Bad news -- Gunmakers lose challenge of assault weapons ban

While I feel the same frustration, I will offer that I believe some of our angst is overdone, and misplaced. And, I do hope an attorney will check in here to verify my logic and beliefs.

First, dischord, welcome to TFL! Hope you like it here ... it is a great bunch of folks ... a veritable, interactive encyclopedia.


Regarding this case, I believe dischord is correct ... sounds like the Court denied certiorari, and simply will not hear this case. For the parties involved, it means their appeals are over, and they're done. And, for us, it means this portion of the Crime Bill stands. However, I don't believe this can or should be seen as a ruling on the Second Amendment.

I do not believe that even if the Supreme Court took this case they could have ruled on the Second Amendment. I haven't read the original District Court (I presume, from the story) case, nor the appeal. But, no mention of the Second Amendment was made. If the plaintiffs attorneys did not raise the Second Amendment, and if the court of original jurisdiction did not address the issue, I don't believe the Supreme Court could have just pulled it out of thin air, so to speak. That is, I don't believe it is normal jurisprudence for a higher Court to create arguments that the involved parties had to raise in the original litigation. (I assume we could find, somewhere, a good discussion of why the Second was not raised originally ... perhaps another TFL member will oblige with a link to that story.)

As an aside, at GRPC 2000 this past weekend (see www.saf.org ), there was more discussion that U.S. v. Emerson might not even be decided on Second Amendment grounds. It may be some time before the Supreme Court gives us any further 'guidance' on the Second. If Bush is elected, that could be a good thing. If not, well, I suppose we'll have less to wait for and wonder about. ;)

Regards from AZ

[This message has been edited by Jeff Thomas (edited October 03, 2000).]
 
What is needed is for a Mfgr to open a factory in a state and then sell the firearms directly to the public in that state only. They could sell only to people who held valid drivers licences of that state and reject all other buyers.

This would place them in the realm of purely intrastate commerce as opposed to interstate commerce. Of course the feds would attempt to put them out of business but the feds have no jurisdiction in intrastate sales and commerce. Only the state itself has that authority. Now to find a friendly state and, even more importantly, a manufacturer with guts.

This Court has not had recent occasion to consider the nature of the substantive right safeguarded by the Second Amendment. [n.1] If, however, the Second Amendment is read to confer a personal right to "keep and bear arms," a colorable argument exists that the Federal Government's regulatory scheme, at least as it pertains to the purely intrastate sale or possession of firearms, runs afoul of that Amendment's protections. [n.2] As the parties did not raise this argument, however, we need not consider it here. Perhaps, at some future date, this Court will have the opportunity to determine whether Justice Story was correct when he wrote that the right to bear arms "has justly been considered, as the palladium of the liberties of a republic." 3 J. Story, Commentaries §1890, p. 746 (1833).
Printz v. United States, 521 U.S. 98 (1997) Justice Thomas concurring

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Gun Control: The proposition that a woman found dead in an alley, raped and strangled with her own panty hose, is more acceptable than allowing that same woman to defend herself with a firearm.

[This message has been edited by jimpeel (edited October 03, 2000).]
 
I found this on another forum...


There are only a few ways a case can be heard by the U.S. Supreme Court. One of these ways is via a "Writ of Certiorari." Any "writ of certiorari" is a discretionary appeal, meaning that the Supreme Court does not have a duty to hear the case. The Supreme Court rejects hearing about 95% of the cases that are filed with it each year. When the Supreme Court denies hearing a case presented to it via certiorari, it has nothing to do with the merits of the case.

One of the type cases that the Supreme Court often will hear, is when two or more Federal Courts of Appeal have arrived at different conclusions concerning a point of law.

When you file a Petition for Certiorari with the U.S. Supreme Court, there is a 95% chance or greater that you have wasted your time and money, because it will not be heard.


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NRA Joe's Second Amendment Discussion Forum

http://Second.Amendment.Homepage.com
 
JimPeel: As I recall, there's actually precident to the effect that if you raise crops on your own farm, for your own consumption, that can be regulated as interstate commerce... On the theory that if you hadn't raised those crops, you would have had to have bought them, and the crops you bought might have been from another state. It's pretty much settled Supreme court jurisprudence that ALL commerce is "interstate" for purposes of the interstate commerce clause!

The Supreme court IS still balking, though, at declaring that everything is commerce... We could expect THAT ruling from the Gore court.

In my opinion NRAlife is right; The only avenue left open to challenging the constitutionality of gun control laws IS the Second amendment. So maybe the NRA will be forced to bite that bullet, even though they'd rather not.

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Sic semper tyrannis!
 
I just read on the AR-15 General board that all of the Circuit Court of Appeals except for the 5th, has all ready ruled that "individuals" have no standing to bring a case to trial on 2nd Amendment grounds! If this is true, we really are in a world of hurt. If individuals can not bring a case, who can? Would it have to be a class action suit?

Does anyone know if this guy knows what he is talking about?


