Supreme Court rules gun ownership an individual right

[Bilgerat]

GREAT NEWS!

This is a great day for gun owners - the Supreme Court has ruled that gun ownership is an individual right and we have the right to own guns for protection and hunting. 8) 8) 8)

Mike

 

[oldsparkey]

" The Supreme Court rules 5-4 that Americans have a right to own guns, rejecting a 32-year-old ban on handguns in the District of Columbia. The ruling is historic -- it's the first time the court has issued a pronouncement on gun rights."

One vote agreed with it otherwise ... down the tubes. It was for the DC Area but should cover all the states. Or does there rulling only cover the DC area since it was mentioned and the rest of the states wasn't ?

Chuck.

 

[Wannabe]

Who was the disenting idiot?
Bob

 

[bearridge]

all four Clinton appointed....I think....Carter mite be at fault fer one.

 

[Jimmy W]

Dissenting
Breyer and Ginsburg - Clinton
Stevens - Ford
Souter - G.H.W. Bush

 

[Kayak Jack]

Since it is the Federal Supreme Court, and they rule only on Constitutional law, it would apply all over, not just D.C.

 

[bearridge]

Dang, I fergot Gerry wuz president.....Herbert Walker Bush too. Soon I hope ta fergit hiz boy. :wink:

Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did....and it never will. Find out just what the people will submit to, and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them; and these will continue until they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress. Frederick Douglas

 

[jdupre']

Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did....and it never will. Find out just what the people will submit to, and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them; and these will continue until they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress. Frederick Douglas

What an awesome quote. The man had a way with words.

 

[bearridge]

indeed

 

[coogzilla]

Now, those NRA dues might just start to pay off a bit as the wheels/
screws start turning.

The court should not be allowed to tell the people what the bill of
rights says. Half of them are BOZO's. This could have gone the other
way, but for one vote. For once gun owners might have come out
OK. Time will tell. I hope so.

Coogs

 

[jimsong]

I, for one, have been bewildered by, why this had to go to the Supreme Court, when the right to bear arms, is in black and white, written in fourth grade ENGLISH, in the Constitution! By some of the brightest minds the world has ever known! Men who KNEW what governmental oppession was, first person!
We don't need more gun laws! We need enforcment of laws against gun criminals!
I think two events are responsible (with a lot of underlying factors) for gun violence in America today.
The day the Supreme Court outlawed God and the implicit moral training a belief in in God sustains, in school.
My first years in public school were started with Prayer. I went to school in a one room school for three years, and we prayed at least twice a day, and even more often if there was a need in the community, or even an emergency anywhere in the world.
We were taught morality, as God sees it, not as what seems relative at the time. ( I gotta admit, even in a God inspired morality, sometimes there isn't a black and white resolution.)
The scond event was LBJ's civil rights agenda. Racism and segregation were wrong from the outset. We can thank the federal government for that ,indirectly. The bleeding heart wealth of the victors of the Civil
War, unduly affected the Administation, but that is another rant.
LBJ wouldn't let the Black people assimilate. He did not demand responsability from them. He ruined at least two generations of Black men, by making them un needed. A welfare check took the place of a Father.
A good many good Black men are trying to turn things around, but the welfare system diminishes their efforts.
Don't get me wrong. There are thousands of Black men who have the same values as the men on Southern Paddler.
I worked in the trasportation industry for 31 years, and it was fairly equal Black and White. Everyone had the same stresses, and same problems at work and at home, but the exception in family problems, was the Blacks were concerned with family in prison. They didn't make excuses for the guys and gals in prison, they usually said,"They just won't learn".
I am not trying to put a black face on crime. Crime HAS a black face!
But lately, here in central Texas, the illegal Latinos have been pushing the Blacks out of the spot light.
Once again, I have digressed. I think the removal of God from school, is the primary reason for the gun violence, and violence in general in America. Perhaps the world.

 

[jdupre']

Well said, jimsong. If you put an obvious career criminal in jail and KEEP him in jail for as long as possible, you solve the present crime and 10 more he would have committed down the road. Using this tactic, it is entirely realistic to reduce crime by a factor of 5.

Not enough room in prison--let them live in tents and raise their own food. At Angola State Prison here in Louisiana, the inmates work in the fields growing some of their food. A side benefit of this -- if you work a man 12 hours in the hot La. sun, he probably will be too tired to give much trouble.

As a side note, I worked with a fellow that was a guard at Angola and they had a rule to handle escaping prisoners. The rule said that there must be a warning shot before any deadly force could be used. But, it was common knowledge that the warning shot would be fired SECOND. :wink:

 

[Kayak Jack]

Jim, I agree that if children are not taught to follow rules, and be self-disciplined, they will act like spoiled children, or animals. God, however, seems to be on both sides in all wars. Mark Twain observed that, "There's been more people killed in the name of what's right, than in the name of what's wrong."

When kids are taught to respect themselves and others, and the property and rights of themselves and others, they learn to think a bit more before they act. All that said, it won't keep a kid from acting like a kid. A kid's job in growing up involves pushing the envelope, testing the limits. It is the job of adults to establish and hold those limits.

I do not intend here to start - or contribute to - any discussion that will wander off into religion or religious training. I'm merely pointing out that a person can learn self-respect, self-confidence, and self-acceptance without bringing in a Master Creator, and all the baggage that goes with it.

These are my beliefs, I'm not asking others to agree or believe as I do. Each of us are free to think as we wish. Thank God for that.

 

[jimsong]

You're right, of course, Jack. One does not have to be a Christian (Muslim, Buddist, Jain, Taoist, ETC, ad infinitum), to be a moral person.It just seems to me that in this culture, Christianity has been the major player in the teaching of morality.
Although it is , Obviously possible to teach oneself morality, all the basic tenets are already written down. And have been for thousands of years.

