NPR's take on the Second Amendment:

There is some bias in this piece but I dont see anything that terrible. It is pretty much impossible to have someone report the news - or present a case of facts - that does not have some level of bias. Whether its tonal or the facts you choose to show/omit, everyone shows some bias to some extent.

Click and Clack are openly antagonistic towards Jetta drivers! Those monsters.

I find lots of great programs on NPR. I agree also that there is some tripe but I filter that out pretty handily. I also know plenty of conservatives who listen to the station. I myself am very conservative and donate to the station as I get more useful content out of it than any other news outlet.

If I could get the Washington Times delivered to my door at a reasonable price on the same day, I would subscribe to that as well.
 
GeorgeF posted: There is some bias in this piece but I don't see anything that terrible. It is pretty much impossible to have someone report the news - or present a case of facts - that does not have some level of bias. Whether its tonal or the facts you choose to show/omit, everyone shows some bias to some extent.
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Well, George, I'm sure glad you're not responsible for protecting our rights. There was not a smidgen of support in that segment for the Second Amendment as an individual right. The bias in the presentation was rather comprehensive, especially from a "public" organization. The collective right side of the controversy was aired and assumed to be proper, the individual right was ridiculed and demonized. No one represented that side of the argument.

How biased do they have to be?
 
It is always best to cite the actual text, when discussing Supreme Court decisions. The italicized portion that 5Wire "quoted" actually reads as follows:
In the absence of any evidence tending to show that possession or use of a "shotgun having a barrel of less than eighteen inches in length" at this time has some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia, we cannot say that the Second Amendment guarantees the right to keep and bear such an instrument. Certainly it is not within judicial notice that this weapon is any part of the ordinary military equipment, or that its use could contribute to the common defense. Aymette v. State, 2 Humphreys (Tenn.) 154, 158.
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What the above means is that nothing in the Trial Court records (In the absence of any evidence) indicated that a short barreled shotgun had any military (militia) application. Further, the phrase, it is not within judicial notice, means that nothing in the merits brief or the orals indicated that a SBS was useful or even used in a military context (remembering that only the government was heard).

That and that alone is why the case was reversed and remanded for further proceedings.

It was a cleverly designed ploy to satisfy both F.D.R. (who, you'll remember, had promised to stack the Court, if it overturned any of his projects. NFA being one of them) and the letter of the 2A.

Had the Trial Court been able to do its job (rendering a verdict consistent with the recommendations of the Supreme Court), we possibly wouldn't be where we are today. Possibly.

What the Court could not forsee, was that Miller would be dead and Layton would plea-bargain the case away. The remand was made moot by these two actions. So we are stuck with Miller the way it reads.

The actual legal decision is: We are unable to accept the conclusion of the court below, and the challenged judgment must be reversed. The cause will be remanded for further proceedings.

Anything else, other than the above sentence, is dicta, and not legally binding.
 
GeorgeF said:
Click and Clack are openly antagonistic towards Jetta drivers! Those monsters.
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If you've got something like an '89 Chrysler LeBaron that moans making left turns in the parking lot, causing everyone to stop loading groceries and stare; YOU ARE IN with Click and Clack. It's even better if it's your mother's and she refuses to get rid of it, because you were conceived in it at the drive-in.

They'll call her up and talk her into buying a Subaru.
 
I have overheard people in public talk about listening to NPR, and I immediately assume (probably correctly) that they are liberal.
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I like NPR. With them you always know where you stand. They are like a compass which always points to the opposite direction from the truth, very helpful in this world of uncertainty. Whenever they call me to donate I always tell them I'm very thankful for their existence but I won't give a dime because they are the only thing the tax and spend liberals have ever given me for free. :D
 
Hey fellows. If you were getting your pay check from George Soros and he said talk about firearms, you talk about firearms. The SCOTUS will rule in May/June so who gives a hoot on what NPR has to say?
 
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Almost everybody else thinks the Second Amendment is an Individual Right and has done so for over 200 years.

Really??? Please link the court decisions (prior to this case) that have stated that the 2A is clear guarantee of an individual right? I must have missed all those...and so must have most of the country or we would not need the NRA.

I know you have heard it before, but it seems you have forgotten, or choose to ignore it:

"The people" refers to an Individual right in every other Amendment it appears in the BoR. Why would it be different for the 2nd? The same people wrote it, at the same time as all the rest, so "The people" should mean the same thing, no?
 
Thanks for the further clarification, Antipitas. Your post seems to increase the evidence that NPR/OTM deliberately presented a biased segment.

(jimbob, asked and answered above in more than one post, mine included. Antipitas points out the ambiguity of the Miller decision. In addition I'm not talking about "the courts", I'm talking about the Supreme Court for the first time addressing any distinction or relationship between individual and collective rights interpretations.)
 
