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**Chogy** · 28 Nov 12,, 14:52

It is B.S. It forces otherwise law-abiding citizens to become criminals to be secure.

If I felt the need, I'd carry regardless. I suspect a lot of people do.

Isn't it odd that the areas with the highest crime rates also often have the strictest gun laws? Chicago comes to mind. New York used to be bad, but has improved somewhat.

**USSWisconsin** · 28 Nov 12,, 15:25

I agree - if I am threatened by criminals- I will carry Period. Fortunately - I can do so according to the laws in my state. It concerns me that other states make it illegal to defend ones family and person. I do mean defend - I am not going to operate as a policeman or be a hero - if I can avoid using my gun - I will - I will run away, hide or do what ever I can to evade these situations (I'm not going to go to a bar carrying a gun - I simply won't go at all). I will avoid situations that are likely to require such actions, I won't go there if I don't have to. If I am cornered by an armed criminal, or my loved one is - I'll kill the bastard or die trying. No warning shots - no conversation, just carefully aimed rounds - with lethal intent, and as many as it takes. I'll take a chance with the courts before I'll take a chance with a murderer.

**dave lukins** · 28 Nov 12,, 17:09

Originally posted by USSWisconsin View Post

I'll take a chance with the courts before I'll take a chance with a murderer.

Better tried by 12 than carried by six ;)

**bonehead** · 29 Nov 12,, 03:49

The sooner SCOTUS rules on this the better. Until then there are just some places in this country that are not worth living in. It is inexcusable to be tried by 12 for doing the right thing.

**zraver** · 29 Nov 12,, 05:08

Has anyone (who would have had a right in a shall issue state) ever been denied the permit, carried anyway, been in a defensive shooting and then charged? Until those conditions are met it will be hard to show injury and thus the right to tort. However, if a person does meet those requirements then there is a strong argument to strike it down.

**bonehead** · 29 Nov 12,, 17:34

Defensive shooting after being denied a permit might be rare. Being cited/jailed for carrying after being denied a permit should be enough and I bet there are plenty of those.

**JRT** · 29 Nov 12,, 22:36

Originally posted by antimony View Post

I fail to see how they can legally distinguish between the Second Amendment and other Amendments like that. In way, this is great because this is going to go to the Supreme Court, where I hope it gets the treatment it deserves.

FYI...

Below are the syllibi of the two decisions, Heller and McDonald.

Embedded within are links to the full texts of the decisions at the U.S. Supreme Court's website.

NOTE: Where it is feasible, a syllabus (headnote) will be released, as isbeing done in connection with this case, at the time the opinion is issued.The syllabus constitutes no part of the opinion of the Court but has been prepared by the Reporter of Decisions for the convenience of the reader. See United States v. Detroit Timber & Lumber Co., 200 U. S. 321, 337.

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

Syllabus

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA ET AL. v. HELLER

CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

No. 07–290. Argued March 18, 2008—Decided June 26, 2008

District of Columbia law bans handgun possession by making it a crime to carry an unregistered firearm and prohibiting the registration of handguns; provides separately that no person may carry an unlicensed handgun, but authorizes the police chief to issue 1-year licenses; and requires residents to keep lawfully owned firearms unloaded and disassembled or bound by a trigger lock or similar device. Respondent Heller, a D. C. special policeman, applied to register a handgun he wished to keep at home, but the District refused. He filed this suit seeking, on Second Amendment grounds, to enjointhe city from enforcing the bar on handgun registration, the licensing requirement insofar as it prohibits carrying an unlicensed firearm inthe home, and the trigger-lock requirement insofar as it prohibits theuse of functional firearms in the home. The District Court dismissed the suit, but the D. C. Circuit reversed, holding that the Second Amendment protects an individual’s right to possess firearms and that the city’s total ban on handguns, as well as its requirement that firearms in the home be kept nonfunctional even when necessary for self-defense, violated that right.

Held:

1. The Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia, and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home.Pp. 2–53.

(a) The Amendment’s prefatory clause announces a purpose, butdoes not limit or expand the scope of the second part, the operativeclause. The operative clause’s text and history demonstrate that itconnotes an individual right to keep and bear arms. Pp. 2–22.

(b) The prefatory clause comports with the Court’s interpretation of the operative clause. The “militia” comprised all males physicallycapable of acting in concert for the common defense. The Antifederalists feared that the Federal Government would disarm the people in order to disable this citizens’ militia, enabling a politicized standing army or a select militia to rule. The response was to deny Congress power to abridge the ancient right of individuals to keep and beararms, so that the ideal of a citizens’ militia would be preserved. Pp. 22–28.