Thanks,
Joe
 
We have to wait for the Emerson vs USA to be played out. That will determine the future (meaning, if we can get this turned around in the courts). If the Emerson is not favorable to the 2nd amendment in the 5th District then we need to make other plans.
 
I spotted this one that gives and interesting view of the court its lenthy I only copied a few paragrapsh to wet your taste buds.
It also has a line in it that to me should have helped kill the court in the case of suing the CA. over their assault weapons ban and the state adding more guns to the list.
Youll have to follow the link to read that part but it reads something like

'NO state could deprive its citizens of the privilidges and immunities of the bill of rights'
Adamson vs. CA.
Hmmm seems the CA. legislature is doing just that and that the US 2nd has to apply to the state and thus the judges last ruling that the state has no 'RKBA' amendment to its state constitution would be a conflicting ruling.

Vol. 13, No. 08
April 14, 1997
Table of Contents

Judicial Tyranny
by Samuel Francis

Dr. Samuel Francis is a nationally syndicated columnist and editor of The Samuel Francis Letter.

Since at least the era of the Warren Court in the 1950s, the abuses of the American judicial system and the corruption of constitutional government by the courts have been major causes of concern for American conservatives. In the last few years, however, as federal courts have repeatedly struck down popularly and legally enacted laws intended to protect American liberties and have imposed their own rulings as laws on communities that never voted for them, more and more Americans are expressing alarm. To many, not only do the courts seem to be out of control and intent on establishing what legal scholars William J. Quirk and R. Randall Bridwell call "judicial dictatorship," but several court rulings seem to strike at the very heart of American republicanism, the concept of the consent of the governed.

Thus, in 1994 voters in California passed by a substantial margin the ballot measure known as Proposition 187, which denied most public benefits such as welfare to illegal aliens. Within a year, a federal judge ruled the law unconstitutional. Similarly, in 1996 the voters of California passed Proposition 209, a ballot measure that effectively abolished affirmative action programs and racial discrimination by the state government. Again, a federal judge ruled the new law unconstitutional -- this time within three weeks.

In Colorado in 1992, voters passed an amendment to the state constitution that prohibited local jurisdictions from adopting laws that forbade discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. The purpose of the measure, known as "Amendment 2," was to deny special legal protection and privileges to homosexuals and to protect the rights of those who refuse to do business with them -- such as landlords. Federal courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court in its 1996 decision Romer v. Evans, ruled that Amendment 2 is unconstitutional.

The list, of course, could be extended endlessly: the 1973 Supreme Court ruling in Roe v. Wade, which legalized abortion in all 50 states; the 1989 ruling in Texas v. Johnson, which struck down laws in 48 states that made burning the U.S. flag a crime; rulings mandating forced busing, preventing prayer in school, prohibiting public display of religious symbols, ordering local prison systems to release convicted criminals, commanding traditionally all-male schools like the Virginia Military Institute and South Carolina's Citadel to admit women as cadets, and on and on. Although such "judicial activism" is by no means new, it has become particularly alarming in recent years as the courts seem to be intruding into areas where they have never gone before and at the very time when citizen activism has achieved major political victories through effective organizing within the political system. Several of the most controversial court rulings -- on Propositions 187 and 209 and Amendment 2, for example -- have targeted the direct results of such activism by citizens determined to resist the encroachments of liberalism on their freedom and safety. No sooner has such conservative activism proved to be successful in the political arena than the courts, impervious to public opinion and pressures, have leaped into the breach to block it.

Although some Americans, alarmed and frustrated by such judicial arrogance, have begun to talk about civil disobedience or even armed resistance to the courts, that kind of response is both unwise and unnecessary. What is necessary to end the "judicial dictatorship" is to restore in our courts, our elected officials, our legal profession, and among our citizens as a whole an understanding of and commitment to the principles of American federalism as the U.S. Constitution enshrines it and as the Framers of the Constitution intended it. Judges are not the only ones who have forgotten what the authentic federalism of the Framers means, and if many of our lawmakers -- including many conservatives -- had not also forgotten its meaning, the problem of a court system out of control would never have arisen.


http://www.thenewamerican.com/tna/1997/vo13no08/vo13no08_supreme_court.htm




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"those who sacrifice
liberty for security deserve neither"
 
I recall reading of an old, old Supreme Court case. Congress made it illegal to ship interstate products made with child labor. The Supreme Court struck the law down. The reason being, manufacturing is not commerece, therefore Congress cannot regulate it.

My, how "far" they have come in their interpretation of the "interstate" commerece clause. Why not call it the "anything that remotely has to do with money" clause? I recall that the SCUS once ruled that congress could prohibit a man from growing wheat on his own land for his own consumption, under the guise of regulating "interestate commerece!"

The clause does not say congress can regulate intrastate commerece, or anything that "effects" interstate commerece. I can read, why can't they? Anything can be construed as "effecting" interestate commerce. So congress has the power to force everyone to wear hats, because that would "effect" interstate commerece in hats?
 
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