The ACLU defends Nazis. The only way this is remarkable is if you think the ACLU considers gun owners to be worse than Nazis.
Other than the silly speculation, cite? As in, cite to one senator who has actually no fooling called for repealing the second amendment? Fair warning, if you cite someone who’s called for the traditional interpretation of the second amendment, the one that was in place for most of our republic’s history, I’m gonna laugh at you.
Uh, no. Heller was decided in a 5-4 opinion. You can certainly claim that Scalia’s opinion was the more robust of the two, but claiming that the second amendment lacks ambiguity is plainly false.
As for your claim that the ACLU asks for broader interpretations in most cases, that’s also plainly false: look at their restrictive reading of the third amendment, compared to the “swarms of bureaucrats” reading others have advanced.
It’s the only amendment toward which they take a politically unpopular restrictive reading, sure, but it’s not the only one in which their reading is more restrictive than some folks’.
You’d actually wish to quote McDonald, not Heller.
In part, but maybe not quite as broad as it sounds. The ACLU’s saying that the police officer is liable for some penalty based on what he asked the judge for, but he’s a police officer. The distinction matters here because what the ACLU is complaining of is that the officer acted “under color of law” to deprive him of his rights, and the law they’re suing for a violation of requires that bit to be true. “Color of law” means kind of what it sounds like - you’re representing yourself as having the force of law behind whatever it is you’re doing, whether or not you’re actually right.
So, assuming you aren’t some agent of government power, if you go to a judge and say hey judge, kick this guy in the pants, you’re not going to run into a civil rights problem down the line, because you don’t have any special authority that you can use to deprive the guy of his pants rights. It’s the officer’s function as the long arm of the law that has the ACLU involved, I’m comfortable wagering.
They’re also complaining about abuse of process, though, which could be raised against anyone. If you ask a judge to do something you clearly have no basis for, just totally wild accusations and speculations, then you could be liable for that.
Granting that my specific knowledge of this is limited to fuzzy memories and Wikipedia, said fuzzy understanding is that Heller is the case that established, as Damuri said and I was responding to, “an individual right to keep and bear arms.” McDonald is the case that said this applies to states as well as “federal enclaves.” So quoting Heller is correct if I’m suggesting that the individual right is not unambiguous, as signified by the 5-4 nature of the decision.
10-4.
You’re wrong here. While the opinion was decided 5-4, the idea that the 2nd amendment recognized an individual right was unanimous.
From Steven’s dissent (with whom all three other dissenting justices joined):
(my bold)
From Breyer’s dissent (with whom all three other dissenting justices joined):
(my bold)
Now, each [Breyer and Stevens] argues that the right may be limited based on a host of reasons, but the idea that there is any ambiguity whether the right is an individual right is ignorance. Even still, disagreement would be more accurate than ambiguity, since the position of each justice was not unclear in any way.
I support the ACLU and gun rights. Just like I support the EFF and those who oppose dead tree censorship as well. I like Coke AND Pepsi. Any organization can take any position they choose, and until the ACLU starts actively fighting gun rights (rather than simply ignoring them), I’ll continue to support their good work in other important areas of the law.
It is kinda silly that they (verbally if not actively) oppose freedom in one particular case while being hardliners otherwise. But that just proves people have different opinions on what freedom is and I’m cool with that.
Agreed - I have no problem with the ACLU and think as an organization they are pretty cool, generally. I consider them liars when it comes to their professed support of the 2nd amendment, but in most of the other spheres they operate they are good shit.
Is this written claim available publicly? Perhaps the officer made false statements, or perhaps he only claimed incorrectly that the website/picture was evidence of stalking? If the latter, and the judge was simply an idiot to make a ruling based on both their understanding of the law. Does that mean the cop is liable, rather than the judge?
Or is it that there never should have been a ruling at all unless the other guy had an opportunity to respond? In this case too, it would seem to be an error on the judge’s part.
Wait, liars? You don’t believe they have a different view on it than you, but that they’re actively misleading?
I’m most of the way toward thanking you for correcting my misperception. Here’s why I’m not all of the way there:
Emphasis added.
It appears that Stevens is saying that while the second amendment protects an individual right, it’s the right to own a gun within the context of a well-regulated militia. That’s pretty far from what I think most people mean when they talk about an individual right to bear arms: most people, I think, are referring to an individual right to own a gun even if you’re not in a well-regulated militia. Do you disagree that this is the lay understanding of “individual right to bear arms”?
