D.C. Circuit Upholds Second Amendment

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My own personal take is that it will be a 6-3 split:

For Individual Right:
CJ Roberts
Alito
Ginsburg
Kennedy
Scalia
Thomas

Against Individual Right:
Breyer
Stevens
Souter
 
Somebody may have posted it already, if so pardon me I didn't see it. Ron Paul's response to the court ruling in DC:
http://www.house.gov/paul/tst/tst2007/tst031207.htm
The DC Gun Ban

March 12, 2007

Last Friday a federal appeals court in Washington DC issued a ruling that hopefully will result in the restoration of 2nd Amendment rights in the nation's capital. It appears the Court rejected the District of Columbia 's nonsensical argument that the 2nd Amendment confers only a "collective right," something gun control advocates have asserted for years.

Of course we should not have too much faith in our federal courts to protect gun rights, considering they routinely rubber stamp egregious violations of the 1 st, 4th, and 5th Amendments, and allow Congress to legislate wildly outside the bounds of its enumerated powers. Furthermore, the DC case will be appealed to the Supreme Court with no guarantees. But it is very important nonetheless for a federal court only one step below the highest court in the land to recognize that gun rights adhere to the American people, not to government-sanctioned groups. Rights, by definition, are individual. "Group rights" is an oxymoron.

Can anyone seriously contend that the Founders, who had just expelled their British rulers mostly by use of light arms, did not want the individual farmer, blacksmith, or merchant to be armed? Those individuals would have been killed or imprisoned by the King's soldiers if they had relied on a federal armed force to protect them.

In the 1700s, militias were local groups made up of ordinary citizens. They were not under federal control! As a practical matter, many of them were barely under the control of colonial or state authorities. When the 2nd Amendment speaks of a "well-regulated militia," it means local groups of individuals operating to protect their own families, homes, and communities. They regulated themselves because it was necessary and in their own interest to do so.

The Founders themselves wrote in the Federalist papers about the need for individuals to be armed. In fact, James Madison argued in Federalist paper 46 that common citizens should be armed to guard against the threat posed by the newly proposed standing federal army.

Today, gun control makes people demonstrably less safe-- as any honest examination of criminal statistics reveals. In his book "More Guns, Less Crime," scholar John Lott demolishes the myth that gun control reduces crime. On the contrary, Lott shows that cities with strict gun control--like Washington DC--experience higher rates of murder and violent crime. It is no coincidence that violent crime flourishes in the nation's capital, where the individual's right to defend himself has been most severely curtailed.

Understand that residents of DC can be convicted of a felony and put in prison simply for having a gun in their home, even if they live in a very dangerous neighborhood. The DC gun ban is no joke, and the legal challenges to the ban are not simply academic exercises. People's lives and safety are at stake.

Gun control historically serves as a gateway to tyranny. Tyrants from Hitler to Mao to Stalin have sought to disarm their own citizens, for the simple reason that unarmed people are easier to control. Our Founders, having just expelled the British army, knew that the right to bear arms serves as the guardian of every other right. This is the principle so often ignored by both sides in the gun control debate. Only armed citizens can resist tyrannical government.
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badbob
 
Meh... At least I can respect him. He's not a Ron Paul Mark IV, or an asexual plasticine dummy like any presidential candidate with a chance.

The fact that he can quote statistics that he believes to be correct but aren't, and references totalitarian governments (making him seem like a fringe politician by anyone reading this who isn't on our side) shows that he is at least human.
 
He was doing great till he quoted Lott and then raised Mao et al.
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OK, I'll take the other half of that one.

You don't like him quoting John lott? Who should Ron Paul be quoting to back up his comments on gun control and crime.......Charles Schumer?
 
You don't like him quoting John lott? Who should Ron Paul be quoting to back up his comments on gun control and crime.......Charles Schumer?
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Why not they are equally as worthless :)

WildjustbecauseAlaska
 
I can't wait to find out that Hitler didn't seek to disarm citizens. And another thing, point out your plotholes elsewhere.

Quote:
"Why not they are equally as worthless"
Right. LOL !
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Meh... WA and others have convinced me that even if Lott was correct, arguing statistics is really pointless.
 
Sasquatch for President (of the Blue Collar Debate Society)

We need a good man with no stake in the state of his mental health to keep a close eye on WA and JC at all times. If you don't have calloused fingertips, you will soon. :)
 
Well, thanks for thinking of me, but I have poker to play, beer to drink, and many other productive pasttimes to keep me busy.

As for my mental health.....................too late for that.
 
Wild, I don't see anything in your link except, if the information is correct, Germans already had gun registration when Hitler took over. Registration led to confiscation, perhaps?

Concerning Mao, there was a revolution in China. I may be wrong, but I think maybe guns were probably involved.

http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/1999/china.50/inside.china/profiles/mao.tsetung/
Flawed icon of China's resurgence

"We have stood up," Mao said to the Chinese people in October 1949
Mao Tse-tung (1893-1976)

"Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun."
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CNN) -- Few people in history deserve sole credit for changing the fate of an entire nation. One of them is Mao Tse-tung, the man who rose from the peasantry to become the pre-eminent revolutionary theorist, political leader and statesman of Communist China.

Mao's influence endured more than 40 years from the Long March of the 1930s, through the Red Army's victory in 1949, until his death in 1976 at age 83. He remained chairman of the party to the end.

"Mao's faulty economics ended up creating a famine of massive proportions," writes historian Patricia Buckley Ebrey. She concludes from census reports that 30 million people probably died during the famine of 1959-62.


Mao during the Cultural Revolution in 1966
Mao lost some influence after the failure of the Great Leap Forward. In 1966, however, with his ally Lin Biao controlling the army, Mao launched the Cultural Revolution. He set the People's Liberation Army and students -- the Red Guards -- on witch hunts against his opponents. Millions of Chinese suffered or perished, particularly teachers, writers, artists, party leaders, anyone determined to be "reactionary" in some way.
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badbob
 
Germans have ALWAYS (in modern times) had gun registration IIRC.

Again, to spout that guncontrol is going to lead to tyrrany and using those two dictators is a useless rhetorical flourish best kept to moo-rons like Rosie "the Screech" O'Donnell

Wildmym1ahasntkilledanyoneinawhileAlaska
 
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