Friday - February 08, 2008

DC v. Heller update - latest amicus curiae

via NRA-ILA

Led by Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas), bi-partisan majorities of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives - in fact, the largest number of co-signers of a congressional amicus brief in American history - filed a strong brief in support of the individual rights view. 55 members of the Senate and 250 members of the House co-signed this brief along with the Vice President of the United States. This landmark brief argues that the Second Amendment guarantees an individual, fundamental right to Keep and Bear Arms; that any infringement on this right should be subject to the highest level of constitutional scrutiny; that D.C.’s categorical ban on handguns and self-defense in the home is unreasonable and unconstitutional under any level of review; and therefore, that the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit’s opinion in this case should be upheld.

Very nice of them. If you would like to see who supports this Constitutional right, the list is here. “D"s and “R"s you have to supply yourself. I noticed that the one rep from my state of NJ who signed it, Scott Garrett of the 5th district up near my red corner of the state, is a Republican.

The brief itself is here. It traces the history of the Second Amendment and the various acts of federal gun control over the history of our country, including the Reconstruction Era Freedmen’s Bureau Act of 1866, and repeatedly shows that the federal government view is that 2A is an individual right of the people. Not a collective right of the people. Not a right of the States - which they point out have no “rights” only “powers”. The only quibble I can make is that they pull some “modern common sense” out of thin air and say:

The Second Amendment refers to the right to “keep” arms (such as at home) as well as to “bear” arms (meaning to carry them). Protected arms include commonly-kept firearms that one can keep and carry for lawful purposes, such as ordinary rifles, handguns, and shotguns, and not crew-served or heavy weapons.

Because when the British came for the Colonists at Lexington on that fateful day in April, they weren’t coming to seize a few pistols. They came to take the cannons. Three of those cannon were 24 pounders, which were the biggest seige guns of the day. Granted, artillery today is a far, far cry from the field pieces back then, but the fact remains that the Second Amendment does NOT say small arms. It says arms. The prohibitions against artillery, machine guns, WMDs etc. came later, though they are just as unconstitutional as DC’s gun ban laws.

Posted by Drew458     on 02/08/2008 at 09:30 PM   
Filed Under: • Guns and Gun Control •  
• Comments (9) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

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