Yet Another Dramatic Win for Gun Rights in the U.S.A.

[Lemur]

Yet another dramatic win for the 2nd Amendment purists; clearly this means that Obama is going to take all of our guns away any minute. (I have never seen an issue like this, where the people who are clearly winning every argument and challenge nurse such a large, illogical and persistent victim complex.)

In another dramatic victory for firearm owners, the Supreme Court has ruled unconstitutional Chicago, Illinois' 28-year-old strict ban on handgun ownership, a potentially far-reaching case over the ability of state and local governments to enforce limits on weapons.

A 5-4 conservative majority of justices on Monday reiterated its two-year-old conclusion the Constitution gives individuals equal or greater power than states on the issue of possession of certain firearms for self-protection.

"It cannot be doubted that the right to bear arms was regarded as a substantive guarantee, not a prohibition that could be ignored so long as states legislated in an evenhanded manner," wrote Justice Samuel Alito.

The court grounded that right in the due process section of the 14th Amendment. The justices, however, said local jurisdictions still retain the flexibility to preserve some "reasonable" gun-control measures currently in place nationwide.

[Vladimir]

Finally,

Now, if they could implement mandatory registration and training without the fear that the city would use it to confiscate firearms. I believe it was Chicago that required all gun owners to register their firearms then used that information to confiscate them.

Hopefully, even without mandatory safety courses, crime levels will decrease.

[drone]

In other news, researchers say the suicide rate for Cubs' fans could be going up.

[Vladimir]

In other news, researchers say the suicide rate for Cubs' fans could be going up.

They broke my heart!

[ICantSpellDawg]

I see the constitutional double standard by conservative justices here, but I will celebrate this victory anyway. We need to get guns in the hands of the people fast. Every law-abiding, mentally competant citizen should be trained to use firearms and carry one at all times. statisticians will notice a marked decline in nationwide. Governments will be less likely to take a heavy hand over minor traffic infractions, such as a $800 fee on a .02 cent overdue bill..

[Seamus Fermanagh]

It's been over a century. GET OVER IT.


Lemur:

I have to grant you that point. The continued "persecution complex" evidenced by a number of our 2nd ammendment types is a little silly. I'd love to hear more "we're happy with recent rulings and are working to maintain things as they are" and less of the "they're going to take my guns" stuff.

I am also happy with this ruling.

[PanzerJaeger]

Why does everything have to be about Obama with you, Lemur.

Anyway, you can blame the Clinton administration and the gun rights battles of the '90s for the extra vigilance of gun rights advocates. It was a traumatic period, and any Democratic administration in the future will rightly elicit distrust over the issue. Not to mention that the NRA is a pressure group. Their entire focus is on seeking out and eliminating threats to gun ownership, so citing them as some kind of example of a victim complex among gun owners is misplaced.

The truth is that the law is on our side, but the current administration is not. They may have tabled the issue, but their beliefs are fairly transparent.

This is a good day for the freedoms that make the United States a great place to live!

[Lemur]

You say "extra vigilance," I say "screaming, girlish persecution complex with no basis in political reality." The Clinton lesson works both ways; leftists learned (for the most part) that gun control was a losing argument which motivated their opponents and did nothing to galvanize their supporters. End of story for at least a generation.

As for the NRA, I guess they're subject to the age-old rule that no group ever wants the problem it fights to diminish, much less vanish.

[Devastatin Dave]

As for the NRA, I guess they're subject to the age-old rule that no group ever wants the problem it fights to diminish, much less vanish.

Like Democrats really want there to be dumb, poor, and lazy people so they continue to make government programs that allow people to be dumb, poor, and lazy... Right? ;)

[Lemur]

Like Democrats really want there to be dumb, poor, and lazy people so they continue to make government programs that allow people to be dumb, poor, and lazy... Right? ;)

Actually, I think the two political parties are too big and varied to make for a good analogy. A better one might be the NAACP (which resolutely refuses to accept that things are getting beter for black people), Operation Rescue (which carefully never mentions how the rate of abortion keeps going down in the U.S.) or any other issue-specific group.