(c) The Court’s interpretation is confirmed by analogous arms-bearing rights in state constitutions that preceded and immediatelyfollowed the Second Amendment. Pp. 28–30.

(d) The Second Amendment’s drafting history, while of dubious interpretive worth, reveals three state Second Amendment proposals that unequivocally referred to an individual right to bear arms. Pp. 30–32.

(e) Interpretation of the Second Amendment by scholars, courts and legislators, from immediately after its ratification through the late 19th century also supports the Court’s conclusion. Pp. 32–47.

(f) None of the Court’s precedents forecloses the Court’s interpretation. Neither United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U. S. 542, 553, nor Presser v. Illinois, 116 U. S. 252, 264–265, refutes the individual-rights interpretation. United States v. Miller, 307 U. S. 174, does not limit the right to keep and bear arms to militia purposes, but rather limits the type of weapon to which the right applies to those used by the militia, i.e., those in common use for lawful purposes. Pp. 47–54.

2. Like most rights, the Second Amendment right is not unlimited. It is not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose: For example, concealed weapons prohibitions have been upheld under the Amendment or state analogues. The Court’s opinion should not be taken to castdoubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms. Miller’s holding that the sorts of weapons protected are those “in common use at the time” finds support in the historical traditionof prohibiting the carrying of dangerous and unusual weapons. Pp. 54–56.

3. The handgun ban and the trigger-lock requirement (as applied to self-defense) violate the Second Amendment. The District’s total ban on handgun possession in the home amounts to a prohibition on an entire class of “arms” that Americans overwhelmingly choose for the lawful purpose of self-defense. Under any of the standards of scrutiny the Court has applied to enumerated constitutional rights, this prohibition—in the place where the importance of the lawful defense of self, family, and property is most acute — would fail constitutional muster. Similarly, the requirement that any lawful firearm in the home be disassembled or bound by a trigger lock makes it impossible for citizens to use arms for the core lawful purpose of self-defense and is hence unconstitutional. Because Heller conceded at oral argument that the D. C. licensing law is permissible if it is not enforced arbitrarily and capriciously, the Court assumes that a license will satisfy his prayer for relief and does not address the licensing requirement. Assuming he is not disqualified from exercising Second Amendment rights, the District must permit Heller to register his handgun and must issue him a license to carry it in the home. Pp. 56–64.

478 F. 3d 370, affirmed.

SCALIA, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which ROBERTS,
C. J., and KENNEDY, THOMAS, and ALITO, JJ., joined. STEVENS, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which SOUTER, GINSBURG, and BREYER, JJ., joined. BREYER, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which STEVENS, SOUTER, and GINSBURG, JJ., joined.

.

NOTE: Where it is feasible, a syllabus (headnote) will be released, as isbeing done in connection with this case, at the time the opinion is issued.The syllabus constitutes no part of the opinion of the Court but has beenprepared by the Reporter of Decisions for the convenience of the reader. See United States v. Detroit Timber & Lumber Co., 200 U. S. 321, 337.

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

Syllabus

MCDONALD ET AL. v. CITY OF CHICAGO, ILLINOIS, ET AL.

CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SEVENTH CIRCUIT

No. 08–1521. Argued March 2, 2010—Decided June 28, 2010

Two years ago, in District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U. S. ___, this Court held that the Second Amendment protects the right to keep and bear arms for the purpose of self-defense and struck down a Dis-trict of Columbia law that banned the possession of handguns in thehome. Chicago (hereinafter City) and the village of Oak Park, a Chicago suburb, have laws effectively banning handgun possession by almost all private citizens. After Heller, petitioners filed this federal suit against the City, which was consolidated with two related actions, alleging that the City’s handgun ban has left them vulnerable to criminals. They sought a declaration that the ban and several related City ordinances violate the Second and Fourteenth Amendments. Rejecting petitioners’ argument that the ordinances are unconstitutional, the court noted that the Seventh Circuit previously had upheld the constitutionality of a handgun ban, that Heller had explicitly refrained from opining on whether the Second Amendment applied to the States, and that the court had a duty to follow established Circuit precedent. The Seventh Circuit affirmed, relying on three 19th-century cases — United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U. S. 542, Presser v. Illinois, 116 U. S. 252, and Miller v. Texas, 153 U. S. 535 — which were decided in the wake of this Court’s interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment’s Privileges or Immunities Clause in the Slaughter-House Cases, 16 Wall. 36.

