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DC Gun ban to be abolished


Fingon

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I didn't need that one explained again. I knew it when the case was first accepted by the SC. You dancing around the questions is what I don't get. But we can keep up this stupid dance as long as you want.

 

ok, this thread started with someone thinking the Supreme Court had made a decision. I merely stated that this was only oral argument.

 

I then explained how each justice, regardless of their ideological bent, was going to justify their decision legally (either through strict, intermediate, or rational scrutiny). Then I explained that the Court is split and Kennedy will be the deciding factor.

 

That being said, what is your question to me? Politically (not legally) do I think the DC law is a good law? Yes, I do for several reasons, and not just because of the "guns = bad" sound bite. I also think it gives prosecutors another hammer to get bad guys for violent crimes.

 

Legally, do I think the law passes Constitutional muster? I don't know. This is a case of first impression. This Court will be the first to decide what level of Constitutional Scrutiny is to be applied to laws such as the D.C. law (and laws in other states that are similar). If Kennedy agrees strict scrutiny is to be applied the law will be struck down.

 

What will be legally interesting is if the four conservatives find that strict scrutiny should be applied and the four liberals find that rational scrutiny is to be applied (which would function to uphold the law) and the Kennedy concurs in the result but dissents in the rationale and thinks that intermediate scrutiny should be applied. Then we will get an answer on this particular case, but there will not be a Constitutional resolution as to how the laws in the other states will be handled because there is not a majority on how the Court will analyze the issue. If this happens this case will be studied for years in law schools.

 

P.S. I can't think of another survivalist name to call you - so I am not too clever. Maybe Eric Rudolph?

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I also think it gives prosecutors another hammer to get bad guys for violent crimes.

 

:P . How does it give prosecutors "another hammer"? They have the 5 year mandatory sentence that they routinely drop in plea... hence why certain groups call for enforcing the laws already on the books rather than having to make up lesser-punishment new ones.

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I used to be completely against guns, but I figure that the bad guys will always illegally get around the laws and have guns. In an ideal world, nobody would have a use for one, but the world gets less ideal every day

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no its not - four justices (Alito, Roberts, Scalia, and THomas) will likely find that the D.C. reg violates the 2nd amendment. Four justices (Ginsberg, Beyer, Souter, and stevens) will likely find that the regulation was a reasonably necessary restriction within the city's powers that serves an important interest.

 

That leaves Kennedy as a "swing vote" and nobody knows where he sits on this issue.

"A majority of the Supreme Court indicated a readiness yesterday to settle decades of constitutional debate over the meaning of the Second Amendment by declaring that it provides an individual right to own a gun for self-defense."

 

"Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, often the deciding vote on the divided court, was next. "In my view," he said, "there's a general right to bear arms quite without reference to the militia either way."

 

Kennedy expressed, at least three times during the argument, his disbelief that the Framers had not been also concerned about the ability of "the remote settler to defend himself and his family against hostile Indian tribes and outlaws, wolves and bears and grizzlies and things like that.""

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ok, this thread started with someone thinking the Supreme Court had made a decision. I merely stated that this was only oral argument.

Never said otherwise.

That being said, what is your question to me? Politically (not legally) do I think the DC law is a good law? Yes, I do for several reasons, and not just because of the "guns = bad" sound bite. I also think it gives prosecutors another hammer to get bad guys for violent crimes.

Nice lahjik. Because the 20,000 gun laws already on the books aren't enough of a hammer that we have to take the right to self defense away from the law-abiding? How's that war on drugs going? Has making them completely illegal kept them off playgrounds? CRIMINALS DON'T OBEY LAWS, LAWYER GUY. I fail to see how disarming people in their own homes has made the most violent city in America less violent - a fact that the statistics easily prove.

 

But keep parroting the drivel. :P

What will be legally interesting is if the four conservatives find that strict scrutiny should be applied and the four liberals find that rational scrutiny is to be applied (which would function to uphold the law) and the Kennedy concurs in the result but dissents in the rationale and thinks that intermediate scrutiny should be applied. Then we will get an answer on this particular case, but there will not be a Constitutional resolution as to how the laws in the other states will be handled because there is not a majority on how the Court will analyze the issue. If this happens this case will be studied for years in law schools.

Whoo hoo. Cluster fug.

P.S. I can't think of another survivalist name to call you - so I am not too clever. Maybe Eric Rudolph?

I was always partial to Roy Rogers myself. Yippie-Kai-Yay.

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no its not - four justices (Alito, Roberts, Scalia, and THomas) will likely find that the D.C. reg violates the 2nd amendment. Four justices (Ginsberg, Beyer, Souter, and stevens) will likely find that the regulation was a reasonably necessary restriction within the city's powers that serves an important interest.

 

That leaves Kennedy as a "swing vote" and nobody knows where he sits on this issue.

 

Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, often the deciding vote on the divided court, was next. "In my view," he said, "there's a general right to bear arms quite without reference to the militia either way."

 

'Nough said

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To answer your question - your rights are never absolute. Thus the phrase "you can't shout fire in a crowded theater."

 

But when you compare shouting fire in a crowded theater to keeping a pistol in my home, you have crossed the line.

 

My gun is not a danger to another person(unless I catch some one crawling in my daughters window). :)

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I also think it gives prosecutors another hammer to get bad guys for violent crimes.

 

Yeah. Because people who commit armed robbery or manslaughter get off easier if they can demonstrate legal ownership of the weapon.

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  • 2 weeks later...
I'll bet you cannot assemble your shotgun, load it and position yourself to defend your home in the time it takes a criminal to break through your door or window. I would never consider a dissasembled gun proper protection from criminals and apparently neither do the multitude of criminals in DC!

Of course my understanding of the law was that it only applied to handguns and that something like a shotgun wasn't covered so you can keep it assembled which was the point of my comment entirely.

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Of course my understanding of the law was that it only applied to handguns and that something like a shotgun wasn't covered so you can keep it assembled which was the point of my comment entirely.

 

 

I could be wrong, but I believe handguns are totally banned and rifles or shotguns have to be stored unloaded and dissasembled.

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It is not a "complete ban." As justice Breyer said at the oral argument (paraphrasing) "this law does not restrict DC residents from owning a rifle or musket, does it?"

 

 

:blink:

 

So a very small musket that you could fit in your pocket would be ok then?

 

Sorry sloth.....but you must have pulled a muscle reaching that far!

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