[Centurion1]

Let's complain about old people groups next. I hate old people they are greedy and take my money for a failing system. And I will probably never see the cost repaid to me. But still they say that we want to take away their money....... yeah right politicians are afraid of pissing off the geezer demographic.

[Subotan]

God bless the Firearms Acts, 1968, 1988, and 1997.

[a completely inoffensive name]

****, I just took my AP Gov test that required me to know what in the Bill of Rights had been incorporated through due process, and now they add another on me as soon as the test is over. This ruling was expected though, the court has been and is continuing to lean on the conservative side. Even with Sotomayor and Kagen being put on there.

[Beskar]

Guns don't kill people, Republicans do.

[gaelic cowboy]

Guns don't kill people, Republicans do.

And loyalists

[Devastatin Dave]

Guns don't kill people, Republicans do.

Or if you ride in a car with Ted Kennedy.

[ICantSpellDawg]

Lemur, you claim that nobody will ever need to defend themselves against government ever again. Societies collapse, goverments overstep their bounds, economies go into depresssion. This is not the end of history, there will be mass killings, genocides, revolutions and blood in the streets again at some point. The only time that you will accept that the traditional understanding of the second amendment should be preserved is when there is a barrell pointed in your face by the government that you trust so much. We've seen the U.S. economy essentially collapse, most people couldn't have seen that coming. The polarization in the United states coupled with the downward spiraling influence of democratic republics should show you that Americans will most likely need their own arsenal at some point, whether it is to defend themselves from their own governemnt or the governments of nations that dwarf them and eclipse a bankrupt nation.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Lemur, you claim that nobody will ever need to defend themselves against government ever again. Societies collapse, goverments overstep their bounds, economies go into depresssion. This is not the end of history, there will be mass killings, genocides, revolutions and blood in the streets again at some point. The only time that you will accept that the traditional understanding of the second amendment should be preserved is when there is a barrell pointed in your face by the government that you trust so much. We've seen the U.S. economy essentially collapse, most people couldn't have seen that coming. The polarization in the United states coupled with the downward spiraling influence of democratic republics should show you that Americans will most likely need their own arsenal at some point, whether it is to defend themselves from their own governemnt or the governments of nations that dwarf them and eclipse a bankrupt nation.

TSM:

I think you're loading way too many extra points onto Lemur's critique. At least in this thread, he has not come down as some kind of a gun control activist at all. He's said he thinks the Gun Lobby is over-dramatizing things, implying that he, the Lemury one, does NOT see any real threat to gun ownership and usage on the horizon. He didn't make a claim one way or another on gun control itself.

As a constitutionalist sorta fellow, I couldn't see how the 4 who voted against did so (doesn't connect for me, but I am a pro gun person), but that's me. I thought Lemur's point, of itself, was a good one. I am not a fan of the NRA's current "tone" with things, even though I support their agenda on 19 in 20.

[Louis VI the Fat]

I want private ownership of nuclear missiles. And of aircraft carriers.

[Beskar]

I want private ownership of nuclear missiles. And of aircraft carriers.

Imagine Microsoft firing their Nuclear Weapons at Apple, for bringing out a new iMac.

[a completely inoffensive name]

Lemur, you claim that nobody will ever need to defend themselves against government ever again. Societies collapse, goverments overstep their bounds, economies go into depresssion. This is not the end of history, there will be mass killings, genocides, revolutions and blood in the streets again at some point. The only time that you will accept that the traditional understanding of the second amendment should be preserved is when there is a barrell pointed in your face by the government that you trust so much. We've seen the U.S. economy essentially collapse, most people couldn't have seen that coming. The polarization in the United states coupled with the downward spiraling influence of democratic republics should show you that Americans will most likely need their own arsenal at some point, whether it is to defend themselves from their own governemnt or the governments of nations that dwarf them and eclipse a bankrupt nation.