Nevertheless, I appreciate your correction on the phrase’s use within the legal context, and I’ll amend what I say this much: the second amendment’s protection of an individual’s right to own a weapon outside of the context of a well-regulated militia is still highly ambiguous and deeply controversial. Do you agree with that?
If you limit the statement to the opinion of the court, sure. It’s settled law, but it wasn’t 9-0. When the discussion of an individual right comes up, the context is contrasting that with a collective right. On that score, there is no ambiguity. The school of thought that advanced the idea of a collective right is dead.
Stevens did make the argument that the individual right was connected to militia service and some subscribe to that rationale. But the 2nd amendment is an individual right, period. The scope was where they justices diverged.
If you are talking about the general population within the country, I would speculate that folks are close to my point of view than yours. It’s reflected in the permissive gun laws in the majority of states. You may credit this to a vocal minority controlling any given agenda which I think is a different argument, but I’m not inclined to agree with you that the idea an individual’s right to own a weapon outside of the context of a well-regulated militia is at all controversial. I expect a strong majority of the country would support individual firearm ownership. From Gallup Oct-2013:
25% of the population wants to ban virtually all handgun ownership, and you don’t think that the right to own a weapon is controversial? I think it comes down to our having different ideas of what comprises controversy.
That’s probably true.
Earlier you were thinking that people who want to repeal the 2nd amendment were fringe. I think this group of 25% probably have significant overlap with that group. If that’s true, and 25% makes it controversial, I don’t think that a portion that constitutes a fringe position and a portion that makes a position controversial can occupy the same space, argument-wise. It seems we’re both guilty of this here. Maybe there’s a middle ground on numerical support where something can be large enough to be not considered controversial, and the opposition is not small enough to be considered fringe.
That’s more of a semantic disagreement though, so it’s no big deal either way.
Well, I suppose Feinstein’s desire to confiscate all privately owned guns comes to mind. its not an active call for repeal of the second amendment, just a call for ignoring the second amendment. Not really sure what the difference is.
Unless you want to cite the notion that we have not held the second amendment right to be an individual right for most of our republic’s history.
On the issue of whether there is an individual RKBA, I don’t see any ambigouity. Any that may still exists is being manufactured by people who don’t like the right.
I didn’t say that the ACLU has more expansive views than every wingnut in the universe. Are they seeking a narrower interpretation of the third amendment than what we currently have? Are they seeking a narrower interpretation of the second amendment than what we currently have? What individual right (other than the second amendment right) are they interpreting more narrowly than current law (heck they don’t even seem to fully adopt the notion that tehre is an individual right)?
Pfft. You think their reading of the second amendment is mroe politically unpopular than defending Nazis on parade? Seriously?
I support the ACLU as well. They don’t throw obstacles in front of the second amendment nor do they file amicus briefs along with the center to prevent handgun violence. They mostly stay out of it and make some comforting noises about gun control to their liberal constituency. I think they do good work and have not really disagreed with any of the cases they have brought to court (see my recent defense of their defense of a convicted cop-killer).
The fundamental individual right to marry.
Well, I’m sure there’s significant overlap, inasmuch as the Venn diagram circle of people who want to repeal the second amendment is almost certainly inside of the circle of people who want to ban gun ownership of people who aren’t in positions of authority. However, I’m not convinced that the repealers are a significant circle within that larger circle.
In any case, I realized that in my response to you earlier, I missed an important, if nice, distinction. I think that the lay interpretation of the individual right–that is, the belief that the constitution protects a person’s right to own a firearm independent of militia membership–is legally controversial. IOW, it’s not an uncontroversial issue in the courts that people have the individual right to own a gun for non-militia purposes.
I know that has a lot of qualifiers, but it’s what I mean when I say that the individual right to bear arms isn’t uncontroversial, and I think it’s a pretty significant point. If we talk about how all legal scholars agree that there’s an individual second amendment right, it’s absolutely necessary to include the qualifier that scholars only agree on this right with regards to militia membership.
I warned you: BWAHAHAHA!
Individual WITHIN THE CONTEXT OF MILITIA MEMBERSHIP? Whatever. Individual REGARDLESS OF MILITIA MEMBERSHIP? Nope.
No, I don’t think that, and that’s not remotely what I said.
Huh? Are you saying that the ACLU is against gay marriage?