Court rules in favor of Second Amendment gun right

reply to post by St Udio


I wouldn't read too much into the timing of a battle that's been brewing for some 200 years.

However, if you're correct in your assessment, it might be divine intervention.

Check this out:

Tuesday, June 10, 2008


Fairfax, VA-Ohio Governor Ted Strickland today signed the National Rifle Association (NRA)-backed "Castle Doctrine" legislation into law to expand the self-defense rights of law-abiding citizens. SB 184, sponsored by State Senator Steve Buehrer (R-1), protects the rights of innocent victims to defend themselves from criminal attack while expanding the rights of concealed-carry permit holders.

"I want to thank all parties concerned for working together to make this victims' rights bill the law in Ohio," said Chris W. Cox, NRA's chief lobbyist. "When you're confronted by a criminal, you don't have the luxury of time. Under the 'Castle Doctrine' provision, if someone breaks into your occupied home or temporary habitation, or your occupied car, you now have an initial presumption that you may act in self defense and you will not be second-guessed by the State. The ability to protect yourself and your family from harm is important no matter where you are."

/4czl5w

www.myspace.com...

[edit on 2008/6/29 by GradyPhilpott]

Absolutely. Thousands of gun-deaths a year, and the dumb-arsed Yanks still haven't learned.

What disgusts me more is the "yay we get to keep our guns and keep killing people!" posters. Honestly, that's insane. I would fear to walk to the corner shop in America. Oh no, i'd just get a gun, like everyone else.


Awesome, another snob Brit that doesn't know anything about America, except what he watches on tv.
I love the sweeping generalisation that all Yanks are dumb-arses. ARe Yanks all Americans? Or just those in DC, lol.
Let me try to help you - a gun death is someone killed by a gun. That doesn't always mean the deceased is a victim. A lot of times it is the perpetrator that is shot. It also covers suicides.
Britain has an almost complete ban on gun ownership, except landowners...yet you still have gun crime.
Just FYI, Northerm Ireland has a higher gun homicide rate than USA, and South Africas' gun homicide rate is almost 10 times that of the USA. How do you feel about that?
It is interesting that all 3 of these countries were at one point English colonies (N Ireland still is, right?). USA and S. Africa got independance through violent means, and N. Ireland has been trying to gain independance through violent means for centuries. You can elucidate from those occurances that is having been under English control that have made those societies violent. Or would you say it is just coincidence?
So we have an Brit condemning gun violence, yet it was the Brits that were the predominant force in shaping that very culture. Have your cake and eat it; That's the British way!

reply to post by MidnightDStroyer


I'll have to ask my inner Obama..for only the new political messiah can truly know what's best for me when it comes to keyboards

I just got back from the gun store and come in with two new guns. An AR 15 and a Para Ord LTC. I just use my own private range here at home to test them.

Every time I get to go gun shopping I'm glad I live here I do. I'm sure there are other places that enjoy such freedom in purchasing and I wish there were more.

For the people thinking it's bad that I can get things like an AR..Try firing one. They make a really nice hunting rifle around here

The Obamaites want to ban all semi auto rifles including a Ruger 10-22..I guess they want to make the world more safe for squirrels from drive by shootings

[edit on 6/30/2008 by DrumJunkie]

As an "Obamanite" or "Obamatron" or whatever that owns an M1 (ex-National Match even), an FN-49 (Egyptian in 8mm Mauser), an SKS, and an old semiauto .22 with a 21 round tubular mag - among several other things - that's simply not true

Obama's gun record isn't great, but he seems to have come around some since he started serving in the US Senate and having to represent more rural Illinois gun owners.

If the only issue on the table was gun control, my vote might be different.
But there is a lot more going on than just one issue.

Besides, the US Supreme Court has put the brakes on aggressive gun control measures for the foreseeable future anyway

[edit on 6/30/08 by xmotex]

Originally posted by xmotex
As an "Obamanite" or "Obamatron" or whatever that owns an M1 (ex-National Match even), an FN-49 (Egyptian in 8mm Mauser), an SKS, and an old semiauto .22 with a 21 round tubular mag - among several other things - that's simply not true

You might love your guns and Obama, too, but the hard left supports Obama and will still do anything to ban all guns. That's their camp.

However, ever since the Democrats lost the Congress last over the issue of gun control, Democrats have been treading lightly on this issue to be sure.

But, for that to remain the case, it will take extraordinary measures by Second Amendment advocates.

The NRA offers its support to more Republicans than Democrats, but that is based solely on a politician's record on gun control.

