the 4th Circuit bench wrote in March.

“This is serious business. We do not wish to be even minutely responsible for some un-speakably tragic act of mayhem because in the peace of our judicial chambers we miscalculated as to Second Amendment rights.”

The Supreme Court has two appeal petitions before it. In one, Charles Williams, a Maryland Resident, is appealing his one-year jail term for carrying a legally registered gun in a backpack. The other involves Sean Masciandro, the Virginia man who was convicted and fined for “carrying a loaded weapon in a motor vehicle” on national parkland.

Obama administration lawyers are expected to urge the court to steer clear of the issue. However, if the justices vote to hear it, the administration would have to argue that the right to bear arms does not extend to concealed weapons.

Originally Posted by wingrider

so after reading that piece of trash I come to the conclusion that if you are only allowed to have a gun at home and not in public, that pretty much strips of second of its intent, that of personal protection,, what is this tripe.. ? so you are walking down the street and a guy says give me your money or what ever and you respond with. " stay right here while I run home and get my gun, so I can defend myself.. this is ludicrous,

What do you mean, "tripe" and "ludicrous"? It is the law. The 2nd does not say that you can own a gun for personal use in the streets. It says you can own one as part of a well regulated militia. The courts have implied the self defense argument, but they have not stated that it extends to the street. This IS the meaning of the 2nd Amendment. Wishing that the gun laws are something that is different from what they are does people no good. It makes them sound like whiny anti's.

Originally Posted by wingrider

well that is your interpretation.. if you bleeding heart anti gun haters, had your way, nobody in america would have a gun.. you might want to re-read the second and pay special attention to the placement of commas.

notice"

why can't you gun hating people learn to fucking read, ?

It is not my interpretation, wr. It is the interpretation of the SCOTUS. They have looked at it, and what you see is their declaration of what the law is. You arguing with me is pointless. Your calling me names is typical of the kinds of gun owners who are a threat to everybody.

Your immediate personal attack is typical of America's gun problem. You appear to be blind to what I wrote, and instead simply jumped on an angry hobby-horse and lashed out. That attitude is so typical of so much deplorable US gun discipline. It is why guns have come to be hated. Guns have become toys to be owned and carried by too many immature people whose concept of proper gun etiquette is to leave loaded weapons in reach of children, and who carry their guns in public for the purpose (and hope) of shooting others.

Me a gun hater? Hardly. I deplore the irresponsible, harmful, extremist-American gun attitude. I have been a shooter all my life. As a young serviceman I was on a national military rifle team. I own guns and reload my own ammunition. As a responsible gun owner I don't hate guns, I deplore the immature and irresponsible attitudes that have turned the guns instead of the irresponsible users into objects of fear and derision.

Am I attacking you? I don't know and don't care. If the shoe fits, wear it.

Originally Posted by justoneman

Its the right to KEEP and BEAR arms. Meaning you can store them and carry them. The language is very clear on it.

That's what you say. A majority of the SCOTUS appears not to think as you do, so our (your and my) views are meaningless in terms of saying what is the law. After all, they are nine while you are justoneman.