The Supreme Court has declared for the first time that the Constitution protects an individual’s right to have a gun, not just the right of the states to maintain militias.
Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for the majority in the landmark 5-to-4 decision, said the Constitution does not allow “the absolute prohibition of handguns held and used for self-defense in the home.” In so declaring, the majority found that a gun-control law in the nation’s capital went too far in making it nearly impossible to own a handgun.
But the court held that the individual right to possess a gun “for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home” is not unlimited. “It is not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose,” Justice Scalia wrote.
I doubt if this will be a long-standing decision – in the sense of carrying forward for decades. Not at 5 to 4.
Sooner or later, a more broadly-based court will decide thoroughly to support or revise today’s opinion.
#61 Yeah, and Minute men didn’t exist. The militia consisted of citizens and their arms. Please follow my advice and take you meds before you make a bigger fool of yourself…
“Bobbo” SWAT & DEA teams daily raid the homes of American’s in our so-called “War on Drugs”. In colonial America the british burned fields and kicked in doors. Now, they withhold your income and conduct raids if you don’t comply. Same difference.
If you place restrictions on “criminals” not owning guns, a bunch of bullshit laws get created and all of a sudden you are a criminal (though you are not).
This is how the game is played.
#59
Well said.
#63–Sea Lawyer==yes that is how the militia is treated in the Constitution, but my post went to real world facts. People with guns in their homes did not defeat the british. The standing army did often supplied by guns provided by the French etc.
A general dispersed militia does nothing to prevent oppression. Only a massed group held together by threat of hanging for mutiny can overthrow a government.
You shouldn’t agree with fantacists who think individual gun ownership stops any government from doing whatever they want.
I’m more shocked it was 5-4 ruling and not 6-3 or 7-2.
I read the dissent and it doesn’t make a lot of sense in the context that if a right is specified in the constitution, eliminating it should not a be a “tool” of localities. How can it be a right if localities can nullify it?
#66, that is the context for its inclusion as an explicitly protect right; doesn’t mean that in practice it is necessarily effective, I agree. For as often as the Continental Army was forced into retreat, I’m fairly certain it is chronicled by historians that the militia ran away even more.
Sea lawyer and Bobbo –
Not all the Militia were ineffective, nor were all the citizens wilting violets.
Read about the Battle of Kings Mountain NC. You don’t fuck with pissed of mountain men.
#69 – Also, without the militia we would have lost. Most who refused to fight were royalist’s who didn’t want greater freedom and after the war ran to Canada.
You know, I’ve never actually understood why our Founding Fathers risked their wealth and position for revolution. At the time, the colonies were a net financial drain on Britain which is why they were raising taxes.
Wars are not about freedom as we all must serve someone. someone local or someone far away was the question. Like neighborhood gangs taking over the block is all it was.
So–eg==George Washington knew the chances of winning the Revolution were “ify” at best. That being the case, why risk it all? If you say freedom, why keep slaves at the same time????
It was $$$$$$ that motivated the locals to rebel and yet it was that very thing they put most at risk.
Never has made any sense, yet I’ve never heard the issue directly addressed.
Any idea besides some mindless incantation?
“It was $$$$$$ that motivated the locals to rebel and yet it was that very thing they put most at risk.”
Bobbo – you must be joking right? It was tyranny vs. freedom. Economic tyranny as well.
#39: “But it all goes back to the moronic notion that individuals can use guns to protect themselves against the government. Lunacy.”
#41:”Then why do we have the right to bear arms in your opinion? Your words demonstrate that you clearly have no understanding of the entire intention of the 2nd amendment.”
But small arms aren’t useful against modern weapons that can flatten a square block, or even a crude roadside bomb like the Iraqi AlQaida use.
In short, the 2nd Amendment might just be obsolete as a defense against tyranny.
