Disclaimer: the above is not an advertisement for Tums but rather only a reference to my antacid of choice. I did not get permission to use the name from the company, and the IP police will be knocking on my door soon.
The Unbeliever - just go to scotusblog, they have a post which they update that doesn't require page refreshing. They start it up at 10am and post the decisions as they are released.
My fantasy is that, after delivering a 9-0 decision holding gun control laws are per se unconsititional, respondent Dick Heller is asked to approach the bench. The justices present him with a "US Supreme Court" special edition Kimber model 1911 pistol in a handsome wood presentation case signed by all the justices.
Does the fact that Heller is being released among the very last batch of cases suggest anything -- for instance, that Roberts took extra time to forge a consensus opinion? Or is this reading too much into it?
Could it also be that Roberts wants to end the term with a big win for the conservatives and if he released it today it would share attention with the liberal win in the child rape case.
By holding it for the last day, he can end the term on a positive note
The justices are human. They know that waiting until the last minute with the Heller decision is making people look at all the other decions in the mean time. I have not checked out so many rulings, ever. This is a marketing ploy that is working well!
Could it also be that Roberts wants to end the term with a big win for the conservatives and if he released it today it would share attention with the liberal win in the child rape case.
Would the SC hold the case for dramatic effect, or so they have another day to read the blogs and laugh at all the wild speculations?
The justices are human. They know that waiting until the last minute with the Heller decision is making people look at all the other decions in the mean time. I have not checked out so many rulings, ever. This is a marketing ploy that is working well!
No, no, and no. The Justices release opinions when they are ready to go. End of story.
That's what it was like listening to the beeps on ScotusBlog this am as he did his live bloging ....
Well, he did say they would release ALL remaining opinons tomorrow - which suggests they're not going to punt Heller to next term. Unless Roberts meant 'all decisions that ARE GOING TO BE released' :-(
Brown came down on May 17, 1954; there were three later dates on which opinions were released (May 24, June 1, June 7). Opinions in an NLRB injunction case, a Sherman Act/Clayton Act case, a Federal Tort Claims Act case, and another Sherman Act case came down the same day as Brown and Bolling.
Well, yeah, it's lack of transparency is contingent, in a philosophical sense, but it's still very real. Or else we would have known Heller wasn't being issued today.
"My fantasy is that, after delivering a 9-0 decision holding gun control laws are per se unconsititional, respondent Dick Heller is asked to approach the bench. The justices present him with a "US Supreme Court" special edition Kimber model 1911 pistol in a handsome wood presentation case signed by all the justices.
Maybe the shipment from Kimber got delayed?"
That's my new favorite fantasy, thank you for that image.
Just substitute the special order "Ginsburg Signature model Springfield Armory .45" for a Kimber and we're on the same page.
Anyone taking bets on the SCOTUSBLOG server possibly crashing tomorrow morning? It took me 20 minutes before I got past an error message this morning.
My sense is that the meaning of the fact that Heller is coming down on the last day is this (and only this): The Justices think this is one of the most important cases of the Term, and they want to do the best possible job they can.
...Turned a Jihadist into a corpus ( Hajius corpus decision ) with my Ginsburg signature model Browning butt buster. Now that does have a ring to it. Give 'em Heller, Nino.
TheDanimal said:
Yay! Only one more day to find out if I have a right or not!
I'd like to expand your statement a bit. Regardless of the Heller decision, you will have a right (the right) to keep and bear arms. What depends on the Heller decision, however, is whether the government will be barred from infringing on your right.
Everyone should try to buy a gun today, before they're outlawed tomorrow.
Whatever the reason for the opinion not being released yet, certainly the Court isn't delaying its opinion because it wants to "do the best job." That is a delusion based upon a fantasy that the Judges actually give a crap about the People. They don't.
And if by some miracle enough Judges actually hold that there is an individual right to own a gun, it will only come upon further review of that right by the Courts, through years of endless litigation. Anything to increase their own power.
I strongly feel that the court will recognize a robust individual right to keep and use personal arms, particularly for the purposes of self and home defense, if not more. What seems less clear is how they will articulate the "militia" preamble with the right guarantee, and how these both relate to the militia clauses. It seems impossible for them to divorce the right from the purpose of fulfilling a citizen militia, because personal defense and community defense are so closely linked. But in many ways the militia and purposes thereof are among the most contentious bigger issues surrounding the right to arms.
Following this ruling, I believe we will see much scholarly work regarding the militia - what it is, and was, why it is and was important, etc. Moreover, I think that we shall see much of the pro second amendment community leaving behind this "distraction" of whether the right is individual or collective, and move specifically into discussions of just what "shall not be infringed" means, or should mean.