Really??? Please link the court decisions (prior to this case) that have stated that the 2A is clear guarantee of an individual right?
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Here's one.

http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?navby=CASE&court=US&vol=494&page=259

Took about 1 minute to find... there are more.

From the link:
The Second Amendment protects "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms," and the Ninth and Tenth Amendments provide that certain rights and powers are retained by and reserved to "the people." See also U.S. Const., Amdt. 1 ("Congress shall make no law . . . abridging . . . the right of the people peaceably to assemble") (emphasis added); Art. I, 2, cl. 1 ("The House of Representatives shall be composed of Members chosen every second Year by the people of the several States") (emphasis added). While this textual exegesis is by no means conclusive, it suggests that "the people" protected by the Fourth Amendment, and by the First and Second Amendments, and to whom rights and powers are reserved in the Ninth and Tenth Amendments, refers to a class of persons who are part of a national community or who have otherwise developed sufficient connection with this country to be considered part of that community.
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Here's a list of almost all of the SCOTUS gun cases:

http://www.gunlaws.com/Supreme%20Court%20Summaries.htm
 
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when i read the original post it seemed like the name "Seth Sutter" was supposed to carry some weight with it....probaly just read teh post wrong...
 
The blog Volokh Conspiracy covered Dahlia Lithwick's comments in Slate regarding the Heller case. They pretty much dismissed her arguments as being uninformed to say the least. Eugene Volokh is a professor of law at UCLA and Dave Kopel posts on there as well.

Here is the link. It is also good to read the comments.

http://volokh.com/posts/chain_1205953061.shtml

john
 
urther, the phrase, it is not within judicial notice, means that nothing in the merits brief or the orals indicated that a SBS was useful or even used in a military context (remembering that only the government was heard).
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Actually, "judicial notice" means accepting something as common knowledge even though there has been no sworn testimony or evidence to that effect. They could take judicial notice that December 15, 1791 was a Thursday, for example, but not that a short-barrel shotgun was militarily useful as a "trench gun" in WW-I.
 
Another indication of NPR's problem.

At the NATO summit, GWB convinced them to accept an anti-ballistic missile defense system, and prevailed upon France to rejoin the command structure of NATO, which it left in 1966.

Today, NPR covered the summit by reporting the words GWB mispronounced.
 
All news has some degree of bias...

Out of all the forms of American media I have noticed, NPR is rather in the middle about things compared to liberal nut jobs on CNN and whacked out conservatives on Fox. Face it commercial news is just that, commercial. They don't care about reporting more so than getting ratings and making money.


Epyon
 
Dahlia Lithwick isn't even an American, she's a Canadian. Yet she feels that defining the limits of the rights and freedoms Americans is part of her job description. I've been giving her grief for years on "the fray" which is slate.com's forum.
 
Wow, you people got worked up over that???

If that got you riled up and you saw it as some sort of "liberal" or "left wing" commentary you are really looking at it through "right wing" blinders.

All they did was present the facts pretty clearly, non-emotionally, and in an unbiased manner and then discussed the legal history of gun control and the 2A. They did not take a pro or anti stance but instead talked about the previous history of law and even discussed how that has changed greatly among the foremost legal scholars over the past few decades. They then even questioned the medias portrayal of the gun issue.

If anything it seemed that they were saying "this is how things have stacked up over the last few decades but the tide seems to be turning toward sthe opinion of it being an individual right and the media has let the public down by focusing on the Brady vs. NRA side of things instead of dealing with the legal facts."

Once again, a pretty intelligent, fair and balanced report by NPR twisted by people with a personal bent into something it was not. I really makes our side look bad when people try to turn something this fairly presented into a smear job. It really shows how afraid of an opposing opinion some people are that they try take offense at something that isn't there.
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Well stated. Like you, I don't understand where people find the bias in a balanced explanation of the current Constitutional argument. If intelligent comment equates elitism, I guess NPR is elitist. Maybe IQ is the uncommon denominator.:rolleyes:

OTOH, it seems likely that the SCOTUS will rule in favor of Heller, so maybe mass intelligence is an academic issue. :)

Bob
 
You can't be serious, Robert J McElwain.

What did the Miller decision decide?

What did the program represent as settled law?

Who on the show represented the individual rights interpretation of the Second Amendment?

What was the tone of voice used when referring to those misguided supporters of an individual right interpretation of the Second Amendment?

What was the tone of voice used when pointing out the long standing, and (assumed) correct, collective right interpretation of the Second Amendment?

One post after another in this thread and at the NPR/OTM site has pointed out misrepresentations, factual errors, exaggerations, snide allusions, and deliberately incorrect interpretations of law made throughout the broadcast. The transcript is available for you to read so you don't have to rely on your aural recollection. If you maintain the accuracy of what was said and that the points of view broadcast on the Second Amendment was a balanced representation, I'd like to know how you put that together.
 
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