On Mar 2, 12:16*pm, "Ed Huntress" wrote:
"RBnDFW" wrote in message

...





Joe wrote:
Today, the Court is supposed to take up the issue of whether or not
local governments have the right to restrict gun ownership. It will be an
interesting test of the mettle of old-time
Conservatives, who are fond of arguing in favor of "States' Rights"
over the power of the Federal government. I predict that they will
conveniently forget the states' rights issue for the duration of this
decision.

While I agree with them on the core issue of the inalienability of
citizens' rights to posses firearms, I can't help but think that
states' rights has always been a smoke screen for discriminatory
and/or repressive behavior.

Since the Court is tilted in favor of Conservatives, I suppose that
the decision will favor gun rights, but I remain suspicious about the
real agenda of any politicians; despite all their populist talk, they
don't want too much power vested in the hands of the citizenry. Here's
hoping that the decision will be made in favor of freedom.

I think you are missing the point.
The issue is that the rights are given by the Creator, and the government
is constrained from limiting those rights.
The individual states should also be required to recognize the same
rights.
* *No state should be allowed to restrict basic rights of humans.

But there are several ironies here. First is that the Constitution was
written by men, so *their* interpretation of "basic rights of humans" could
be wrong. In fact, the US signed a UN document (and largely wrote it) a
half-century ago that says we missed close to half of them.

Second is that the same people who claim states' rights are the ones who say
the Constitution was about limitations to what the *federal* government
could do, and over which it had authority. This was confirmed by the Supreme
Court in the 1830s, in the Barron v. Baltimore case. Then the 14th Amendment
was passed decades later, and now we're still deciding whether that actually
gave the federal government, particularly the Supreme Court, the authority
to decide when a state is violating a right of their citizens. In the matter
of the 2nd Amendment, that's what this case is going to decide.

The final irony, which Joe pointed out, is that Scalia and Thomas (mostly
Scalia) has been sarcastically bad-mouthing the "substantive due process"
doctrine that has given us such things as nation-wide free speech, freedom
of religion, and so on, for a few decades. That's the most likely doctrine
for the Court to follow in granting federal authority to enforce the right
to keep and bear arms, over the heads of the states.

But it's well known that Scalia and Thomas hate that doctrine, while at the
same time favoring the extending of the right over the states -- a process
called "incorporation" under the 14th. They're between a rock and a hard
place. Either they invoke substantive due process and embarrass themselves
(that's what the NRA wants them to do, in their parallel case), or they
overturn the Slaughterhouse Cases which have stood as precedent since the
1870s, and employ a different doctrine from the 14th to incorporate the 2nd.

We were discussing this here almost a year ago, and I mentioned then that it
was going to be really interesting, and really consequential. Look at who is
supporting overturning the Slaughterhouse cases: the ACLU, the Cato
Institute, and most pro-gun groups, except the NRA. Very strange bedfellows
indeed.

Fasten your seat belt. g

--
Ed Huntress- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Ed...considering the courts have given Eminent Domain free reign, what
stops the Government from declaring all guns "property of the
Government"?

TMT