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Parker/Heller: Supremes take it

Go time:

The U.S. Supreme Court said on Tuesday it would decide whether handguns can be banned in the nation’s capital, a case that could produce its first ruling in nearly 70 years on the right of Americans to bear arms.

The nation’s highest court agreed to hear an appeal by officials from the District of Columbia government arguing that the city’s 31-year-old law banning private possession of handguns should be upheld as constitutional.

The justices said they would review a precedent-setting ruling by a U.S. appeals court that broadly interpreted an individual’s constitutional right under the Second Amendment to bear arms and struck down the city’s law for violating those rights. (Reporting by James Vicini, Editing by David Alexander)

I told you.

Update: from the order at Scotusblog:

Whether the following provisions — D.C. Code secs. 7-2502.02(a)(4), 22-4504(a), and 7-2507.02 — violate the Second Amendment rights of individuals who are not affiliated with any state-regulated militia, but who wish to keep handguns and other firearms for private use in their homes?

18 Responses to “Parker/Heller: Supremes take it”

  1. Linoge Says:

    Shiny! Now the only question is how long until they actually start hearing the case, much less provide an answer…

  2. Nylarthotep Says:

    Yeah, but this doesn’t sound very good.

    Here is the way the Court phrased the granted issue:

    “Whether the following provisions — D.C. Code secs. 7-2502.02(a)(4), 22-4504(a), and 7-2507.02 — violate the Second Amendment rights of individuals who are not affiliated with any state-regulated militia, but who wish to keep handguns and other firearms for private use in their homes?”

    The first listed section bars registration of pistols if not registered before Sept. 24, 1976; the second bars carrying an unlicensed pistol, and the third requires that any gun kept at home must be unloaded and disassembled or bound by a lock, such as one that prevents the trigger from operating.

    Thats from SCOTUSblog.

    I really don’t like the fact that the terminology drags in the “state-regulated militia.” They completely fail to pose the question relative to “the right of the people.”

  3. Nylarthotep Says:

    According to SCOTUSblog they are supposed to hear this in March. God knows when they’ll announce the findings.

  4. Greg Morris Says:

    The real question is will we know before the elections? I think the best hope for the republican party is something like this forcing democrats to talk about gun control.

  5. SayUncle Says:

    Actually, I rather like the language as it seems to presume an individual right.

  6. chris Says:

    Am I the only one who is nervous about this?

  7. SayUncle Says:

    not at all, chris. it’s a big thing.

  8. Hamilton Says:

    This will become a central issue in the presidential election and democrats that have long supported more restrictive gun control will be forced to take a more central position for fear of losing votes. The electorate has demonstrated in recent years more than once what happens when the goverment imposes restrictive gun control. Just look back to the ’94 elections following the crime bill. Just look to Al Gore and Tom Daschle. The road to gun control is littered with the political bodies of those that forgot how to protect constitutional rights.

  9. Oldsmoblogger Says:

    +1 SayUncle. The language appears to take individual rights as a given. At worst, it acknowledges that there is an argument to be made.

  10. - Says:

    The language makes it sound like they’re actually going to tackle the issue head-on; it’s hard to see what “the second amendment rights of individuals” might mean at all if they don’t at very least include keeping guns for private use in the home. So the supremes will at a minimum have to give a clear yea or nay on whether any such individual rights exist, it looks like.

    I’m impressed. I had fully expected them to dodge, weave, duck, cover, avoid, evade, and weasel their way out of precisely that point.

  11. thirdpower Says:

    The Brady Bunch is already crying for money:

    http://daysofourtrailers.blogspot.com/2007/11/and-so-it-begins.html

  12. brokenbarrel Says:

    I agree with NYLARTHOTEP!!!We knew that D.C. would find the proper terminology to influence a judgement in their favor.The format that was used completely dismisses the all important question and reason for the case to begin with:IS IT AN INDIVIDUAL RIGHT?Now all we can do is hope that the high court will not be fooled into solely trying the case under the terminology givin.This would be a sad day for our country.The fact is that D.C. gave them no other choice but to vote in their favor;being that D.C. has already said that you have to be a member of the mulitia just in the way this case is worded.The high court basicly has no say…this is bad,bad,bad for all americans.Now we get to become a third world country thax D.C. glad we could count on you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    ed note: no need to bold the whole thing.

  13. trainer Says:

    I see it the same way Unkie does.

    The language seems to say…“Militias, Militias, we don’t need no stinkin’ Malitias.”

    in other words.

    Does the word Militia mean squat in ref the 2A…the wording suggests no.

  14. USCitizen Says:

    Yessir! Interesting times, indeed.

  15. Linoge Says:

    March, huh? Well, we have been waiting a few hundred years for a semi-decisive interpretation of the Second Amendment… what is a few more months? 🙂 I do, however, like how the verbage seems to indicate the individual right to bear arms is assumed in the question. Of course, if they downcheck the question, they downcheck the individual right assumption by association…

  16. Standard Mischief Says:

    Nylarthotep Says:

    …I really don’t like the fact that the terminology drags in the “state-regulated militia.” They completely fail to pose the question relative to “the right of the people.”

    That’s fucking “standing” for you. Perhaps Xrlq is really right and “standing” isn’t utter crap. But it’s at least crap a significant portion of the time.

    While Heller made it, it seems that Parker has been split off and is challenging the strictly narrow legalese standard mischief that keeps valid cases from even needing to see if they will be granted cert.

    Parker has nether been denied cert, nor has been placed on the supreme’s docket.

  17. Xrlq Says:

    It has nothing to do with standing. The militia language is there because the question is whether the ordinance violates the substantive rights of the individuals not affiliated with state militias, not whether or not individuals have standing to assert the rights that clearly inure to them.

    As to Parker, I don’t see how it could be off the docket without having been denied cert, assuming it was appealed in the first place. Perhaps we’re discussing semantics, i.e., the Supremes certified some issues raised by Parker/Heller for review, while passing on others.

  18. Standard Mischief Says:

    Sorry Xrlq, yes indeed, that is me screwing up my lawyer speak, Teh supremes have not yet agreed to hear Parker or agreed to recombine Parker with Heller, yet it has also not yet been denied cert.

    I’m still looking for the cite that claims Parker is about standing, I thought it was mentioned in scotusblog.com, but I can’t find it. It’s my understanding that Parker and others, and the questions that they raised were stripped out of the case due to the lack of standing when the case was appealed to the supremes, hence the case is called something like DC .v Heller now.

    I may be a half dead zombie due to trying to do a week’s worth of work in 3 days, but I’m pretty sure we had something out in comments here over the standing issue (where I recall it went slightly off topic and I got pwnd due to your superior rate of fire)

Remember, I do this to entertain me, not you.

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