9th circuit court of appeals in San Fran rules: No individual right to bear arms.
 

http://foxnews.com/story/0,2933,72371,00.html
Damn hippy San Francisco fag judicial activists trying to impose their pc views on the rest of us. Hmm I guess they'll be coming to get your guns. I don't own any guns but think the constitution gives me the right to own one. What do you all think?

I'm from Texas. Need I say more?

I think Texas would sucede before surrendering personal gun ownership :BangBang:

Leave it to the 9th, to stir the shit pot...:BangBang: :thumbsup

Thats why I own a few hotdog stands

Isn't the ninth circuit the one that they released details on awhile back? Something like 98% of their rulings are reversed or over-ruled by the Supreme Court?! :1orglaugh

the right to bear arms is not a Nationalized admendment and not all the States have to follow that law

as a matter of fact there are only a few laws in the bill of rights that are nationalized to the entire states

I can see where the judge is coming from, but this statement strangely assumes that individuals don't comprise or start militias. He seems to think that militias are a goverment idea and/or regulable because of the wording of amendment. It ignores the role of militias as independent military unions that can provide physical solidarity and resistance, a counterweight as we tip toward a homogenized police state.

CALIFORNIA UBER ALLES

"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."


finally a court has the guts to read the second amendment the way it was meant to be read.

the text is crystal clear, the constitution is speaking of collective rights: of a state's right to defend itself: ie national guards etc. it is not speaking of an individual.

the clause has been twisted from it true meaning.

no single individual has the right to bear arms outside an authorized collective effort.

No offense but if you're a grown man with an office job chances are you don't need a gun. If you're a 90lb sex worker it's a different story. If a guy is already stalking me or violating a restraining order he's not going to let a little thing like not having a carry permit stop him- but I should? You try to rape and kill me it's my constitutional right to make sure you spend the rest of your life steering a wheelchair by blowing into a tube.

The gun laws here in NYC are insane, you own a jewelry store and MAYBE you can get a premise permit. But you can go up to Hunts Point and buy an illegal gun on any block for $40. Here in NYC the criminals are the ONLY people with guns and standard NYPD policy when reporting to "gunshots fired" is to drive veeeery slowly to make sure it's all over when they get there. NYPD does not do shoot outs, they clean of the mess and go home to the suburbs. I keep the firehouse down the block on speed-dial, now THEY actually show up..

Perfect reasons for needing guns.

Where's Mr. Fiction with his "American freedom" attitude when you need him?

Isn't San Francisco the city that pays for sex change operations of its city employees?

This is correct. Bunch of pin heads. They are based out of San Francisco * RAT * were they belong.

Not necessarily so....

Notice the grammar.. It can easily be argued that, "A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state" is 1 of a list of 2 rights, with the 2nd right, "the right of the people to keep and bear arms". This is merited by the comma separating the two and the final comma, which would not be necessary if it were one item.

But even it the other side held true...:'' It was upon this force that the States could rely for defense and securing of the laws, on a force that ''comprised all males physically capable of acting in concert for the common defense,'' who, ''when called for service . . . were expected to appear bearing arms supplied by themselves and of the kind in common use at the time.''

The militia was comprised of 'the people' or 'the citizens'.. and when called upon, mustered in an organized fashion with their own guns.

The Supreme Court has flatly held that the individual?s right to keep and bear arms "is not a right granted by the Constitution." In the four cases in which the high court has addressed the issue, it has consistently held that the Second Amendment does not confer a blanket right of individual gun ownership. The most important Supreme Court Second Amendment case, U.S. v. Miller, was decided in 1939. It involved two men who illegally shipped a sawed-off shotgun from Oklahoma to Arkansas, then claimed the Second Amendment prohibited the federal government from prosecuting them. The court emphatically disagreed, ruling that the Second Amendment had the "obvious purpose" of creating state militias, not of authorizing individual gun ownership. In two earlier rulings in 1876 and 1886, the Supreme Court held that the Second Amendment affected only the federal government?s power to regulate gun ownership and had no effect on state gun control powers. Those cases, Presser v. U.S. and U.S. v. Cruikshank, formed the basis for the continuing legal decisions that the Second Amendment is not an impediment to rational gun control. In another case that the Supreme Court declined to review, a federal appeals court in Illinois ruled in 1983 that the Second Amendment could not prevent a municipal government from banning handgun possession. In the case, Quilici v. Village of Morton Grove, the appeals court held that contemporary handguns couldn?t be considered as weapons relevant to a collective militia.

Sowwy, but the 9th Circuit is right.. again :thumbsup

For some reason, people never question why the NRA and other pro-gunners don't challenge gun control laws with 2nd Amendment challenges in court. Its because they'd lose.