 

[Tom @ Buzzard Bluff]

SCOTUS Heller Decision

A highly interesting and broad ranging thread. In which I am compelled to add my dos centavos.
As someting of an amatuer Constitutional student I feel that I must point out by what a slim margin the Heller decision was won. That alone should squelch premature celebrations and illustrate just how close we are to the destruction of the founding documents that have to date seperated us from serfdom. Before taking too much delight in the current 'victory' take a moment to ask yourself just how long before one of the SCOTUS Justices who still recognizes the validity of those documents retires or dies and is replaced by another liberal Justice more concerned with promoting a personal agenda than the Constitution and Bill of Rights. When viewed in that light the decision verges on terrifying. To make the possibility even clearer consider for a moment that NONE of the candidates vying for the Oval Office are apt to appoint a Constitutional scholar rather than a liberal judge who is more than willing to legislate from the bench as were the four who agreed with the dissenting opinion. Therein lies the danger to our very way of life. Think about THAT before entering the voting booth this Nov.

It may well be revelatory to some that the quote from Frederick Douglas was by an escaped slave, anti-slavery orator, publisher and one of the primary intellectual stimulants of the Civil War. The quote is taken from some of his observations concerning slavery. While unquestionably a genius he was hardly a stabilizing factor in the society of his era. His words in the quote ring true no less clearly today as when first uttered however. The American citizenry is currently held in economic slavery by a rogue government equally as cruel and unjust as that which held Douglas in bondage. The remaining question is, do the American people still have the will to rebel against injustice and slavery? Without a few Douglases to incite anger over injustice I'm not at all sure we do.

<One does not have to be a Christian (Muslim, Buddist, Jain, Taoist, ETC, ad infinitum), to be a moral person.It just seems to me that in this culture, Christianity has been the major player in the teaching of morality.----- all the basic tenets are already written down. And have been for thousands of years.>

Your opinion is reinforced by the quote I use as a sig on this board. On reading it a logical mind understands without recourse that the will of the people as reflected in that statement from their Representatives in Congress assembled was that our schools were intended to teach "Religion, morality and knowledge". Logic equally suggests that they were enumerated in the order of their importance. As such it sheds a bright light on the liberal activism of the Supreme Court.
The principle authors of our Constitution and Bill of Rights, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Benjamin Franklin and others were largely Deists rather than what we now think of as Christians. Even so they respected and honored the moral principles taught in the Christian churches in both their everyday life and in the timeless words they penned that brought to life a new nation of free men founded on those principles. The moral relativism now promulgated by the secular apologencia of our current 'educational system' would be cause for rage in such stalwart patriots were they around to see it. As it should be with each of us. Tom @ Buzzard Bluff

 

[jimsong]

After invading, Nazis used pre-war lists of gun owners to confiscate firearms and many gun owners simply disappeared. Following confiscation, the Nazis were free to wreak their evil on the disarmed populace, such as on these helpless Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto.

"The Berlin Police President, Count Wolf Heinrich von Helldorf, announced that as a result of a police activity in the last few weeks the entire Jewish population of Berlin had been 'disarmed' with the confiscation of 2,569 hand weapons, 1,702 firearms and 20,000 rounds of ammunition. Any Jews still found in possession of weapons without valid licenses are threatened with the severest punishment."2

On the evening of Nov. 9, Adolph Hitler, Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels and other Nazi chiefs planned the attack. Orders went out to Nazi security forces: "All Jewish stores are to be destroyed immediately . Jewish synagogues are to be set on fire . The Führer wishes that the police does not intervene. All Jews are to be disarmed. In the event of resistance they are to be shot immediately."3

All hell broke loose on Nov. 10: "Nazis Smash, Loot and Burn Jewish Shops and Temples," a headline read. "One of the first legal measures issued was an order by Heinrich Himmler, commander of all German police, forbidding Jews to possess any weapons whatever and imposing a penalty of twenty years confinement in a concentration camp upon every Jew found in possession of a weapon hereafter."4 Thousands of Jews were taken away.

Searches of Jewish homes were calculated to seize firearms and assets and to arrest adult males. The American Consulate in Stuttgart was flooded with Jews begging for visas: "Men in whose homes old, rusty revolvers had been found during the last few days cried aloud that they did not dare ever again return to their places of residence or business. In fact, it was a mass of seething, panic-stricken humanity."5

Himmler, head of the Nazi terror police, would become an architect of the Holocaust, which consumed 6 million Jews. It was self-evident that the Jews must be disarmed before the extermination could begin.

"Finding out which Jews had firearms was not too difficult. The liberal Weimar Republic passed a Firearm Law in 1928 requiring extensive police records on gun owners. Hitler signed a further gun control law in early 1938.

Other European countries also had laws requiring police records to be kept on persons who possessed firearms. When the Nazis took over Czechoslovakia and Poland in 1939, it was a simple matter to identify gun owners. Many of them disappeared in the middle of the night along with political opponents."

This is just an exerpt of a webpage written by Stephen Halbrook.
You will find the entire essay here.

http://www.xmission.com/~ranthon/hitler-and-guns.htm

 

[coogzilla]

Polska

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katyn_Massacre

 

[bearridge]

Friend Coog,

Our history books kinda missed that one....'er mebbe I wuz sleepin'. Wait, back then they had shoved it all up under the rug. What a dirty deal! I bet Winston got purty drunk over that. I bet Frank Roosevelt didnt miss no shut eye. Shame on 'em all.

regards
bearridge

Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter. Martin Luther King, Jr.

 

[Kayak Jack]

I've also heard that the Nazis exterminated many Poles, maybe more than Jews. We're too damned good at killing our fellow humans.