Held: The judgment is reversed, and the case is remanded. 567 F. 3d 856, reversed and remanded.

JUSTICE ALITO delivered the opinion of the Court with respect toParts I, II–A, II–B, II–D, III–A, and III–B, concluding that the Fourteenth Amendment incorporates the Second Amendment right, recognized in Heller, to keep and bear arms for the purpose of self defense. Pp. 5–9, 11–19, 19–33.

(a) Petitioners base their case on two submissions. Primarily, they argue that the right to keep and bear arms is protected by the Privileges or Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and that the Slaughter-House Cases’ narrow interpretation of the Clause should now be rejected. As a secondary argument, they contend that the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause incorporates the Second Amendment right. Chicago and Oak Park (municipal respondents) maintain that a right set out in the Bill of Rights applies to the States only when it is an indispensable attribute of any “ ‘civilized’ ” legal system. If it is possible to imagine a civilized country that does not recognize the right, municipal respondents assert, that right is not protected by due process. And since there are civilized countries that ban or strictly regulate the private possession of handguns, they maintain that due process does not preclude such measures. Pp. 4–5.

(b) The Bill of Rights, including the Second Amendment, originally applied only to the Federal Government, not to the States, see, e.g., Barron ex rel. Tiernan v. Mayor of Baltimore, 7 Pet. 243, 247, but the constitutional Amendments adopted in the Civil War’s aftermath fundamentally altered the federal system. Four years after the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment, this Court held in the Slaughter-House Cases, that the Privileges or Immunities Clause protects only those rights “which owe their existence to the Federal government,its National character, its Constitution, or its laws,” 16 Wall., at 79, and that the fundamental rights predating the creation of the Federal Government were not protected by the Clause, id., at 76. Under this narrow reading, the Court held that the Privileges or Immunities Clause protects only very limited rights. Id., at 79–80. Subsequently, the Court held that the Second Amendment applies only to the Federal Government in Cruikshank, 92 U. S. 542, Presser, 116 U.S. 252, and Miller, 153 U. S. 535, the decisions on which the Seventh Circuit relied in this case. Pp. 5–9.

(c) Whether the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms applies to the States is considered in light of the Court’s precedents applying the Bill of Rights’ protections to the States. Pp. 11–19.

(1) In the late 19th century, the Court began to hold that the Due Process Clause prohibits the States from infringing Bill of Rights protections. See, e.g., Hurtado v. California, 110 U. S. 516. Five features of the approach taken during the ensuing era are noted. First, the Court viewed the due process question as entirely separate from the question whether a right was a privilege or immunity of national citizenship. See Twining v. New Jersey, 211 U. S. 78, 99. Second, the Court explained that the only rights due process protected against state infringement were those “of such a nature that they are included in the conception of due process of law.” Ibid. Third, some cases during this era “can be seen as having asked . . . if a civilized system could be imagined that would not accord the particular pro-tection” asserted therein. Duncan v. Louisiana, 391 U. S. 145, 149, n. 14. Fourth, the Court did not hesitate to hold that a Bill of Rights guarantee failed to meet the test for Due Process Clause protection, finding, e.g., that freedom of speech and press qualified, Gitlow v. New York, 268 U. S. 652, 666; Near v. Minnesota ex rel. Olson, 283 U.S. 697, but the grand jury indictment requirement did not, Hur-tado, supra. Finally, even when such a right was held to fall within the conception of due process, the protection or remedies affordedagainst state infringement sometimes differed from those providedagainst abridgment by the Federal Government. Pp. 11–13.

(2) Justice Black championed the alternative theory that �1 ofthe Fourteenth Amendment totally incorporated all of the Bill ofRights’ provisions, see, e.g., Adamson v. California, 332 U. S. 46, 71– 72 (Black, J., dissenting), but the Court never has embraced that the-ory. Pp. 13–15.

(3) The Court eventually moved in the direction advocated byJustice Black, by adopting a theory of selective incorporation bywhich the Due Process Clause incorporates particular rights con-tained in the first eight Amendments. See, e.g., Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U. S. 335, 341. These decisions abandoned three of the charac-teristics of the earlier period. The Court clarified that the governingstandard is whether a particular Bill of Rights protection is funda-mental to our Nation’s particular scheme of ordered liberty and sys-tem of justice. Duncan, supra, at 149, n. 14. The Court eventuallyheld that almost all of the Bill of Rights’ guarantees met the re-quirements for protection under the Due Process Clause. The Court also held that Bill of Rights protections must “all . . . be enforced against the States under the Fourteenth Amendment according to the same standards that protect those personal rights against federal encroachment.” Malloy v. Hogan, 378 U. S. 1, 10. Under this ap-proach, the Court overruled earlier decisions holding that particular Bill of Rights guarantees or remedies did not apply to the States.See, e.g., Gideon, supra, which overruled Betts v. Brady, 316 U. S.
455. Pp. 15–19.