#72–Ian==what myths of tyranny are you thinking of? A tea tax? The stamp tax? All continued by the winning USA government for exactly the same reasons. Its why one third of the population wanted to continue British rule–more return on the tax dollar, and one third didn’t care one way or the other==tyranny by home grown not seen as much different than from overseas.
Again–specifically what tyranny?
TODAY is the greatest day in American history.
“Damn straight! Today the mad scientist can’t get a doomsday device, tomorrow it’s the mad grad student! Where will it end?!”
Professor Hubert Farnsworth
It just occurs to me that if gun ownership is a right in the good old USA, and I currently don’t have the cash to buy a gun, shouldn’t the Feds give me a gun?
It is my right!!!!!!
I want my rightsssssss!!!!!!!
#77, that’s the same false argument that tries to justify why people have a right to make healthcare be provided to them. Just because you have a right to possess an arm, doesn’t mean you have a right to demand that one be given to you.
I find it funny no one’s pointed out that the whole “us against the government” argument actually breaks down when you start to think about it.
Any act of violence against the government (including raising arms against it) would be labeled a criminal, if not terrorist, act, thus meaning you lose whatever rights are afforded to you to begin with. Bit of a short period of legality there. For purposes of “the Revolution”, the carrying of weapons will always be illegal, regardless of the Constitution (hey, its your choice to not live under the laws of your government – including its Constitution – when you choose to take up arms against it.)
The only political change that (civilian) use of guns have brought to this country in the last 100 years has been the untimely death of one if its greatest presidents. (I would have said last 200 years, but even I must admit that guns were vastly more important then.) Warfare, both political and military, has changed. The Constitution, as a living document, should change with it.
#77 –
Also, you have a right to *keep* arms, not *own* arms. (IE, the right to keep the gun you already own, and presumably use it [as part of the baring of the gun]). You do not have the right to “own” a gun, and therefore no one has to give you a gun to fulfill that right.
The Constitution is built almost entirely on negative rights (things the government *can’t* do to you), not affirmative rights (although there are a few – mostly added in after the fact, such as the right to an attorney during criminal proceedings.)
#78–Sea Lawyer==rights are meaningless if the mechanism to utilize them are not available. No different than the right of welfare mothers to get abortions under the right of privacy. I think that right may have been legislated away and no politician wants into that fight.
Not so with gun rights. Gun rights gave us Bush in 2000 and no politician will speak against gun rights. With “real politik” on my side, I say again “Where’s my government supplied guns and ammo??” I want my rightssssss!!!!
#79–Alex==too subtle for this crowd. Some provisions are seen as expressly meant to grow and adapt with society–as with “cruel and unusual” and indeed with what kind of weapons are appropriate for a militia.
What is not meant to grow and adapt are “fundamental rights” which are not to be changed to counter that right, such as to bear arms.
So holds the court by 5/4. Should be 100% agreed to by all thinking people.
You mean one that thinks like you do, Eideard? Give me a fucking break.
Good. I shot hundreds of rounds through my pistols today. It was more than just practice, it was a celebration.
#81, No, your reasoning is flawed. Just because the government hasn’t provided you with a sidewalk to protest on or printing press doesn’t take away your freedom of speech. The Constitution is not granting rights, it is restricting infringement. Likewise, the government is not required to enable rights, it just cannot unreasonably restrict your enjoyment of them.
The Constitution also recognizes that you have a right to be secure in your home and prohibits the quartering of soldiers in it. Does that mean that the government has to provide you with a home or those rights are effectively being taken away?
Bobbo, you ask for a case of armed citizens stopping a government army. I don’t know enough history to talk about domestic uprisings, but the Swiss’ arming everyone kept the Germans from attacking in WWII.
#80, “Keep” refers to possession, “own” deals with property. The right to keep arms should imply a corresponding right to own them. you can of course be in possession of somebody else’s property, you may have borrowed it from a friend, but the gun belongs **is owned** to somebody. How could you reasonably say you have a right to keep something that you have no right to own? I would contend that the right to keep something is derived from the property rights associated with ownership (i.e. you have a right to keep your own property but not the right to keep the property of others without their consent).