I guess its just easier to raise money by whipping people into near hysteria over an entirely imaginary right than actually attempt to assert that "right" in the way provided for by the Constitution.

Yet once again we see that those who shreik the loudest about the Constitution and 2nd Amendment are actually the ones who refuse to follow it when the legal process doesn't favor their whims. Doubly ironically, that is exactly what the morons accuse "liberal judges" of doing.

:1orglaugh

The 9th circuit is the court who protects freedom of speech like no other federal court in this country. They also support separation of church and state like no one else. If you want to see a court that actually believes in the constitution, unlike the right wing activist Supreme Court, look no further than the 9th circuit.

The main reason they get reversed so often is because the Supreme Court is so obviously biased toward the right. If you have a fair court and a biased court, it's pretty obvious that the biased court will overturn the fair court whenever possible.

They did not say that guns should be illegal, they said that the constitution allows militias to have guns and does not, in their opinion, guarantee the right of individuals to have guns. This argument is almost as old as the constitution itself. This ruling should not be shocking to anyone who has been paying attention.

Just to be clear, I am not against people having guns, nor is this ruling - it just says that it's ok for the government to prevent people from owning tanks and missiles and nuclear bombs.

The right to bear arms does not extend to individuals, except as members of a militia. It is nice to see the 9th circuit court confirming this, but it means a lot more that the US Supreme Court has upheld this basic position a number of times. Maybe some day extremists will see that the constitution isn't set up so we can violently kill one another with impugnity. If it weren't for a multi-million dollar lobby, our "gun rights" wouldn't still over-rule our "not being dead" rights.

Even if the 9th is right with I doubt they are -- frankly they rarely are... it doesn't matter.

In that case -- the issue of private gun ownership would then become a state issue and no federal court should even be involved in the debate.

The majority of people seem to want more gun control. If it were up to the states, then we might have reasonable laws. Unfortunately, the bad wording of the 2nd Amendment gives gun extremists fuel to protect so-called "gun rights".

I'm interested in finding out how someone in Yorkshire developed such insight into what the majority of the people in the US want...

And what majority is that?

Furthermore, the majority isn't always right...

Well.. as the old saying goes.. "If guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns.. or is it.."If inlaws were outlawed, only outlaws would have inlaws".. err sump'm...

Um. Being born in the US, raised in the US, living in the US for more than 20 years, and going to college in the US might have had something do to with it.

Yup...it's against the law to own or carry a handgun in the city of Chicago. Actually...prob'ly any gun for that matter. There's not too many hunting expeditions in the city here.

Everything the 9th circuit does gets shot down. Down sweat it. They are a joke.

CA??? That would be a shock!!!

:Graucho :Graucho :Graucho

oh, how the liberal myth survives.

The bill of rights was written to protect the rights of individuals. period.
Anyone who refutes this is uninformed or has an agenda.
*ALL* of the amendments protect the rights of the individual. Pretending that the second amendment is different from the others just makes you look silly.

The original intent of the second amendment was to insure that there would always be "minutemen" available to protect themselves and their nieghbors from attack both foriegn and domestic.
(keep in mind that the revolution was just won by citizens picking up arms to throw of the english yoke)

Now, if you want to argue that thats not needed today, I'd call that an argument worthy of discussion. Pretending the 2nd amendment *isn't* about individual rights deminishes the pretender.
:thumbsup

Their opinion doesn't matter -- their obligation is to interpret the Constitution.

It really is too bad that their opinion got in the way of their ability to read.

This is the sole cause of the liberals who would outlaw guns.
They've bred an underclass of thieves for the last 50 yrs that commits the crime in our country.
The fear of guns is an irrational fear developed by a fear of the american underclass who holds life cheaply and thinks nothing of killing.
Take away guns, they;ll gladly use something else.

Put these animals in prison, throw away the key, and stop paying for their mothers to shit out another one of them every yr and there won't be a need to fear guns.

I live in Arizona where you can not only buy a gun you can wear it in public as long as it's not concealed. I will never give up my guns. There are relatively few crimes committed with guns here considering how many guns are out there. You tend to not shoot at people if you know they can shoot back. I wouldn't live somewhere like NYC where you can't own a gun. it's just sad that criminals can buy a gun cheaper than I can.

Maybe they DID read the line which says that the right to keep and bear arms exists so as to have a well-ordered militia, or something along that line.

The question has always been what is meant by that word "militia"? Does the adjective "well-ordered" imply "state-run" instead of a bunch of guys getting together without any governmental approval on weekends to camp out, run around in the woods in fatigues, and have target practice?

