D.C. vs. Heller (Supreme Court and the 2A) - Mega Thread

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Reading the briefs and forums I start thinking that maybe the free exchange of information and opinion that the internet provides may have something to do with this case finally reaching SCOTUS.

Before the internet there was little to counter the anti-gun bias of the print and television news media. Now they have to compete. Remember the news stories of a decade ago with News Anchors making wee wee when they realized that ANYBODY CAN PUT SOMETHING ON THE INTERNET!!!!! ?

I do. They were scared. Maybe things like this case are one reason why. I have now read all the briefs I can find for both sides. The anti-gun side has no arguments not addressed by the pro-gun side. The pro-gun side has many points not addressed by the anti-gunners.

Still I am nervous. Probably taking the day off on 3/18 and spending the day unarmed and trembling with fear in D.C.. Perhaps sipping coffee and chatting with some sweet young commuters at Union Station - yes, that's just the thing for jackbootbuckethelmet anxiety.
 
alright ... since there won't be any new tea leaves to read for another 12 days (I believe then DC files its response) I decided to shake up the ones we have and give them another look.

While a loud voice in my head says that SCOTUS will figure out some way to weasel out of making a real decision, another voice says that at the very least we'll have an individual rights ruling. Or at least, that is what the inside players are banking on, minus the few in DC city government.

Only a handful of congressmen signed off on the anti-Heller statement, and I imagine all were from radically anti-gun areas like Cali and etc. The majority signed a pro-Heller Amicus.

Only a few State AG's signed on to an anti amicus, a large majority (30) signed the pro-Heller Amicus.

Now would politicians knowingly throw their names behind a losing cause? With the majority of the states supporting this and a clear majority in our Democrat congress, I think the smart money is on some kind of individual right win.

To me, any kind of individual rights win (vs. sending it back to a lower court for a few years while a democrat president/congress replaces justices or a total loss) would be a victory of some note. Particularly if they do let stand the overturning of the DC gun bans.
 
Garand Illusion said:
allright ... since there won't be any new tea leaves to read for another 12 days (I believe then DC files it's response) I decided to shake up the ones we have and give them another look.
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D.C. may or may not respond, it's optional at this point. There are, however, new leaves to read.

I'm now at the point of wondering if any other States will join with Montana.

Should this happen, especially if the States are contiguous to each other, what would the Supreme Court do? Would keeping the Union intact be the highest priority.

Would Bush see himself as another "Lincoln?" Such a Constitutional crisis would be an excellent excuse to cancel the elections... Posturing, such as this, brings up more questions than answers.
 
Then there is the danger, knowing such a decision in Heller using the Fed supremacy of the Medtronic case would demolish existing gun laws, that the court will wimp out and choose what they may see as the "socially responsible" decision in stating the 2A is a collective right. They may be equally worried about limiting the Fed Gov't's ability to legislate on the issue with anything short of an amendment.
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They can (and very well may) find that the 2A is an individual right deserving of the least scrutiny. That will resolve the constitutional issue while maintaing federal control of how and when the right is excercised.

Given the makeup of the Court, that's actually a likely outcome.
 
I thought this was an interesting spin on the statments that Montana has issued about the subject: Link To me it sounds like they might be issuing a polite warning that they might be considering leaving the union if the Supremes decide to sing the wrong song. :D
 
Nobody is going anywhere, especially a state where they have a smaller GNP and worse weather than the the Republic of Sakha :)

WildbrrrAlaska ™
 
As a bedrock principle of law, a contract must be honored so as to give effect to the intent of the contracting parties. A collective rights decision by the court in Heller would invoke an era of unilaterally revisable contracts by violating the statehood contract between the United States and Montana, and many other states.
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Got news for you: That era has been invoked so many times in the last century I defy anyone to arrive at a complete tally. Every time Congress has usurped a new power with the smiling agreement of a Supreme court majority.

I don't think the Court would blink at violating that statehood contract. They know the Union isn't held together by any contract, it's held together by an army, and has been ever since the late 1800's.

Now, that brief from Congress might help, because the Court isn't adverse to upholding the Constitution when Congress says it's ok. But I don't think the Court gives a bucket of warm spit what the state governments think about anything.
 
Has anybody else read all the briefs and found cause to worry? My worry is not that the anti side makes any good arguments, they don't. My worry is that they would even try to sell that stuff. Somehow they must think they have some buyers. That is what worries me.
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I reckon they are only trying to sell that stuff because it's the only thing they CAN try to sell when arguing against the plain individual right of "the people" in the Second Amendment.

It's like in Debate Club when someone draws the short straw and has to argue in favor of, say, mass murderers or concentration camps. If you want to win the argument and get your Debate Club points, you have to come up with SOMETHING. And if that means arguing in a circle around the towering obstacle of well-documented historical fact - oh well, that's part of the game.

It might be an interesting exercise to go through the briefs for DC and document all the argumentative fallacies found therein - for example, the partial quote in one of the briefs that a respondent brief finished off is a "suppressing the evidence" fallacy, or the "begging the question" fallacy found in the DOJ brief (if you allow handguns, you might allow machine guns, so you must not be able to allow handguns).

http://people.vanderbilt.edu/~nat.vaprin/fall.html
 
mvpel, I hope you are correct.

I don't think that the folks supporting the ban have considered that if they succeed in tearing down the Second, they will have put into place the means and methods to destroy the rest of the Bill of Rights.

Until the late 1960's there was not a question as to what the Second meant. All the liberal reporters and commentators are calling the Second "maddeningly' incomprehensible. They must have gone to school somewhere else. Where English was taught the meaning is clear.
 
I don't think that the folks supporting the ban have considered that if they succeed in tearing down the Second, they will have put into place the means and methods to destroy the rest of the Bill of Rights.
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You give them too little credit. They're not stupid people, and I'm quite sure they've considered that. The just don't care, because they think they have the upper hand.
 
The smackdown is going to be delicious.

I'm looking forward to the bench inquiring of counsel their understanding of the term "shall not be infringed."
 
You give them too little credit. They're not stupid people, and I'm quite sure they've considered that. The just don't care, because they think they have the upper hand.
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An even more sportsmanlike and favorable way to say it would be:

They're not stupid people. They come from a different worldview that gives them a different view of government and its role. They see the evil of criminal gun violence (and no one would dispute that it's bad, right?), and have arrived at their conclusion on how to defeat it. They don't care about undermining the 2nd because their philosophical view of government doesn't allow for this government to abuse its power. It uses its powers for good, right? ;) To them, it's a baseless fear, and the 2nd is irrelevant now.

I don't think there are many (any?) on the anti-gun side that are maliciously pursuing their agenda to wrest power from the masses. I'm sure even the ATF guys that execute the no-knock warrants on guys who bought plumbing parts have a rationale that makes them not evil. No one wants to be evil, and statistically most people are close to average intelligence (i.e., not stupid).

I think they are naive, their solution can't work anyway, and it scares the bejeebers out of me. But, I fundamentally see the solution to society's problems differently. I value the freedom of the civil over the ease of law enforcement. I value judgment of crimes over pre-judgment of possible crimes. I also see lots of other governments that were once nice that turned on their citizens, and I wouldn't put it past ours in the perpetual future.

-Jephthai-
 
I understand their point of view as well. Problem is their solution infringes on MY rights, and that pisses me off.

Our solution does nothing to infringe on theirs.
 
They think that criminal attack committed with a firearm is an infringement upon their rights (and they're right about that part), but they also think that that's part of our solution and thus our fault.
 
The BOR was created to protect an individual's rights, not the government's right to take away indivdual rights. A government has no right, only permission.
 
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