(d) The Fourteenth Amendment makes the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms fully applicable to the States. Pp. 19–33.

(1) The Court must decide whether that right is fundamental tothe Nation’s scheme of ordered liberty, Duncan v. Louisiana, 391 U. S. 145, 149, or, as the Court has said in a related context, whether it is “deeply rooted in this Nation’s history and tradition,” Washing-ton v. Glucksberg, 521 U. S. 702, 721. Heller points unmistakably to the answer. Self-defense is a basic right, recognized by many legal systems from ancient times to the present, and the Heller Court held that individual self-defense is “the central component” of the SecondAmendment right. 554 U. S., at ___, ___. Explaining that “the needfor defense of self, family, and property is most acute” in the home, ibid., the Court found that this right applies to handguns because they are “the most preferred firearm in the nation to ‘keep’ and use for protection of one’s home and family,” id., at ___, ___–___. It thus concluded that citizens must be permitted “to use [handguns] for the core lawful purpose of self-defense.” Id., at ___. Heller also clarifies that this right is “deeply rooted in this Nation’s history and tradi-tions,” Glucksberg, supra, at 721. Heller explored the right’s origins in English law and noted the esteem with which the right was re-garded during the colonial era and at the time of the ratification ofthe Bill of Rights. This is powerful evidence that the right was re-garded as fundamental in the sense relevant here. That understand-ing persisted in the years immediately following the Bill of Rights’ratification and is confirmed by the state constitutions of that era,which protected the right to keep and bear arms. Pp. 19–22.

(2) A survey of the contemporaneous history also demonstratesclearly that the Fourteenth Amendment’s Framers and ratifiers counted the right to keep and bear arms among those fundamentalrights necessary to the Nation’s system of ordered liberty. Pp. 22–33.

(i) By the 1850’s, the fear that the National Government would disarm the universal militia had largely faded, but the right to keepand bear arms was highly valued for self-defense. Abolitionist au-thors wrote in support of the right, and attempts to disarm “Free-Soilers” in “Bloody Kansas,” met with outrage that the constitutionalright to keep and bear arms had been taken from the people. After the Civil War, the Southern States engaged in systematic efforts todisarm and injure African Americans, see Heller, supra, at ___. These injustices prompted the 39th Congress to pass the Freedmen’s Bureau Act of 1866 and the Civil Rights Act of 1866 to protect theright to keep and bear arms. Congress, however, ultimately deemedthese legislative remedies insufficient, and approved the Fourteenth Amendment. Today, it is generally accepted that that Amendment was understood to provide a constitutional basis for protecting the rights set out in the Civil Rights Act. See General Building Contrac-tors Assn., Inc. v. Pennsylvania, 458 U. S. 375, 389. In Congressionaldebates on the proposed Amendment, its legislative proponents in the 39th Congress referred to the right to keep and bear arms as a fundamental right deserving of protection. Evidence from the periodimmediately following the Amendment’s ratification confirms that that right was considered fundamental. Pp. 22–31.

(ii) Despite all this evidence, municipal respondents argue that Members of Congress overwhelmingly viewed �1 of the Fourteenth Amendment as purely an antidiscrimination rule. But while �1 does contain an antidiscrimination rule, i.e., the Equal Protection Clause,it can hardly be said that the section does no more than prohibit dis-crimination. If what municipal respondents mean is that the Second Amendment should be singled out for special—and specially unfavor-able—treatment, the Court rejects the suggestion. The right to keep and bear arms must be regarded as a substantive guarantee, not a prohibition that could be ignored so long as the States legislated inan evenhanded manner. Pp. 30–33.

JUSTICE ALITO, joined by THE CHIEF JUSTICE, JUSTICE SCALIA, and JUSTICE KENNEDY, concluded, in Parts II–C, IV, and V, that the Four-teenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause incorporates the Second Amendment right recognized in Heller. Pp. 10–11, 33–44.

(a) Petitioners argue that that the Second Amendment right is oneof the “privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States.”There is no need to reconsider the Court’s interpretation of the Privi-leges or Immunities Clause in the Slaughter-House Cases because, for many decades, the Court has analyzed the question whether par-ticular rights are protected against state infringement under the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause. Pp. 10–11.

