Biting the bullet
Law.com has a good summary of the pending Silviera v. Lockyer case:
Now, some advocates of gun rights are hoping the Supreme Court will finally bite the bullet and grant review in Silveira v. Lockyer, No. 03-51, a challenge to California’s strict 1999 assault weapon ban. The case is one of dozens the justices are set to discuss at their private conference Wednesday. A decision by the Court whether to grant review could be announced as soon as Dec. 1. The Court also meets in conference Dec. 5.
The Silveira case, brought by a group of “California gentlemen,” according to their brief, asks the Court to reverse a December 2002 ruling by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that upheld the state law, first enacted in 1989 and broadened in 1999. In an extensive section of the ruling on the Second Amendment, Judge Stephen Reinhardt found the amendment “does not establish an individual right to own or possess firearms for personal or other use.” Reinhardt’s liberal rulings are often scrutinized and reversed by the Court.
When the 9th Circuit was asked to review the ruling en banc, the majority said no — and four judges wrote dissents to that decision.
“The panel’s labored effort to smother the Second Amendment by sheer body weight has all the grace of a sumo wrestler trying to kill a rattlesnake by sitting on it — and is just as likely to succeed,” Judge Alex Kozinski wrote in a dissent, referring to Reinhardt’s lengthy discussion of the Second Amendment.
The last time the Supreme Court expressed a formal view on the meaning of the Second Amendment was in the 1939 case United States v. Miller. Although the meaning of the ruling in Miller is still debated, it framed the discussion of the Second Amendment right in terms of the needs of organized militias, not individuals. Ever since, the Court has denied review in cases that would force it to re-examine its stance.
