Talking to my Dad last night, he said that the Supreme Court is going to judge on CCW laws for the Country in the next couple of months. Anybody hear about this? I suspect it’s just a spam email he got.
I dunno – what’s a CCW law?
CCW = concealed carry of weapons
Sorry, should have been clearer.
I think that’s what he saw. Or a spam email that twisted it around so much as to call it a Federal ban on CCW. I’ll email him and point him to that site.
I edited the title for you. I think a lot of people wouldn’t immediately know what you were talking about either.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
The D.C. case, AFAIK, isn’t even about concealed carry per se. It’s about gun regulations that effectively make it illegal for a citizen to possess a working firearm, even inside their own home.
This is what I thought too.
And that the SC may overturn that. I think, that somehow, my father has it in his mind that the Supreme Court is thinking about making a ‘law’ to make CCW illegal.
Perhaps some Senator has proposed such a law? I’ve been looking on Snopes for a spam that may suggest this, but have come up empty.
AFAIK, the Supreme Court does not ‘make’ laws, but insures that new laws are constitutional, and strikes down those that are not.
My take on it is this (please feel free to shoot it down) -
The District of Columbia, is not a state, so any umbrella law for the D of C would fall under the Federal umbrella. So that is why the Supreme Court agreed to look at it.
The case is not about CCW, but it is very much about gun ownership and, depending upon what the court decides to consider, it could effect handgun ownership and restrictions on handguns.
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.mindcontrol/msg/dd1cb534e23d7185
I’m surprised you haven’t heard of it, it’s a number of times been in the news in the past several months.
It’s a big deal because it’s the first time in a long while that the SC has decided to hear a case regarding the govt’s power to restrict firearms ownership. Depending on how they rule, it could either (a) render the great majority of state firearms laws unconstitutional, or (b) allow states to do anything they want, up to and including banning all gun ownership at their own discretion, or © carefully craft their decision so that things stay pretty much how they are, while allowing both sides to claim victory. I’m betting on ©.
The whole “DC isn’t a state” thing has been brought up in this case, but it’s kind of a sideshow argument. Very simply, last year an appeals court ruled that the DC ban on handguns violated the 2nd Amendment. DC appealed the case and the Supreme Court has agreed to hear arguments in March, IIRC. The meat of the question is whether the Supreme Court is going to wade into the question of whether the 2nd Amendment provides a collective right to bear arms (eg, states may maintain militias) or an individual right (eg, law abiding people have a right to own a handgun). The court could also issue a narrower ruling that avoids that controversy.
As far as I know, there’s no serious efforts in Washington to deal with concealed carry laws in any way. I’m certain that various groups can rally around some stray piece of legislation (Congressman Jones introducing a bill to require state reciprocity for CCW, or Congressman Smith introducing a bill to ban CCW entirely) but none of that is on the agenda of Congress.
Yep. My father told me it was all about CCW.
From what I see it’s all about owning a gun in a Federal (territory?), DC is not a State.
It seems that it may big bigger than that. My take was that it was all about the D of C. And the gun ban there was unconstitutional.
Most States already have an amendment similar to the 2nd already in place. I wonder how that’s gonna work out.
SCOTUS has been avoiding this for years.
The Second Amendment’s provisions are among the few provisions of the Bill of Rights which have not been expressly incorporated into the meaning of “liberty” in the due process clause of the 14th Amendment. Thus, states are free to ban the ownership of handguns as they see fit, depending, of course, upon their own constitutional provisions. However, the federal government controls basic law of the District of Columbia, unlike states. So the Second Amendment’s “right to bear arms” is directly implicated in the effort by Congress to control guns there.
And yes, the Court has been dancing around this issue for several decades. In fact, they haven’t addressed the issue at all since the days of Prohibition, if I recall correctly. So it will be interesting to see whether they get to the meat of the issue or not, and if they do, what they decide.
Odds are they’ll dance around it. Neither side in the gun control debate really wants a definitive case to appear before the court. There’s too much to lose. If the Supremes came right out and said possession of firearms is a guaranteed individual right, the Brady Bunch would freak. If they said that it isn’t an individual right, then the NRA and most states would go ballistic. So their safest bet is to narrowly decide the case. But because the lower court issued its decision citing the 2nd Amendment, that seems to me to be rather difficult for the Supreme Court to do.
Actually, I think this one was taken up because there is some belief on the part of the Gang of Four that Justice Kennedy can be persuaded to make it an individual right.
Which it is, or should be.
BUT, the question that remains is, was the Court’s decision in Miller v. United States, 307 U.S. 174 (1939) correct or not? That is, does the Amendment’s wording
include any form of personal weapon (such as a handgun), or only those weapons which someone in the militia would be likely to bear? If Justice Kennedy is going to find a way to uphold the D.C. statute, that’s the likely ground.
But that’s speculation and doesn’t address the OP.
So? The OP was answered a long time ago. I’m simply discussing later statements. This is a crime how? 
Further, it allowed me to make reference (and link) to the seminal 2d Amendment case, and to bring up the legal issues involved. So there. 
I started a thread in GD on the topic.
I would love to see you share your thoughts in that thread.