http://k-romulus.blogspot.com/2006/12/parker-v-dc-oral-argument-transcript.html

Wouldn’t it be nice if the outcome was what it obviously should be?

Since when, in the rules of English grammar, does the subordinate or dependent clause of a sentence negate the meaning of the independent or main clause of the same sentence?

Accordingly, “Suppose the Second amendment said ‘A well-educated electorate being
necessary for self-governance in a free state, the right of the people to keep and
read books shall not be infringed.’ Is there anyone who would suggest that means
only registered voters have a right to read?”–Robert Levy, Georgetown
University Professor

“If we do not, under the existing phraseology of the Constitution, have a
genuine right to own and carry firearms, then I say no other part of the
Constitution is worth a damn either.” –William B. Ruger

Civil liberties groups and pro-gun organizations say the ban in unconstitutional.

Uncle:

Kudos to the WaPo for not referring to the good guys as the powerful gun lobby.

Yea, but when they say Civil liberties groups, is that a code word for big (L) Libertarians or other parties and groups that shall not be named?

That didn’t stop the 9th Circus in Hickman v. Block or Silviera v. Lockyer or Nordyke v. King. As Judge Kleinfeld explained:

The panel opinion holds that the Second Amendment “imposes no limitation on California’s [or any other state’s] ability to enact legislation regulating or prohibiting the possession or use of firearms” and “does not confer an individual right to own or possess arms.” The panel opinion erases the Second Amendment from our Constitution as effectively as it can, by holding that no individual even has standing to challenge any law restricting firearm possession or use. This means that an individual cannot even get a case into court to raise the question. The panel’s theory is that “the Second Amendment affords only a collective right,” an odd deviation from the individualist philosophy of our Founders. The panel strikes a novel blow in favor of states’ rights, opining that “the amendment was not adopted to afford rights to individuals with respect to private gun ownership or possession,” but was instead “adopted to ensure that effective state militias would be maintained, thus preserving the people’s right to bear arms.” It is not clear from the opinion whom the states would sue or what such a suit would claim were they to try to enforce this right. The panel’s protection of what it calls the “people’s right to bear arms” protects that “right” in the same fictional sense as the “people’s” rights are protected in a “people’s democratic republic.”

However, as he concluded in his dissent:

About twenty percent of the American population, those who live in the Ninth Circuit, have lost one of the ten amendments in the Bill of Rights. And, the methodology used to take away the right threatens the rest of the Constitution. The most extraordinary step taken by the panel opinion is to read the frequently used Constitutional phrase, “the people,” as conferring rights only upon collectives, not individuals. There is no logical boundary to this misreading, so it threatens all the rights the Constitution guarantees to “the people,” including those having nothing to do with guns. I cannot imagine the judges on the panel similarly repealing the Fourth Amendment’s protection of the right of “the people” to be secure against unreasonable searches and seizures, or the right of “the people” to freedom of assembly, but times and personnel change, so that this right and all the other rights of “the people” are jeopardized by planting this weed in our Constitutional garden.

Now the DC District court is looking to plant that weed on the East coast.

And can anyone possibly argue that the Founders were afraid of the government disarming itself, to the extent that they had to apply the term “the People” in a special sense not used anywhere else in the Constitution? Right– all those other governments around the world who forcibly disarmed their own armies were of such concern back then…

Tell you what: Lets all join hands (to show that we care about one another) and take a running jump off a 500 foot cliff. It about the same thing, as far as I’m concerned, as debating whether as fundamental a human right as self protection is any longer necessary.

Only a flaming, hard-core communist, or a child, would even ponder it.

Say the Militia’s only mission statement was to defend the Constitution and Country? With membership you would receive a card stating you were a member.

Problem solved?

I just put this out as a worse case scenario. Of course you would have to justify the need for the Militia. Hurricane Katrina works for me. The point is that in Calvinball the Court could determine there is no modern need for Militias. That is a trump card. I see no way possible it would pass the Supreme Court.

This will be an exercise in weasel words. If you ever wonder why politics is important remember how and who appoints Judges.

I never bought the “Militia” part as the key and single requirement. The language to me meant we had not just the right to bear arms but the responsibility. How else could the vision of the founders have been protected? They envisioned possible government tyranny and acted to prevent it.

Typical DC bull. I’ll bet Michael Bloomberg is giddy. There are few things I can think of that could cause a massive civil insurrection in America, an attempt to disarm lawful gun owners and citizens would be a catastrophe on an unprecedented level. This is far beyond liberalism, I don’t know what to call it. Only totalitarianism comes to mind.

An armed populace has never been necessary to preserve the authority of a government. In fact, you could argue that armed populaces can make life pretty miserable for the authority of a government when it is misused. I wonder if that could have been the idea behind the 2nd amendment?