D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty is going forward with an appeal to the Supreme Court in the Parker case.
July 16th, 2007 by Syd
From Jeff Knox at the Firearms Coalition:
D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty is announcing that the District is going forward with an appeal to the Supreme Court in the Parker case.
The announcement puts to rest rumors and concerns that DC would simply make minor adjustments to their oppressive gun restrictions to feign compliance with the Federal Circuit Court’s decision stating that the Second Amendment refers to an individual right.
The next step in the process is for the Supreme Court to decide whether they will hear the case or not. If they do not choose to hear it, the court ruling stands and its decision carries a bit more weight than it would have had if it had never been appealed to the SCOTUS, but it would still not be a binding precedent for all federal courts. If the Supreme Court does choose to hear the case it will be almost impossible for them to reach a decision without a clear statement of whether the Second Amendment applies to only state militias such as the National Guard or whether it is an individual right.
Please spread this news and start writing letters to the editor; the anti-gunners will be mounting massive media campaigns in attempts to convince the Court that the American people no longer believe in the Second Amendment. It is up to us - you and me - to diffuse that nonsense and make it clear that the majority of Americans recognize the right to arms as a basic human right.
We will keep you posted as the issue develops and we will present more in-depth analysis in “The Knox Report” and in the Blogs on our newly revamped website - www.FirearmsCoalition.org.
Yours for the Second Amendment,
Jeff Knox
The Firearms Coalition
From Fox News:
District of Columbia officials said Monday they plan to petition the Supreme Court as they seek to defend the city’s 30-year-old ban on most handguns.
A federal appeals court panel struck down the law in March, rejecting the city’s argument that the Second Amendment right to bear arms applied only to militias. The full appeals court refused to reconsider the decision in May. The law has remained in effect during the appeals process.
“We have made the determination that this law can and should be defended,” Mayor Adrian M. Fenty said in a statement Monday.
Washington’s gun law dating to 1976 bars residents from keeping handguns in their homes and prohibits the carrying of a gun without a license. Registered firearms must be kept unloaded and disassembled. The city’s sweeping gun ban is matched only by Chicago among large U.S. cities.
If the high court takes up the case, it would mark the first time in 70 years that justices will consider the breadth of the Second Amendment. In 2003, the court chose not to take a case that challenged California’s ban on assault weapons.
From Tom Gresham:
WHAT’S AT STAKE
This case hinges on whether the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution applies to people or to governments. In a twisted interpretation, several lower courts have ruled that the Second Amendment (”A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed”) is the ONLY amendment which does not spell out rights guaranteed to people. For some reason, these courts have decided that the founding fathers, having just fought a terrible war of independence from a strong central government, wanted to guarantee that only the government had a right to have guns. Go figure.
When the Fifth Circuit in New Orleans stated (in the Emerson case) several years ago that the Second Amendment was an individual right, it stirred up a hornet’s nest. Following that, the U.S. Justice Department under John Ashcroft adopted the position that the Second Amendment was an individual right.
This all came on the heels of 20 years of law journal articles which supported the individual right position, and even famed constitutional scholar Lawrence Tribe changed his book on constitutional law to reflect the current thinking — that the Second Amendment guarantees an individual right to firearms.
Now, the D.C. Court of Appeals has ruled in favor of the individual right position, putting it in conflict with other circuit courts — a perfect setup for this case to be heard by SCOTUS.
This is high stakes poker, friends. The Supremes could rule that individuals have absolutely no right to firearms. It could go the other way. Or, as some think most likely, it will rule to uphold the lower court decision (or refuse to take the case, letting that decision stand), and leave us with a better-but-uncertain outcome. Why? Because the D.C. court ruled that while the District’s gun ban was unconstitutional because it was a total ban, that some gun control laws are legal, as long as they are “reasonable.”
And there lies the challenge.
All sides of the gun rights issue will spare no expense to work on this case. This may be the big one that activists have wanted, and yet have feared.
You can bet we’ll be talking about it on “Tom Gresham’s Gun Talk” in the coming weeks, and we’ll keep you up to date.
Keep your powder dry!
Source: Tom Gresham’s Gun Talk
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