(b) Municipal respondents’ remaining arguments are rejected because they are at war with Heller’s central holding. In effect, they ask the Court to hold the right to keep and bear arms as subject to a different body of rules for incorporation than the other Bill of Rights guarantees. Pp. 33–40.

(c) The dissents’ objections are addressed and rejected. Pp. 41–44.

JUSTICE THOMAS agreed that the Fourteenth Amendment makes the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms that was recognized in District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U. S. ___, fully applicable to the States. However, he asserted, there is a path to this conclusion that is more straightforward and more faithful to the Second Amendment’s text and history. The Court is correct in describing the Second Amendment right as “fundamental” to the American scheme of ordered liberty, Duncan v. Louisiana, 391 U. S. 145, 149, and “deeply rooted in this Nation’s history and traditions,” Washington v. Glucksberg, 521 U. S. 702, 721. But the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause, which speaks only to “process,” cannot impose the type of substantive restraint on state legislation that the Court asserts. Rather, the right to keep and bear arms is enforceable against the States because it is a privilege of American citizenship recognized by �1 of the Fourteenth Amendment, which provides, inter alia: “No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States.” In interpreting this language, it is important to recall that constitutional provisions are “ ‘written to be understood by the voters.’ ” Heller, 554

U. S., at ___. The objective of this inquiry is to discern what “ordi-nary citizens” at the time of the Fourteenth Amendment’s ratificationwould have understood that Amendment's Privileges or Immunities Clause to mean. Ibid. A survey of contemporary legal authorities plainly shows that, at that time, the ratifying public understood the Clause to protect constitutionally enumerated rights, including the right to keep and bear arms. Pp. 1–34.

ALITO, J., announced the judgment of the Court and delivered theopinion of the Court with respect to Parts I, II–A, II–B, II–D, III–A, andIII–B, in which ROBERTS, C. J., and SCALIA, KENNEDY, and THOMAS, JJ., joined, and an opinion with respect to Parts II–C, IV, and V, in which ROBERTS, C. J., and SCALIA and KENNEDY, JJ., join. SCALIA, J., filed a concurring opinion. THOMAS, J., filed an opinion concurring in part andconcurring in the judgment. STEVENS, J., filed a dissenting opinion. BREYER, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which GINSBURG and SO-TOMAYOR, JJ., joined.

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**silentsam** · 30 Nov 12,, 02:27

Originally posted by bonehead View Post

The sooner SCOTUS rules on this the better. Until then there are just some places in this country that are not worth living in...

Regardless of how wonderful a promotion I was offered, I wouldn't move somewhere with that restriction. I might not be crazy with GA, but I like to know that I am able to defend myself without breaking the law.

**Gun Grape** · 01 Dec 12,, 17:21

I'm a gun owner. And a CCP holder.

But I do not see how denying a CCP is a violation of the 2d Amendment. The person in question still has guns. They did not take his guns away.

**bonehead** · 02 Dec 12,, 18:55

Originally posted by Gun Grape View Post

I'm a gun owner. And a CCP holder.

But I do not see how denying a CCP is a violation of the 2d Amendment. The person in question still has guns. They did not take his guns away.

We have the right to "keep and bear arms" That does not mean the right to keep arms and bear arms at home only. If someone is walking down main street and the cops find a gun on him, 9 times out of 10 it will not end well for the gun owner if he does not have a permit. Many states/cities are using the CCL to infringe on the rights of gun owners by not issuing those permits.

**Monash** · 02 Dec 12,, 23:20

Originally posted by bonehead View Post

We have the right to "keep and bear arms" That does not mean the right to keep arms and bear arms at home only. If someone is walking down main street and the cops find a gun on him, 9 times out of 10 it will not end well for the gun owner if he does not have a permit.

As far as I can recall the 2nd Amendment is not "geographically specific" so to speak. i.e the right to bear arms is guaranteed under the constitution but the question of exactly where and when is open to interpretation by the courts.

**omon** · 03 Dec 12,, 00:37

anyone expected any different outcome in a blue state of ny???

**Mandala** · 16 Jun 13,, 19:47

I have been mugged several times and nearly murdered. Is that a special need?

**Doktor** · 16 Jun 13,, 21:20

Oh no... the kittens...

Announcement

Concealed weapons: US court upholds New York state requirement for permit

Concealed weapons: US court upholds New York state requirement for permit

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