You claim your speculations are facts when they are not. The world is closer to peace then it ever has been before, history shows this through a decrease in blood being shed over smaller and smaller areas that are in conflict and your claim that there will be blood in the streets sooner or later is biased from the increased exposure that citizens get of violence in the news then from before. Your statement that most people couldn't have seen that economic collapse coming is false, many economists did see it but their opinions were disregarded due to political reasons since the degregulation that caused the crash was making a nice big bubble that floated everyone's wealth very nicely until it popped. That statement is also ignorant of the time when the United States economy did collapse in the 1930s where the government did not crumble nor did large areas turn into anarchy. The downward spiraling influence of democratic republics stem from their reduction in economic might compared to the Russian and Chinese totalitarian governments, this is because the totalitarian government cherry pick what aspects of the free market they want to accept and due to right wing movements in major democratic republics in the 1970s-late 1990s causing massive deregulations which weakened the financial structure of the western world.

Oh by the way, you want to talk about the people's firearms defending against government having a "barrell pointed in your face by the government that you trust so much"? Let's take a stroll down US history and see the how the US government futilely attempted to stick a gun in the face of US citizens from the 1770s until about 1920, you know the good ole times when everyone had a gun and people were much freer from tyranny because of it.
Whiskey Rebellion
Pullman Strike
Great Railroad Strike
Homestead Strike
Battle of Blair Mountain

Hmm, it looks like none of those attempts by the citizens of the United States ever succeeded in standing up to the government. Oh wait, i'm being silly those were too small scale for them to win. Maybe if we have entire states, lets say 11 or so united together against the Federal government, then we would totally win right?

[Devastatin Dave]

The world is closer to peace then it ever has been before, history shows this through a decrease in blood being shed over smaller and smaller areas that are in conflict and your claim that there will be blood in the streets sooner or later is biased from the increased exposure that citizens get of violence in the news then from before. /URL]

I'd have to disagree. This of course is relatively speaking. If you mean at this very moment in history, like within the past month, sure, i can kind of see that. But if you look over the past century, more bloodshed by governments upon their enemies or their own citizens has occured than any other period in human history. To think that it won't happen again is quite pollyannish.
The scary part about this ruling is that we have 4 obviously illiterate judges sitting on the bench.

[a completely inoffensive name]

I'd have to disagree. This of course is relatively speaking. If you mean at this very moment in history, like within the past month, sure, i can kind of see that. But if you look over the past century, more bloodshed by governments upon their enemies or their own citizens has occured than any other period in human history. To think that it won't happen again is quite pollyannish.
The scary part about this ruling is that we have 4 obviously illiterate judges sitting on the bench.

I'm talking about the period since the end of the Cold War until today. The massive blood shed of the first 50 years of the 20th century created the foundations for progress by creating foundations such as the EU, UN and WTO. The end of the Cold War has sparked the beginnings of a new era of relative peace by having the vast majority of the world firmly linked together in a globalist economy whereas before the US and USSR and their many satellites were ready to send nukes flying due to their economic relations being slim to none. This is why China will never fight the US as long as they think they will eventually get their money back and as long as US citizens keep buying their stuff. Same goes for Russia, who supplies major amounts of natural gas. It will never do anything so blunt in Eastern Europe to jeopardize the demand for its natural gas so it picks on small areas that are relatively disconnected from Europe such as Georgia.

To think that ideology is stronger then greed is to ignore human history. Perhaps there will be another major war, there will probably always be war between two groups who don't have a strong enough economic relation to depend on each other and pacify them, but as long as there is people making lots of money, the status quo will not be changed and they will fight to make sure that pesky governments don't ruin their quarterly profits by killing citizens in another country who buy their product.

[PanzerJaeger]

You say "extra vigilance," I say "screaming, girlish persecution complex with no basis in political reality." The Clinton lesson works both ways; leftists learned (for the most part) that gun control was a losing argument which motivated their opponents and did nothing to galvanize their supporters. End of story for at least a generation.

Immature name calling aside, how do you know that? Was there a memo sent out through MSNBC to all the Leftist operatives that stated that gun control would not be on the agenda for a generation, or is that just something you came up with based on the current administration's decision to not push the issue for the time being? You seem to be implying that the NRA and/or gun rights activists are crazy for doing their jobs and not resting on their laurels.