I can see this solution coming along for adult webmasters before it happens to real criminals.

no, the question is why would this be in the bill of rights if it wasn't an individual right like every other *right* on that page.

dude, liberals hate the truth.

Actually, I am from a traditionally conservative, libertarian state... New Hampshire. Let's hear it for stereotypes and generalizations. I am a bit liberal, so I must be from California, huh?

I am *at least* afraid of an educated guy with a gun, sorry. You're spouting overgeneralized bull-pucky. All sorts of people commit crimes. Why make it easier on people? If we can save lives by making murder inconvenient for lazy americans, then I say go for it.

Um -- no.

That's not at all what is says.

It doesn't say anything about the right existing so as to have a regulated militia. I

t does say that a a well regulated militia is necessary for the security of a free state.

It also goes on to say that words "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

The funny thing is the sentence as it's structured hardly makes sense at all.

Sadly, what your doing is taking the lazy way out.
I'm for responsible gun ownership.
I believe the law should be that every man over the age of 21 be required to own and know how to use a gun.

Uh, actually that is an old argument, and quite false. Most militia's at the time of the bill of rights were private militias, raised by a few gentlemen here and there and commanded by the the local yocals.

That, and the design of the document, (duh, its called bill of rights) and later statements by the authors all confirm that its individual owners that are protected, not state armies.

The 9th circuit smokes crack, pay no attention.

No, pretending the 2nd amendment asserts a blanket, individual right to bear arms just because you say it does makes you look silly.

You are doing the same thing you whine about liberals doing.. pretending the 2nd Amendment says what you want it to say rather than what it actually says.

Bzzt. Wrong again.

Militias in 1792 consisted of part-time citizen-soldiers organized by individual states. Its members were civilians who kept arms, ammunition and other military equipment in their houses and barns÷there was no other way to muster a militia with sufficient speed.

Over time, however, the state militias failed to develop as originally anticipated. States found it difficult to organize and finance their militias and, by the mid-1800s, they had effectively ceased to exist. Beginning in 1903, Congress began to pass legislation that would eventually transform state militias into what is now the National Guard.

Today, the National Guard÷and Army Reserve÷are scarcely recognizable as descendants of militias of the 1790s. The National Guard and Reserve forces, in fact, do not permit personnel to store military weapons at home. And many of todayâs weapons÷tanks, armored personnel carriers, airplanes and the like÷hardly lend themselves to use by individuals.

The definitioin of the word militia is not in question...

A militia is:

An army composed of ordinary citizens rather than professional soldiers.

- or -

A military force that is not part of a regular army and is subject to call for service in an emergency.

- or -

The whole body of physically fit civilians eligible by law for military service.

That pretty much answers the second question...

I thought you were the guy who complained they didn't READ the Amendment. Now, it's you who wants to ignore the word "militia." How ironic!

Another one who doesn't know a damn thing about history.

Militas were indeed state run & organized armies when the Bill of Rights was written. The Bill of Rights grants the STATES the right to arm SPECIFICALLY so that they could resist the government should it become tyrannical.

No other reason.

The funny thing is, it makes PERFECT sense if it is intended to cover the people's army. Then you can debate whether that refers to something official or unofficial.

No that would be me

The first (meaning, most commonly-meant) meaning of "militia" according to the Merriam-Webster.com site is: "1 a : a part of the organized armed forces of a country liable to call only in emergency." So, it refers to, for example, The National Guard or Army Reserves, for example. Yes, M-W does include the other definitions you LIKE, but this remains the primary one.

Oh, well you two need to talk.

No the funny thing is that you are trying to say something makes sense if it's intended to do something. A sentence that makes sense would make sense.

I was speaking more about grammar than I was intent anyway....

Many of the Bill of Rights are there to make what the British forces were doing illegal. They were, in part, a politcal maneuvre to held justify the war of independence. As such, not all of them are about individual rights, and all are about what the government can and cannot do.

The 2nd Amendment's purpose, in context, should be clear. It made it legal for the states to organize militias, so any tyrannical power, be it the British Empire or the Federal Government, could be challenged. Weapons as a political tool against political powers. What the hell does it have to do with carring a handgun to protect yourself from fellow citizens? Or, say, to carry an assault rifle to murder fellow citizens...

Funny how you read all of that into this:

The insanity in your argument is amazing ---

taking words written over 200 hundred years ago and trying to equate them with the situation today is quite amusing.

I'm sure the framers had the Illinios National Guard in mind at the time of the writing. No wait -- they had the Reserves in mind... that's right.

Give be a break!

Coming from you, that's fucking hilarious. Then again, what isn't?