The Big Heller Decision Discussion Thread - AFFIRMED 2ND AS INDIVIDUAL RIGHT

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I still find it absolutely disturbing that it was only 5 to 4!!! Had they been intellectually honest it would have been 9 to 0. Which makes me question the existence of a judicial branch with this kind of power given their overt partisanship.

OTHO is it possible it was so narrow because the other 5 passed a very broad and sweeping decision?
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I wish. I'm glad we at least got a positive decision affirming an individual right. I wish it had gone further. I think we should fell fortunate nontheless, b/c I think this was a close one for the good guys. Imagine if the other guy had won in 2006 and had appointed some left winger to the court? The decision almost certainly would have gone the other way.

For the moment though, I'll enjoy this affirmation of our individual rights.
 
We therefore read Miller to say only that the second amendment does not protect those weapons not typically possesed by law abiding citizens for lawful purposes, such as short barreled shotguns.
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Now the big anti push will be to get every gun out there classified as "dangerous and unusual". Looks like there will be NO machine guns, and a new AWB might be consitutitional
 
I think the "common use" test deals with the argument about how much firearm technology has changed and become more lethal over the 200 years. We have rights to the current arms of the day...
 
I think we mostly all knew it wasn't going to be a "we can own howitzers now!!!" sort of thing. We knew it would be pretty narrow...

But man!!! I N D I V I D U A L right! yes!!!! GOOD DAY!
 
Common use is fine for machine guns. I'd say those are common use.

Nerve Gas, Nukes, etc aren't exactly common use.

"Some have made the argument, bordering on the frivolous,
that only those arms in existence in the 18th century
are protected by the Second Amendment. We do not interpret
constitutional rights that way. Just as the First
Amendment protects modern forms of communications,
e.g., Reno v. American Civil Liberties Union, 521 U. S. 844,
849 (1997), and the Fourth Amendment applies to modern
forms of search, e.g., Kyllo v. United States, 533 U. S. 27,
35–36 (2001), the Second Amendment extends, prima
facie, to all instruments that constitute bearable arms,
even those that were not in existence at the time of the
founding."
 
No explicit decision on scrutiny, from my first skim. I believe they say something like "we are criticized by [one of the dissenters; Stevens I think] for not establishing a basis of scrutiny for 2A challenges"
 
Highlighted quote from the SCOTUS blog: "The term was applied, then as now, to weapons that were not specifically designed for military use and were not employed in a military capacity."

I've only seen that quote without surrounding context but sounds like the door to an assault weapons ban is wide open.
 
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"....and to use that arm for traditional lawful purposes,"
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Wow, so important. Because even though hunting isn't included in the 2nd Amendment, hunting is using a arm for "traditional lawful purposes."


:eek:
 
MK 11, I would have to say only for TRUE assault weapons, not commercially made semi-auto clones. So an AWB would be unconcstitutional by this ruling, as semi auto clones of military rifles are widely used and popular, etc.
 
Scalia on the definition of arms:

"The term was applied then as now to weapons that were not specifically designed for military use and were not employed in a military capacity."

Breaks the discussion down into two separate rights to keep and to bear.
 
That clanking sound from the east is the gun locks being unlocked in Washington D.C.
 
I like CNN's note:
"Ruling could spark debate on whether right to own gun is collective or individual"
:)
 
Hm, it seems I did not read in detail enough - they don't explicitly state a level of scrutiny, but they refute Breyer's attempt to create a new "interest-balancing scrutiny" level. A good quote!

A constitutional guarantee subject to future
judges’ assessments of its usefulness [the interest balancing approach]
is no constitutional
guarantee at all. Constitutional rights are enshrined with
the scope they were understood to have when the people
adopted them, whether or not future legislatures or (yes)
even future judges think that scope too broad. We would
not apply an “interest-balancing” approach to the prohibi-
tion of a peaceful neo-Nazi march through Skokie. See
National Socialist Party of America v. Skokie, 432 U. S. 43
(1977) (per curiam). The First Amendment contains the
freedom-of-speech guarantee that the people ratified,
which included exceptions for obscenity, libel, and disclo-
sure of state secrets, but not for the expression of ex-
tremely unpopular and wrong-headed views. The Second
Amendment is no different. Like the First, it is the very
product of an interest-balancing by the people—which
JUSTICE BREYER would now conduct for them anew.
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“Although we do not undertake an exhaustive historical analysis today of the full scope of the Second Amendment, nothing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms.”
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Very disappointing and weak majority opinion. :(
 
I'm reading through the ruling ....

.... at least the synopsis at the beginning, and it does mention that D.C. will have to issue a license for Heller to have his gun in his home.

Hmmm
 
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