Again, I cannot stress enough how traumatic the '90s were for gun owners. I still have pistols my dad bought during the era with restrictive clips, and I remember what a big deal it was to him when banned weapons returned to the market. For the first time since that era, we again have a Democratic administration dominated by social liberals. I'm not sure why anyone would expect a different response.

As for the NRA, I guess they're subject to the age-old rule that no group ever wants the problem it fights to diminish, much less vanish.

Indeed. As a member of the NRA, I can vouch for that. Even during the Bush years, I was subject to a constant stream of donation requests warning of what would happen if the Democrats were to win in the next election.

[rory_20_uk]

Isn't there something concerning a militia in the second amendment? Not personal ownership per se, but as part of an organised grouping.

[Lemur]

Lemur, you claim that nobody will ever need to defend themselves against government ever again.

I would be interested to see where I wrote, suggested, or implied any such thing.

The scary part about this ruling is that we have 4 obviously illiterate judges sitting on the bench.

Yes, it is not enough for your position to carry the day; those who disagree are evil and must be cast into darkness! If I could make you Caesar, DevDave, I would. The treason trials alone would be hilarious.

Was there a memo sent out through MSNBC to all the Leftist operatives that stated that gun control would not be on the agenda for a generation, or is that just something you came up with based on the current administration's decision to not push the issue for the time being?

What, you didn’t get the memo?

I’m sorry you’re “traumatized” by the Clinton years, but look to analogies in American politics, and you’ll see I’m not inventing this out of whole cloth. There’s a reason Social Security is now called “the third rail” of American politics—it did not start out that way. There are some issues which whole generations of politicians decide are not worth the fight. I predict, with some degree of confidence, that the only thing which might change the new normal on gun rights would be overreaching by 2nd Amendment advocates, such as the hyperventilating, hysterical, drama-queenish N.R.A.

(Exemplum gratum: Insisting that people on the terrorist watch list have no restrictions on gun purchases. That's just bad politics, that is. And it's an overreach by an organization drunk on its own success. If the N.R.A. had even the slightest realistic fear that guns would be taken away, they would never indulge in this sort of foolishness.)*

*And in fairness, the terrorist watch list is a horrible, dysfunctional thing, but that's hardly relevant to the politics of insisting that every person on it be allowed to purchase firearms without restriction. Two wrongs, in this instance, fail to make good politics or good policy.

[PanzerJaeger]

I predict, with some degree of confidence, that the only thing which might change the new normal on gun rights would be overreaching by 2nd Amendment advocates, such as the hyperventilating, hysterical, drama-queenish N.R.A.

So your entire thesis that the issue won't arise again for a generation is based on your own prediction, being an authority on the issue of course. If only the NRA had consulted with you first, maybe they wouldn't be so concerned with gun rights.

[Lemur]

So your entire thesis that the issue won't arise again for a generation is based on your own prediction

Reading comprehension epic fail.

Isn't there something concerning a militia in the second amendment? Not personal ownership per se, but as part of an organised grouping.

Indeed, but there's no real cognate to the militias of the late 1700s; even the states' National Guards aren't quite the same, so the "well-regulated militia" part is hard to apply. That said, the "well-regulate militia" phrase is followed by an unambiguous "shall not be infringed," which is kinda hard to argue with. This is a part of why the 2nd amendment advocates have been winning court battle after court battle.

And for the record, I'm pro gun ownership. I would also like autobahns sans speed limits and legalized prostitution, as long as I'm pretending it's Christmas.

[PanzerJaeger]

Reading comprehension epic fail.

That is no less a pathetic excuse for a response than it was in the other thread.

You said:

leftists learned (for the most part) that gun control was a losing argument which motivated their opponents and did nothing to galvanize their supporters. End of story for at least a generation.

I simply asked where you came up with that assertion. If I failed to understand your response, please enlighten me.

Where did you come up with that assertion, as it appears that the Brady Campaignis still up and running? Can you give a specific date as to when gun rights will again become a valid political issue?

[Sasaki Kojiro]

I think Lemur is just messing with you PJ.