doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com The Supreme Court and the 2nd Amendment

As I'm sure most of you know the Supreme Court will begin hearing arguments in the McDonald v. City of Chicago case sometime after the first of the year. The initial thrust will be to overturn Chicagos universal handgun ban.
The reason for this case is the Supreme Court has not as of yet applied the Second Amendment to the states due to a 200 year old decision that the Bill of Rights only applies directly to the federal Government. Yes this is bizarre and is the underlying reason states have been able to adopt whatever firearms restriction they wanted!
The 14th Amendment which says states may not "abrige the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States or deprive any person of life,liberty,or property without due process of the law".
The Supreme Court subsequently ruled that the priviledge of immunity clause only protected those "privileges and immunities" that owe their existence to the Constitution and by that reasoning the clause couldn't apply to the Bill of Rights.
However the Court found a way to protect the Bill of Rights under the 14th Amendment clause.
The way to settle this in other other areas has been to use the following process. The process is called"incorporation" based upon the idea that the provisions of the Bill of Rights are now incorporated into the Due Process clause.
The Court is being asked by the plaintiffs to apply the 2nd Amendment thru the "priviliges and Immunities" clause as it has in other areas.
If this doesn't get approved by the Supreme Court it will open the door for states to adopt even more restrictive legislation.
Losing this case would be an unmitigated disaster for all firearms owners and for our freedoms in general.
I've had to read the material published in the current issue of American Rifleman over multiple times to make sense of this as a layman.
This is my understanding of the crux of this matter and if we have any lawyers on this forum that can further clarify this issue I hope you will take the time to do so.
Jim

Although ostensibly about handguns, this affects all doublegun enthusiasts. Although it is legal to own a double gun in Chicago, you can't buy one or purchase ammunition for it. There is supposedly a license for such a thing but good luck getting the form to apply for one.

Time to have another revolution and start all over again. We in England have a Bill of Rights that dates back to 1765; yours was based upon it to some degree, it gives us 'the right of having and using arms for self preservation and defence'. Fat lot of good it did us! Lagopus.....

Sometime ago someone posted a link to a report that the English were now considering a ban on swords! Then machetes, then steak knives, then ice picks, then screw drivers, then rocks?

Mike

I was NOT aware of this shotgun ammunition situation in Chicago. If this doesn't raise alarms to those of the "I only own shotguns so what do I care about what else gets banned." members who complain about firearms legislation and regulation discussion threads here then I guess nothing will.

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"Sometime ago someone posted a link to a report that the English were now considering a ban on swords! Then machetes, then steak knives, then ice picks, then screw drivers, then rocks?"

Mike

The TRUE purpose of the original "Assault Weapons Ban" from the Clinton era what to set the stage for more increasingly restrictive firearms legislation so that we would end up in the same situation as the English. "Assault Weapons" are rarely used in crime here but the public is essentially ignorant that these are nothing more then semi-automatic rifles that look like the full automatic real assault rifles. Most of the general public has never grasped the difference and it is to the liberal medias advantage to keep them in the dark.
Jim

Almost every "news report" leads with a shooting being done with an automatic handgun. TV and Movies have the public thinking that pistols shoot fast as lightening and you can hit a speeding target perfectly without even trying. Wish it were true in my case. Truth and facts are getting run over by the bus of our Liberal press and government. If they tell a lie long enough and often enough, have it repeated by others it becomes a fact in many peoples minds even if there is no truth to it. People are dumb and getting comfortable in being dumb. It is both sad and scary at the same time.

What is REALLY SCARY is that we are only one changed justice away from an anti-gun Supreme Court.

Fortunately the next Justice to leave will probably be Ruth Bader Ginsberg who is no friend of gun owners nor Constitutional Rights in general unless it moves the goals of Socialism forward. Her replacement if it occurs while Obama is still in office won't be any better but can't possibly be any worse.
I was frankly shocked and disappointed at the 5 - 4 decision in Heller as the argument to me to overturn the Washington regulations was clear and compelling so it should have been 9- 0. However charges of, legislating from the bench, is no deterrent to committed socialists like that gang of four.
Jim

Old Ruthie B. Ginzberg is the third member of the Jewish community to serve on "Da Supremes" Louis Brandeis, Felix Frankfurter and now her- and what amazes me is- the Court works on History, amongst other things- If her "relatives" in Deutchland and other areas of Europe, where persecution of members of the Jewish faith has been going on for Centuries (A Nation of Shoplifters stigma as well) had read the handwriting on the wall way before "Kristalnacht" and the "Nurenburg Laws" and had armed themselves by whatever means and shot all the SA and SS they could get in their gun sights- Sobibor, Bergen-Belsen (where the grass grows black not green yet today), Auschewitz, Nordhausen, Saxonhausen and other named places would be theme parks and Condos today, instead of chilling reminders of what happens when you yet a tryant or a bully (be appeased, as by that limp*&^% Limey Neville Chamberlain) instead of being and staying armed and ready to defend- Very few Countries will *&^% with Israel today- their "Never Again" motto is right, but came about too late to change the Holocaust- Problem with the Surpemes is, like the POTUS, they have guards and drivers- no emminent danger, so they live and rule in an Ivory Tower- way out of touch with what their Citizens have to deal with- and they work(?) in the most highly crime ridden city in all the US of A. She should resign for health reasons- but she is has no real grasp of the second Amendment, neither does Obama or the Sotomayor newbie-- we are all in deep and getting deeper Kimshee!! RWTF

RWTF:
I couldn't have said it better myself. It is incredulous to me that the leading gun grabbers are Jewesh like Chuck Shummer,Dianne Feinsten etc. You would think that considering the situation in Israel where most if not all the citizenry is armed for obvious reasons would play a telling role with these individuals but apparentely this isn't the case.
I have recommended in the past that Dianne Feinstein be named Ambassador to Israel. She could go right over there and talk the Israelis into getting rid of all their guns. Then the Moslems would become really nice guys and sit around campfires with them singing Com By Ya.

Jim