More on the Parker Case
Joe says to be careful what we wish for:
If they prevail and if the Supreme Court agrees, it’s all over. Who would have thought the Supreme Court would trash the 1st Amendment — _seriously_ trash it — by criminalizing “political” speech? But, they did. If they can trivialize the 1st, imagine how unimportant they think the 2nd is.
Read it all and come back. I think Joe is right. Being the establishment, they are not inclined to change decades old laws no matter how unconstitutional they are. And that is bad. I would love to see the case go our way and pull a win for civil rights. But that’s unlikely. Also unlikely is that they take the case and find that the second amendment doesn’t mean what it says. If they did, there’d probably be a lot of angry gun nuts out there who will, honestly, start shooting politicians. The court will simply not hear the case and bypass all of that. And for that, they are cowards.
I hope Joe and I are wrong but I don’t expect that we are. So, assuming we’re right, what next?
Update: Related is, Stephen Halbrook on the second amendment and the Supreme Court. Via GLN.
Update 2: Insty weighs in.
December 8th, 2006 at 12:33 pm
I’m not sure there’s much we can do for the next two years at the federal level. Work on the states. Defeating the AWB legislation in Washington is important. The Brady’s promised to get AWBs passed in a bunch of states after the federal ban expired. I don’t think there’s much chance they’ll get the federal ban back again in the next two years. If we can stop them in the states, it’ll be a big loss for their cause. Also on our agenda should be dumb carry restrictions, like Virginia’s restaurant ban, and Ohio’s car carry ridiculousness. Hopefully the Senate in Ohio will override Taft’s veto.
December 8th, 2006 at 12:42 pm
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December 8th, 2006 at 5:14 pm
I’d link to it, but your system hates Blogspot. Read my “The Courts will not Save Us” trilogy. I think I answer your question there.
I expect, at most, that SCOTUS will dodge the question once again.
December 9th, 2006 at 1:41 am
[…] Joe Huffman and Say Uncle are having a lively discussion on the possible implications of the Parker case (the challenge to the D.C. handgun ban) […]
December 9th, 2006 at 4:30 pm
I did a read of the oral argument that K-Romulus posted in the earlier Parker Topic and after reading Joe’s and here I wonder why y’all are running to the extreams of what might happen instead of what was hinted at in the oral argument?
I don’t see this as either it is an individual right and multiple laws are overturned and I don’t see anyone but the crazy 9th circuit saying it is a collective right. I think the court will rule VERY narrowly that the 2nd is individual and Federal gov can resonably restrict certain persons (felons, mentally ill, domestic violence) and certain firarms (like rifles with certain features) but not an entire class of firearms (like all handguns, be it ownership or keeping them non-functional).
This, to my limited knowledge would keep every state’s firearm laws as they are, only federal gun laws would be at risk. Even the AWB would be upheld because it is not restricting all semi-automatic rifles, just some. Those prohibited by federal law from purchasing firearms would be ok, so long as it is not everyone.
I see the court ruling that parker has standing in the licenseing/permit, and saying that DC must use its discretion to allow handguns and cannot have an outright ban. If it is limited to that only, then no one has to be set free from prison unless they can show that they had applied and been turned down.
For a similar reason I think their might not be standing on the functional firearm issue to avoid overturning cases. To have standing in this case the person would have to have been issued a permit and then either be arrested for a loaded weapon.
In this way the laws are maintained and as long as DC at a minimum follows NYC may issue type of system then they are fine.
With such a ruling I highly doubt that DC would appeal and if parker appealed the standing issue, the SC would deny cert.