D.C. Asks Federal Court to Erase Second Amendment Opinion Recognizing Right to Carry
D.C. Asks Federal Court to Erase Second Amendment Opinion Recognizing Right to Carry.
By: Jinal10121
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D.C. Asks Federal Court to Erase Second Amendment Opinion Recognizing Right to Carry - Video
Assemblyman Brian Jones Speaks on the Second Amendment - Senate Bill 53 Floor Speech
Your Second Amendment Rights SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED.
By: Brian Jones
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Assemblyman Brian Jones Speaks on the Second Amendment - Senate Bill 53 Floor Speech - Video
In 1776, America's Founders came together in Philadelphia to draw up a "Declaration of Independence," ending political ties to Great Britain. Written by Thomas Jefferson, it is the fundamental statement of people`s rights and what government is and from what source it derives its powers:
WE hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness--That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed.
The Founders were declaring that we are all equal, and that we are defined by rights that we are born with, not given to us by government. Among those rights is the right to pursue happiness--to live our lives as we think best, as long as we respect the right of all other individuals to do the same. The Founders also declared that governments are created by people to secure their rights. Whatever powers government has are not "just" unless they come from us, the people. Read more
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NRA-ILA | Second Amendment
A girl killed a gun instructor as he was teaching her to shoot an Uzi at this Arizona outdoor shooting range.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Editor's note: Jay Parini, a poet and novelist, teaches at Middlebury College in Vermont. He has just published "Jesus: The Human Face of God," a biography of Jesus. Follow him on Twitter@JayParini. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author.
(CNN) -- The gun outrages continue, the latest the shooting of a gun instructor in Arizona by a 9-year-old girl who was taken to the range by her parents so she could shoot an Uzi, an Israeli-made submachine gun.
The question that the whole world asks is this: Why was a 9-year-old girl allowed even to try to shoot a submachine gun?
Jay Parini
I have a further question: Why does anybody not on the front lines of the military in a war zone need to have access to a submachine gun?
It's not as though we haven't had plenty of evidence that this gun thing in America isn't working. Since the ghastly massacre of elementary school children at Sandy Hook on December 14, 2012, by a deranged teenager, as of June there were at least 74 school shootings, on school grounds or in schools themselves. It's commonplace in this country now: A deranged shooter appears, armed to the teeth, out of his mind. Everyone ducks or runs for cover. The shooter proceeds calmly through the building, taking out innocents.
What kind of country have we become? Was this what the Founding Fathers had in mind?
The NRA will scream: The Second Amendment! The Second Amendment! Please be aware that most of what you think you know about the history of this amendment is nonsense. Many good books and articles exist on the subject, all neatly summarized by Saul Cornell a couple of years ago. He wrote: "If the nation truly embraced the Second Amendment as it was originally written, it would be the NRA's worst nightmare."
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2nd amendment and 'gun rights' fraud
In March 2008 I chatted with a silver-haired law school professor under the marble pillars of the U.S. Supreme Court building. He was very excited. The court was to about hear Heller v. D.C. The case would decide whether the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution protects an individual right to own and carry guns. He had 20 law students with him. He said anxiously, When I put in the paperwork to get seats months ago I didnt know wed get to see one of the last unresolved constitutional questions debated. He said this while looking at a line of people hoping to get seats that went down the block, around a corner and out of sight.
Hours later a mainstream reporter next to me in the press section gasped, Oh no, when Justice Anthony Kennedy hinted that he believed the Second Amendment to be an individual right while asking the governments attorney a question.Months later, when the high court ruled 5-4 that the Second Amendment protects an individual right from government infringement, the media was paying attention. Many, however, are missing whats happening now. The Second Amendment is having its defining moment in history. The decisions now percolating up to the Supreme Court are deciding what guns the Second Amendment covers, when requirements become infringements and more.
Gun-rights and gun-control groups understand that these court decisions illustrate how much elections matter, as the federal judges making these decisions are nominated by the president and voted on by the senate. However, two recent federal court decisions from judges appointed by former president Bill Clinton show how difficult these decisions can be to handicap.
In one just-decided case, California Senior U.S. District Court Judge Anthony W. Ishii found that 10-day waiting periods of Penal Code violate the Second Amendment as applied to people who fall into certain classifications. He found this arbitrary wait time burdens the Second Amendment rights of the plaintiffs. (The decision can be read here.) This court decision orders the California Department of Justice to allow the unobstructed release of guns to those who pass a background check and possess a California license to carry a handgun, or who hold a Department of Justice-issued Certificate of Eligibility and already possess at least one firearm known to the state. Basically, it says if someone already legally has a gun in California the state cant make that person wait 10 days for a second gun just because it wants to. If that sounds like common sense to you, youre right, but common sense isnt a given in the courts.
Brandon Combs, a plaintiff in the case who is also director of the executive director of the Calguns Foundation, said the decision clears the way for them to challenge other irrational and unconstitutional gun-control laws. We look forward to doing just that.
United States Supreme Court building. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
A flurry of such challenges began right after Heller, led to McDonald v. Chicago (2010) and are still ongoing. In an important example, in February 2014 the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals confirmed that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to carry firearms for self-defense in public. The decision came in Peruta v. San Diego County. The majority opinion in Peruta said, We are called upon to decide whether a responsible, law-abiding citizen has a right under the Second Amendment to carry a firearm in public for self-defense.
The California Rifle and Pistol Association Foundation brought the case on behalf of five individuals who were denied the right to carry a handgun by the San Diego sheriff. According to California law, a person applying for their Second Amendment right to carry a concealed handgun must: (1) be a resident of their respective city or county; (2) be of good moral character; (3) have good cause for such a license; and (4) pass a firearms training course. Many rural California counties accept self-defense as good cause for a person to get a license to carry a handgun, but some urban sheriffs and chiefs of police disagreed. In those jurisdictions the few who attain permits had to beg, plead, and show imminent danger to their lives before they could exercise their right to bear arms.
The Ninth Circuit decided 2 to 1 that the restrictive good cause policy of the San Diego County Sheriffs Department was unconstitutional. The majority opinion accepted that the Second Amendment right is not unlimited. It is not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose. Rather, it is a right subject to traditional restrictions, which themselvesand this is a critical pointtend to show the scope of the right.
The majority decision in Peruta said, Our reading of the Second Amendment is akin to the Seventh Circuits interpretation [in Shepard v. Madigan] and at odds with the approach of the Second, Third, and Fourth Circuits. We are unpersuaded by the decisions of the Second, Third, and Fourth Circuits for several reasons. First, contrary to the approach in Heller, all three courts declined to undertake a complete historical analysis of the scope and nature of the Second Amendment right outside the home. As a result, they misapprehend both the nature of the Second Amendment right and the implications of state laws that prevent the vast majority of responsible, law-abiding citizens from carrying in public for lawful self-defense purposes.
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The Second Amendment's Defining Moment