The NRA is non-partisan. If a politician respects the 2nd Amendment and votes that way, the NRA will give him a high rating, even if he is a Democrat. If a politician does not respect the 2nd Amendment and votes that way, he will get a low score, even if he is a Republican.

I vote that way as well. If a Democrat represents my interests, he will get my vote. If I view the Democrat as more suited for the job, he gets my vote.

Unfortunately, Democrats have disappointed me so many times that I can't in good conscience support them most of the time.

Bill Richardson is in my opinion a narcissistic, lying, political chameleon, however, since no one with a credible political record opposed him, he got my vote. It just so happens that he supports the Second Amendment, so that does dull the pain, somewhat.

So, if you support Obama, if you value your Constitutionally protected rights, you should belong to an organization that actively supports and lobbies for those rights.


[edit on 2008/6/30 by GradyPhilpott]

As I've said on ATS a few times, I am a card carrying member of both the NRA and the ACLU

I don't see the Second Amendment as a left/right issue, but as a civil liberties issue, and there are a lot of Americans across a wide political spectrum who agree with me.

I agree that gun control has been a cause endorsed by many on the left (mainly in urban areas), however it seems to be losing steam rapidly even there. More and more Democrats, including party chairman Howard Dean, Bill Richardson (as you pointed out), and Ohio Governor Ted Stevens have realized that gun control laws limit the rights of law abiding citizens while having no effect on violent crime (or making it worse!)

If you look back through this thread, many of the more "liberal" American posters here have supported this SCOTUS decision, most of the opposition seems to be coming from overseas.

Originally posted by xmotex

I don't see the Second Amendment as a left/right issue, but as a civil liberties issue....

It's a shame that the American Civil Liberties Union doesn't agree with you.

That's the deal breaker for me.

This articles highlights one of my concerns with at least some kind of minimal regulation in relation to firearms. Sometimes their are laws in place to protect people from themselves, granted that someone who wants to commit suicide could use something else to accomplish it, but I think that at least some background check could be in order to prevent people with mental related issues from getting their hands on firearms.

More than half firearm deaths are suicides

Originally posted by Bunch
...I think that at least some background check could be in order to prevent people with mental related issues from getting their hands on firearms.

There is such a law already on the books.

/2e4ml4

Of course, not even this law will prevent suicide by firearm.

There are so many ways to end one's life that even if all guns were to disappear tomorrow, it would make nary a dent in the problem.

The handbook for suicide and assisted suicide is available from Amazon.


[edit on 2008/6/30 by GradyPhilpott]

reply to post by GradyPhilpott


Thanks for the info... and I agree with your statement also, but hey if one death can be prevented is worth it in my opinion, thats all im saying.

I don't think you can ban all the things that cause death, even if saving just one life makes such worth it.

Even a life saved is going to expire eventually.

How do you determine that one life was saved?

That's a good sentiment, but it doesn't generalize well.

Some 40,000 people die in auto accidents annually and about a third to one half of those are alcohol related in any given year.

Good luck banning automobiles and alcohol.

www.alcoholalert.com...

But, even this is a bad example because driving is a privilege and gun ownership is a right and even though driving is a privilege, the number of people who are driving around without a license at any given time is outrageous and many of those drive drunk.

What about obesity? How many people die annually because of obesity?

How do you ban that?

www.doctorslounge.com...

So, clichés are one thing, but the realities of life are quite another.


[edit on 2008/6/30 by GradyPhilpott]

reply to post by truthtalker


I thank you sir, for your compliments, and for your comments on my post, you are correct, I realized when I posted those words that I had misstated, But, just as now, I was then, also tired.. hence the apollogies... LOL..
Anyway thank you sir for clarifying what I was attempting to say. and If my Job will permit me to have more than 8hrs home time sometime this week I may actually be in some sort of shape to post a few more replies... LOL..(16hr work days are getting old)

Originally posted by xmotex
I don't see the Second Amendment as a left/right issue, but as a civil liberties issue...

Actually, I don't see it as a civil liberties issue...I see it as an issue of God-given Rights specifically mentioned in the Bill of Rights! As a Constitutional Right, that's how I can best defend my actual liberties.

Or don't you see the difference between a Right & a Liberty?

Originally posted by cruzion

Absolutely. Thousands of gun-deaths a year, and the dumb-arsed Yanks still haven't learned.


Too bad, you never bothered to get any accurate information before starting your rant.

According to this article more than half of U.S. gun deaths are from suicide. Surely your own experiences in the UK where banning guns just forced people not to stop killing eachother, but just to switch to another weapon will prove to you (once and for all ) that it's not the gun, but the person pulling the trigger that kills.