If private right to bear arms is so pointless, then why do so many governments try to disarm the public? This is what the US did in Iraq too.
MikeN: “…but the Swiss’ arming everyone kept the Germans from attacking in WWII.”
You gotta be kidding me, right?
There are a whole lot of pissy liberals in this thread. Keep it goin’ guys.
The Constitution, as a living document, should change with it.
The Constitution should never, ever be considered a living document. Down that path lies tyranny as those in power can interpret it to mean whatever their whims desire.
It must always be held up as absolute. If you want to change it, there are ways to do so. Chipping away from its edges is not the way to do.
Blatantly stolen from Wikipedia:
Justice Antonin Scalia has routinely castigated “living Constitution” doctrine. In one particularly strongly-worded attack, he noted that:
[There’s] the argument of flexibility and it goes something like this: The Constitution is over 200 years old and societies change. It has to change with society, like a living organism, or it will become brittle and break. But you would have to be an idiot to believe that; the Constitution is not a living organism; it is a legal document. It says something and doesn’t say other things . . . [Proponents of the living constitution want matters to be decided] not by the people, but by the justices of the Supreme Court . . . They are not looking for legal flexibility, they are looking for rigidity, whether it’s the right to abortion or the right to homosexual activity, they want that right to be embedded from coast to coast and to be unchangeable.””
#90, well, the abortion example is a bit more complex since you have to address “when does a human become a human, and when does he gain his rights,” but the homosexual behavior example should clearly be covered by the 4th and 9th Amendments. So I’m not sure where Scalia is going with that.
#35
Agreed. We can only hope that they will throw out California’s idiotic Assault Weapon ban which basically outlawed “scary looking” guns.
#53
You mean besides the US? France. Russia. Haiti. Panama. Cuba…
#74
If you wanted a reason for the Americans to revolt against the British you can sum it up in one word: pompous. The British were so damnably pompous and essentially took American for granted. However, if you want a clearer
reason, look no further than Ben Franklin:
The Compleated Autobiography of Ben Franklin, The quote is from about 1767.
#80
> The Constitution is built almost
> entirely on negative rights
It was exactly for this reason that many of the Founders did not want a Bill of Rights. The original idea behind the Constitution is that it any right not granted to the Federal government falls on the people. The Constitution was meant to enumerate the limits on the Federal government. Any authority not expressly granted was not in the purview of the Federal government. However, quite a lot has happened since then and specifically the 14th Amendment. The 14th Amendment fundamentally changed the Constitution by saying that while the Constitution limits the Federal government, it also limits the power of the States. It is because of the 14th Amendment, that I believe that most possession laws and silly “assault” weapons bans will be thrown out.
#92, I would go a step further than your post and quote Alexander Hamilton regarding the unintended consequences of enumerating rights:
“I go further, and affirm that bills of rights, in the sense and to the extent in which they are contended for, are not only unnecessary in the proposed Constitution, but would even be dangerous. They would contain various exceptions to powers not granted; and, on this very account, would afford a colorable pretext to claim more than were granted. For why declare that things shall not be done which there is no power to do? Why, for instance, should it be said that the liberty of the press shall not be restrained, when no power is given by which restrictions may be imposed? I will not contend that such a provision would confer a regulating power; but it is evident that it would furnish, to men disposed to usurp, a plausible pretense for claiming that power. They might urge with a semblance of reason, that the Constitution ought not to be charged with the absurdity of providing against the abuse of an authority which was not given, and that the provision against restraining the liberty of the press afforded a clear implication, that a power to prescribe proper regulations concerning it was intended to be vested in the national government. This may serve as a specimen of the numerous handles which would be given to the doctrine of constructive powers, by the indulgence of an injudicious zeal for bills of rights.”