Appeals Court To Consider Key Gun Rights Question

[DaveM55]

http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2009/09...y5333538.shtml

A federal appeals court in San Francisco on Thursday will confront America's next big gun rights question: Whether or not the Second Amendment prevents state governments from enacting anti-gun laws.

The U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals will hear oral arguments in a case that's likely to decide whether the Bill of Rights' guarantee of a right to "keep and bear arms" restricts only the federal government and the District of Columbia -- the current state of affairs -- or whether it can be invoked to strike down intrusive state and local laws too.

In an earlier ruling in April, a three-judge panel of the same court ruled that the Second Amendment did apply to the states, a different outcome than appeals courts in Chicago and New York had reached. On Thursday morning, a larger Ninth Circuit panel is scheduled to re-hear the case, meaning the earlier decision in Nor**** v. King could be upheld or rejected.

The applying-to-the-states question may seem like an odd one: After all, the First Amendment starts out by saying "Congress shall make no law," but the Supreme Court has interpreted that language to prevent states (and even state universities) from suppressing political speech. The Fourth Amendment has been interpreted to restrict state police from conducting "unreasonable searches," and while the right to an abortion is not clearly found anywhere in the U.S. Constitution, the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision struck down a Texas law on constitutional grounds.

So if much of the rest of the Bill of Rights applies to state governments -- a concept called "incorporation" -- why not the Second Amendment as well?

This topic sounds a bit like one that only a law professor might appreciate, but in the last 60 years or so, the Supreme Court has ruled that only "fundamental" rights in the Bill of Rights are incorporated. If a right is not deemed "fundamental," it doesn't apply to the states. So far, the justices have not yet ruled squarely on this question (even though Justice Scalia's majority opinion in last year's D.C. v. Heller case noted that "the right to have arms had become fundamental" in the early American colonies).

The incorporation question is already bubbling up to the Supreme Court thanks to the National Rifle Association v. Chicago and McDonald v. Chicago cases and the New York Maloney v. Rice case. On September 29, the justices will meet to decide whether to accept those cases for the 2009-2010 term; those appeals courts declined to apply the Second Amendment to state laws.

Of course, even if the Supreme Court eventually agrees that gun rights are "fundamental" and apply to individual states, that may not mean very much in practice.

The Ninth Circuit incorporated the Second Amendment but still upheld an Alameda County, Calif. ban on firearms on county property, including the fairgrounds. And the Seventh Circuit recently ruled that even if the Second Amendment applied to municipalities, they could get away with forcing citizens to register firearms or face legal consequences. In other words, courts could uphold the right to keep and bears arms in form and in theory, but ignore it in practice.

[Wild Bill Klinton]

The Ninth CIRCUS says it all.


Where left is right and up is down and gay is great and prayer is wrong.


WBK

[ksig1869]

we'll see lets keep those fingers crossed

[FNG19]

News from today is that the Ninth Circuit vacated Nor****, essentially hitting the pause button. The Court is refraining from continuing to hear the case until SCOTUS decides next week which of the pending 2A cases (the Registration case out of the 7th or the Nunchuck case out of the 2nd), if either, that it will hear. Once (if) SCOTUS renders an Opinion on either case, the Ninth will resume Nor****.

So, Nor**** will likely be decided second-hand via the SCOTUS Opinions on the above cases. Personally, I think the 9th is taking the easy way out, but what do I know?

[DaveM55]

News from today is that the Ninth Circuit vacated Nor****, essentially hitting the pause button. The Court is refraining from continuing to hear the case until SCOTUS decides next week which of the pending 2A cases (the Registration case out of the 7th or the Nunchuck case out of the 2nd), if either, that it will hear. Once (if) SCOTUS renders an Opinion on either case, the Ninth will resume Nor****.

So, Nor**** will likely be decided second-hand via the SCOTUS Opinions on the above cases. Personally, I think the 9th is taking the easy way out, but what do I know?

Learning that, I think you're right about them taking the easy way out.

[Yellowfin]

As you may or may not have noticed, the LCAV was providing free legal service to Alameda County (the bad guys) for all of this. Our side pays for Don Kilmer, one of the two best lawyers we have in the country for 2nd Amendment litigation (the other being Alan Gura), while they get their tab picked up by anti gun lawyers.

In case any of you weren't aware, that's the Legal Community Against Violence, the lawyer wing of the Joyce Foundation. They are the judicial action arm on behalf of the anti gun political complex. Basically if any town, county, or state has an anti gun law or policy and we challenge it, LCAV will represent the town, county, PD/sheriff's office, or state for free. They basically give away millions of bucks in legal fees fighting us while we have to pay our lawyers to fight them. Like Bloomberg, but there's more of them. It's exactly like Soros throwing his money against us (and Soros writes BIG checks to the Joyce Foundation, so some of it is in fact his money), or like La Raza giving top lawyers to criminals with a certain type of last name to help them win no matter how guilty they are. Anti gun lawyers will donate pro bono time (required?) just to do their part in the anti 2A effort. They also write the anti gun laws and hand them to the anti gun politicians-- we've got a nasty infestation of them up here in New York. It wouldn't surprise me if they also have a hand in seeking out perp's families to sue gun owners who lawfully use firearms for self defense.

Be very aware of these ***holes.