The Supreme Court is due to deliver the opinion in the case of DC v. Heller sometime in the next two days. It is almost universally anticipated that the decision will affirm an individual right to keep and bear arms, even by those who oppose such a decision.
According to SCOTUSblog, it is almost a lead-pipe lock that Scalia will be writing the decision. This seems to affirm that it will be a favorable decision for gun owners and gun rights in general.
So, any predictions on what the opinion will be? Scope, import, whatever? Hell, if you want to complain bitterly, here’s the place.
I plan on obeying any decision that the Supreme Court makes-that is what they are there for, after all. My prediction is that if the SC decides that individual gun rights are the law of the land, those who think differently will be disappointed but will adjust.
Counter-question-If the SC rules the other way, how do you think the NRA and other organized groups will react? Will they accept the decision, or will whispers of armed rebellion abound?
As I hinted in the duplicate thread I offered up about a minute too late I have also heard from a source close to the inner workings of the Court that Scalia is writing the opinion.
No, I don’t believe any mainstream group will suggest armed rebellion.
If the decision should go the other way, I expect groups like the NRA will begin to work on changing the law so that we can recognize an individual right, by legislation or by amendment.
Although “it’s not meant to be read as an individual right” is a convenient argument to make for my side, I don’t think anyone honestly believes it. We know what the amendment says, and nobody is going to be surprised when the Supreme Court reaffirms it. I’m honestly a little embarassed by the arguments my fellow gun-control advocates have been using, and it’ll be a relief to finally go about attacking the right to bear convenient robbery and murder tools honestly.
As I’ve said before I believe that the second amendment does guarantee individual gun ownership. I think it’s a bad idea but it’s the law. If we don’t like what the law says, we should openly work on changing it rather than try to figure out ways to get around it.
I wish all the members of the Supreme Court were willing to take a similar view about other parts of the Constitution and stop acting like their role is to look for loopholes in the Constitution on behalf of their client.
Oh no, no, everyone has the right to bear a single shot musket with a 10 sec or so reload time and depressing miss/backfire rates. To keep with the framers intent and all. :p[sup]1[/sup]
Anyway I’m anticipating a defense of the right.
[sup]1[/sup]No, I’m am definitely not being entirely serious here, why do you ask?
I think it’s obvious that the court will rule in favor of individual rights. That’s one of the things it was stacked to do. I think that’s probably a correct interpretation of the founders’ intent, but the context under which they wrote is now so archaic that it amounts to a flaw in the Bill of Rights. I do not want to set any precedents by repealing or monkeying with anything in the bill of Rights, so it’s a flaw we’re just going to have to live with. The gun fetishes can rejoice that they will not have to give up their exploding substitute penises and kids will keep shooting up schools.
If this ruling were to hypothetically go the other way (which it won’t), I do think you would see violence from some of the worst gun nuts. They’d probably try to secede or something.
My guess is that , for the majority, there would just be a movement to write a new amendment making the individual right more explicit.
Well, that’s different. Written word is written word (or speech or religious exercise etc) no matter what, it can be circulated no matter how it’s produced, the only real difference is content, maybe ease of access, but a single pamphlet with a manual printing press (or at least the idea it expresses) can still be circulated to a comparable amount of people with enough initiative.
Arms change over time and a small grouping with SMGs or RPGs are significantly more deadly than a small group armed with period weapons.
Again though, I wasn’t entirely being serious I support the 2nd amendment on account of wanting to own a sword collection (after all, however ineffective they are still “arms”).
It’s easy as fuck to get a knife and use it in a murder - yet you don’t see people calling for the banning of knives.
Take a look at the case files of the executed offenders in Texas. You will be amazed at how many of them committed their murders with knives, or even just with their bare hands. Countless sexual assaults at the point of knives and strangulation or bludgeoning to death in those case files. Should we ban hands?
It’s funny - robbery and murder are illegal, and yet they still happen all the time. Going by the anti-gun logic, robbery and murder should be non-existent, because they’re against the law.
What part of “shall not be infringed” do people have such difficulty understanding? And it says “the right of the people.” People, as in, like, you and me.
If you’re referring to people who wish to be able to legally protect themselves and their families in cities that are absolutely saturated with violent crime, I think “self righteous gun nuts” is the wrong term to use.
As much as I love you, Dio, I wish you wouldn’t sling loaded emotional language at gun owners. I know you’re smarter than that.
Did he get this wrong, too? Isn’t it ironic that in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld the judges that got it wrong were Clarence Thomas, Antonin Scalia, and, of all people, John Paul Stevens, that great champion of the poor and downtrodden, the leader of the so-called “liberal” wing of the Supreme Court? Shall we look at what he got “wrong”?
Imagine that, determining that the detainee in question deserved a trial under normal criminal law, but recognizing that it was not his place as a jurist to make the determination about how that should be done.
It could just be that his opinion differs from yours on what is correct and what is incorrect. It then follows that your “Curious. Why is that?” statement at the end of your post, clearly meant as a jibe, is misplaced.
So are we going to discuss the Heller decision specifically, or are we going to turn this into Generic Gun Debate #195125?
I expect the result of this to be, essentially, yes, the Constitution clearly say it’s an individual right, and no, it doesn’t matter, because our government doesn’t really give a shit about the Constitution. Already about 90%+ of what the federal government does is prohibited, so they’ll just add gun control to the list of things they’re not allowed to do but do anyway.
I have also heard from a source close to the inner workings of the Court that Scalia is writing the opinion.