http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20080318/ts_csm/aguns;_ylt=AhxKAmywO1RsnIKBlSxrPpis0NUE

FYI

Tom

Even if the 2nd Amendment only guarantees theright to keep & bear military-type arms, the right applies to everyone, as the article does NOT say "The Right of Militia Members to keep and Bear Arms Shall Not be Infringed"... it says "The Right of the People". To me, "The People" means all of us!! Just like in all the other nine articles of the Bill of Rights". What's so bloody hard to understand about this concept??

Agreed. It defies logic. However we also live in a country that allows criminals to undergo gender changing therapy so just about anything is possible.

Tom

I believe those who "misinterpret" this article are those who crave political power at any cost, like Eliot Sptizer, Barak Obama, the Clintons, etc. They fear an armed citizenry, as they believe the pronouncement of Chairman Mao that"political power grows out of the barrel of a gun". He was right about that!

US v Miller is a poor example of judicial precident. Miller was a convicted felon who carried a sawed off shotgun across statelines in the early 1930's. The judge wanted to make an example of him and when Miller pulled the card that it was his Constitutional right to keep and bear arms the Judge found a way around it with the whole milita/national guard thing and inadvertantly started a schism among law makers and law abiding citizens.

I'd say that if they declare the second amendment pretains to state rights only, not individual rights, then the whole damn Bill of Rights pertains only to states rights. "The People" cannot mean the individual citizens in one sentence, and the states indepentantly in another. Anyone with a 7th grade english comprehension level should be able to wrap their lopsided head around that.

You have to go back to what James Madison meant when he wrote the federalist papers, and look at some of the early drafts he and some of the other framers of the constitution considered. Its clearly evident to me, and to most scholars I have consulted through out my life, that Madison's intent was to have armed private citizens. Any scholar who denys the historic facts, and literary meaning and structure of the ammendment has a private bone to pick with firearms.

"Lawyers for Heller disagree. They characterize the amendment's first clause as a preamble to the rights-securing language in the second clause. "The preamble cannot contradict or render meaningless the operative text," writes Heller's lawyer, Alan Gura, in his brief to the court."

At least somebody gets it. This is why all lawyers need to have English degrees... if you cannot properly understand the context of the English language, you have no business using it to dictate the actions of other people who know better.

On a meaningfulbut otherwise unrelated note.... Washington DC is a perfect example of exactly what kind of violence you will have in a city where people no longer have the right to protect themselves. What ever happened to the right of "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness"? It would seem to me that by not allowing a law abiding citizen to defend his rights, you are undermining the entire process. DC has one of the highest violent crime rates in the country, followed by East and NW Chicago in Illinois, another state with a zero tolerance policy on carry. Taking handguns away from "criminals" sure is working great isn't it?

The NRA website will be following this case closely, if you want to keep up with it, and if you own a gun you should, you can subscribe to their newsletter on the site. While you're there, if you are not a member, JOIN!

I think the term "States Rights" is a misnomer. Only individuals can have rights, not governments. The power that states and the federal government has is given to it by the people, i.e. by their right to vote for and elect representatives (all including the president)to form the government. This is a simple concept, but often missed by even Harvard educated lawyers.

From what I have read they expect the decision to be a close 5-4 vote which could go wither way. God help us if the ban is upheld.

Bob