'Time to dig into those briefs for the petitioner, Hawke.


I would Ed, but I already know what their argument is and I'm not buying
it.
I'm saying no sale.

That's too bad. Well, you can join the grumblers out in the street while
the
case is decided, then. Much of your argument is simply wrong, and the
parts
that are right are well-known to the petitioners and the respondents. The
case will be decided at the top of the steps with all of your argument as
a
backstory that's been around for many decades and that's already been
presented in the briefs.d I'll be watching it with great interest.




You can join in with the anti people side of the argument if you like. There
will be arguments that you can go along with making that claim. The ACLU and
the government will be glad to have your support. But I tell you what. Watch
for the court's holding when they decide the case. Unless they duck the
question it's going to come out one of two ways; either the 2nd amendment
was intended to protect the right of the public to keep and bear arms, or it
doesn't protect that right. All the briefs and all the legal arguments
aside, that is what the debate is about, and as I said, there really isn't a
legitimate debate. Because if the founding fathers didn't believe that the
right to bear arms needed protecting then they wouldn't have believed that
the right to free speech or of the press or to assemble would either.



'Better brush up on the 14th, though. I've never heard anyone who knows
about it claim that *anything* is clear about the two due process clauses
in
the Bill of Rights. d8-)


That's funny because when I was in graduate school none of my professors,
who were all lawyers, mentioned anything about the 14th amendment being in
question. That was less than five years ago BTW. If you're referring to the
court expanding federal power over the states by way of the due process
clause there may be some state arguments about what the federal government
can or can't do, but the court has allowed more and more federal control
over the states all the time. It's only a matter of time before the "power"
of the individual states is really nothing more than a fiction because the
federal government is more or less now a national government with states'
authority being merely window dressing. The 14th amendment is just the
vehicle for making this a reality.

If you are referring to another debate on the 14th then I'd ask that you
refresh my memory as to what you mean.

Hawke