BTW, in the UK, have they taken away your eating utensils (knives, forks, spoons) yet?

reply to post by GradyPhilpott
Actually, while they may die from auto accidents and acohol abuse, the automobile and the alcohol did not kill anyone. They are just tools being abused, like guns are tools that can be abused, knives are tools that can be abused, nails are tools that can be abused, chainsaws are tools that can be abused... the one thing all of these have in common is that they are tools. The abuse in every violent death since the begionning of time was done by a person, not the tool. So we eiither ban tools (right down to rocks and sticks) and go back beyond living in caves (a rock face can be a tool as well), or we ban abuse of tools. I like the latter.

I know you know this, just felt it was something that should be re-stated. It is extremely easy to get pulled off this point in a debate.

TheRedneck

The Supreme court has disarmed Washington.

The precedent has been set; America is next.

Redneck knows what is going on.

Originally posted by centurion1211
BTW, in the UK, have they taken away your eating utensils (knives, forks, spoons) yet?

Actually, knives are next.

A&E doctors are calling for a ban on long pointed kitchen knives to reduce deaths from stabbing.
A team from West Middlesex University Hospital said violent crime is on the increase - and kitchen knives are used in as many as half of all stabbings.

news.bbc.co.uk...

Originally posted by doctormcauley
The Supreme court has disarmed Washington.

The precedent has been set; America is next.

Could you clarify this statement?

SCOTUS just struck down the D. C. handgun ban and the NRA has filed lawsuits against other jurisdictions, including Chicago and San Francisco and more are sure to follow.

Actually, the Chicago Tribune and the SFGate are shaking in their boots so much that both published editorial pieces calling for the repeal of the Second Amendment.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Thought this might be of interest



Ready, Aim, Backfire

Posted on Jun 30, 2008
By Marie Cocco

The gun lobby at last holds its Holy Grail: a ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court that the oddly worded Second Amendment, which speaks of a “well regulated militia” in the same sentence as “the right of the people to keep and bear arms,” does, in fact, bestow upon individuals a constitutional right to own weapons.

Yet it seems that the most extreme crusaders of the right were not sufficiently careful in what they wished for. Even the five conservative justices who took their side and overturned decades of precedent to discover this “right” to private gun ownership believe that Congress and, apparently, states and cities have a perfect right—if not an obligation—to impose a host of restrictions on who can own a gun and where a firearm may be carried.

In other words, gun control is not the same as gun confiscation.

The Supreme Court ruling struck down the District of Columbia law that effectively banned the ownership of handguns, the strictest gun-control law in the nation and one the gun lobby therefore had targeted for obliteration. But the high court simultaneously eviscerated a dogma that the high priests of the gun-rights lobby have long promoted: The justices—even Scalia, who wrote the majority opinion—effectively eliminated the argument that regulating guns is somehow equivalent to seizing them. And Scalia endorsed, with some specificity, a host of gun regulations that embrace pretty much every approach that various states and cities have been putting into place since the late 1960s. These are, it must be noted, the very sorts of laws the gun lobby has doggedly and noisily protested.

“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,” Scalia wrote.

[www.truthdig.com...[/url]
for full story

It's true. In one fell swoop the S.C. said it was ok for D.C. resident to own a gun in his home locked and loaded for self defense but at the same time confirmed the govt. right to control guns otherwise. Now any new cases challenging any regulations will not be heard by the S.C. as they'll say we already decided the issue.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, they (govt.) give with one hand and take with the other to appease the rumbling of the people. This case gained nothing. It just gave back to D.C. what the rest of the country already had and what they (govt.) couldn't flat out take away without a civil war breaking out. That's what happens when you ask a corrupt govt. to give relief when it's their own best interests they're looking out for. Not ours.

reply to post by truthtalker



The Supreme Court ruling was limited by precedence and the terms of the suit brought against DC.

Technically, most people believe that some control over weaponry is beneficial, as is some limitation of what constitutes free speech.

To me, the important thing is that SCOTUS said that the essence of the 2nd Amendment is the right to self-protection and that laws restricting the right to use firearms to protect oneself are unconstitutional.

The anti-gun lobby has tried for decades to make gun ownership so onerous that people would be unable to realistically maintain handguns for self-defense.

It won't happen overnight and the anti-gunners will continue with their denial of reality, but eventually all the laws that have no purpose except to disarm the law-abiding public will be struck down.

The impetus of the anti-gun crowd has for generations rested on the ignorant interpretation of gun ownership as a collective right.

From now on, stupidity, ignorance, and perversion will no longer have a place in the gun ownership debate.

PS
You need some external source tags: [ex ][/ex ] no spaces.


[edit on 2008/7/1 by GradyPhilpott]