The Second Amendment’s Reach

[BridgeTheGap]

Two years ago, the Supreme Court struck down parts of the District of Columbia’s gun-control law. On Tuesday, the court will consider whether that decision should apply everywhere in the country, not just in the federal territory of the nation’s capital.

We disagreed strongly with the 2008 decision, which took an expansive and aggressive view of the right to bear arms. But there is an even broader issue at stake in the new case: The Supreme Court’s muddled history in applying the Constitution to states and cities. It should make clear that all of the protections of the Bill of Rights apply everywhere.

McDonald v. Chicago is a challenge to a law that makes it extremely difficult to own a handgun within Chicago’s city limits. The challengers rely on the court’s 5-to-4 ruling in 2008, which recognized an individual right under the Second Amendment to carry guns for self-defense. But that decision left open an important question. The Bill of Rights once was largely thought to be a set of limitations on the federal government. Does the right to bear arms apply against city and state governments as well?

Since states and localities do far more gun regulation than the federal government, the court’s answer will have a powerful impact. The United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, in Chicago, relying on 19th-century precedents, ruled that the Second Amendment does not apply to states and cities.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/02/opinion/02tue1.html?th&emc=th

[mvccd1000]

1. This is truly one of the more important cases the court has considered recently.

It certainly goes far beyond gun rights.

[X_Digger]

2. Unfortunately, it looks as though

they're keeping their heads under the rock that Slaughterhouse placed on the SCOTUS 100+ years ago. :(

[Statistical]

5. SCOTUS is ducking the real issue and going with Due Process clause.

The 140 year old injustice called Slaughterhouse and citizens of the United States will continue to have rights & privileges associated with citizenship but state governments have been given the blessing to infringe on them.

The court could have done the right thing and it would have opened up a whole host of enumerated rights to full protection but it looks (based on transcripts) they will run for the hills.

[Hoopla Phil]

3. The Slaughterhouse ruling really needs to go!

[OneTenthofOnePercent]

4. It's funny how a newspaper enjoys the rights of the 1A ammendment while trashing the 2A.

Yes, you slack-jawed yokels, all the freedoms enumerated in the bill of rights apply to all the states (even the cities). The only reason the 2A has not enjoyed such equality for the better part of a century is because of mouth-breathing jack-boot regressives like yourselves.
:rant:

[divideandconquer]

6. Yeah and Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, Spain, Netherlands, Uk, France

and all those other gulag nations with less people in prison per capita than the US.

[Fire_Medic_Dave]

7. What does that have to do with the NY Times?

[OneTenthofOnePercent]

8. They do not enjoy The Costitution of The United States of America. Your point?

If you dislike parts of the constitution... there is due process for changing it.
Ignoring and trampling certain sections of our constitution diminish the power of the remainder.
Death by 1000 cuts.

[divideandconquer]

The 2nd amendment will stand when all our other freedoms are gone

As worthless as the appendex is for human health

[SteveM]

10. Oh, you're being a little silly. nt

[divideandconquer]

9. The 2nd amendment will stand when all our other freedoms are gone

As worthless as the appendex is for human health

[SteveM]

11. Oh, you're still being a little silly. nt

[gorfle]

12. No law does this.

The Supreme Court’s conservative majority has made clear that it is very concerned about the right to bear arms. There is another right, however, that should not get lost: the right of people, through their elected representatives, to adopt carefully drawn laws that protect them against other people’s guns.

There is no law that can protect you against the guns of people who do not obey the law.

[Euromutt]

13. Actually, there are quite a few laws that do

Those against brandishing, reckless endangerment, assault with a deadly weapon, and homicide: the individual citizen is protected, at least notionally, against being threatened or assaulted with a firearm by the fact that anyone who does so will be subject to prosecution and judicial punishment.

Essentially, the NYT's argument boils down to "we think government should have the power to infringe on individual citizens' RKBA because criminal activity on the part of a minority of citizens has caused us to distrust all." To which my response is that, given that state and local governments have displayed blatant favoritism, cronyism and other forms of corruption in the exercise of their "discretion" to extend or deny firearm permits, I for one do not trust those governments with that kind of power. In fact, the whole reason we have a constitution is because governments have historically demonstrated that a need exists to keep a tight rein on the powers they wield.

Why doesn't it occur to the editorial board of the NYT that the argument they posit can be applied to any and all civil liberties? What about the "right" of the people to be protected from the very existence of spoken, published or broadcast materials that they find offensive? What about the "right" of the people to be protected from the temptations of heresy and false faiths? What about the "right" of the people to not have the effectiveness of their criminal justice system hampered by the requirement for reasonable suspicion and/or probable cause before conducting a search and seizure, or by being unable to compel a suspect/defendant to testify against himself?

The list goes on.

[gorfle]

14. That does not stop them.

Those against brandishing, reckless endangerment, assault with a deadly weapon, and homicide: the individual citizen is protected, at least notionally, against being threatened or assaulted with a firearm by the fact that anyone who does so will be subject to prosecution and judicial punishment.

There may be laws against those things, and people may be punished for breaking those laws, but those laws will not protect you against anyone who has already decided to break the law.