Think about it. What does "the right...shall not be infringed" plainly mean?
"My fantasy is that, after delivering a 9-0 decision holding gun control laws are per se unconsititional, respondent Dick Heller is asked to approach the bench. The justices present him with a "US Supreme Court" special edition Kimber model 1911 pistol in a handsome wood presentation case signed by all the justices."
Or two concurrences stating that it should have been a Glock, with Scalia proposing to give him both plus some hunting rifles.
Why is the Supreme Court being more of a tease than a giggly high school girl?
Why has Volokh not started a March Madness style betting pool?
My fantasy is that, after delivering a 9-0 decision holding gun control laws are per se unconsititional, respondent Dick Heller is asked to approach the bench. The justices present him with a "US Supreme Court" special edition Kimber model 1911 pistol in a handsome wood presentation case signed by all the justices.
Maybe the shipment from Kimber got delayed?
That has just surpassed "passing the bar" as my #1 fantasy. Thank you.
Undoubtedly this decision will support our "right" to own firearms. However, certain admissions made by the counsel for Mr. Heller; like the government having a state interest in a "reasonable" restriction of your right give it a dangerous precedential heftiness. This decision has the potential to simply ensconce an incremental encroachment on the second amendment right. Reasonable is about as definite aterm as a “rational basis” or “interstate commerce.” Bye Bye right either way. Time to start buying guns and ammo. Police state in '08.
"My fantasy is that, after delivering a 9-0 decision holding gun control laws are per se unconsititional, respondent Dick Heller is asked to approach the bench. The justices present him with a "US Supreme Court" special edition Kimber model 1911 pistol in a handsome wood presentation case signed by all the justices."
No one at the Court has an FFL. Until one is issued, the decision is in limbo.
It isn't rare on the VC for the comments to be longer than the original post, or even just one comment to be longer than the original post, but this is the first time I've seen more comments than there are letters of the alphabet in the original post.
...I'll bet Justice Kennedy could find an FFL in HIS copy of the Constitution, he's found so many other things that we didn't know were there.
...An da court ain't gots to show you no stinking FFL.
Yeah, no heller, just a savage decision that lets pedos avoid the death penalty. i am getting outrage fatigue with these courts, but the more you read it the more outraged you become.
Kennedy thinks that the mark of a good society is how it treats its criminals. I think the mark of a good society is how it treats its children. Abraham Lincoln once said that “The shepherd drives the wolf from the sheep's for which the sheep thanks the shepherd as his liberator, while the wolf denounces him for the same act as the destroyer of liberty[.]” Today the Supreme Court let the wolves tear the throats of the sheep, and they call themselves liberators.
but this is the first time I've seen more comments than there are letters of the alphabet in the original post.
Seems to me it's unusual to see posts with FEWER comments than letters of the alphabet in the OP. Considering the most possible letters of the alphabet in the OP is 26, it's easy to test my theory. Any post with more than 26 responding comments doesn't even need any counting done.
Surely you meant to say "characters in the original post" instead?
"No one at the Court has an FFL. Until one is issued, the decision is in limbo."
Well ... they could always check with Josh Sugarman over at the VPC across town. He has a valid Class 1 FFL and would probably be more than happy to make them a really great deal on that 1911.
Think about it. If Heller was assigned to Scalia at conference back in March and all he had to do was crank out an opinion he's probably been drafting in his head for 30 years, you think it would take this long? Down to the last day? There was a switch. Tomorrow will be interesting.
If the supremes dare to ignore the right to bear arms, after banning the war powers and deciding that the constitution demands niceness to child rapists, they will be courting the angriest public they have seen since the 30's. I am personally at my wit's end, because these rulings are not constitutional, they are baldly in excess of their appointed powers.
Man, is this an experiment on how Stress effects mental stability. Because the court has waited until Tomorrow to issue its ruling people are beginning to expect the worst. Yes, some people are working on their ulcers and others are on their 12th pack of cigarettes. But, if I was hearing the oral arguments tape right, and its Scalia that is writing the ruling, its going to be individual rights.
That being said, consider the fact that the gun control movement is expecting a split court. They want it 5-4 to argue they lost simply due to politics. But if we get 6-3 or better, they will FREAK. All their already voiced- post Heller- gun control plans will be gone. And the journalists who have been projecting that Heller will loose will also have sharp questions for the justices (to try and prove the Court got it wrong)
If I was the court, and I had to face those people, I would wait until the last day and have the ruling issued by a clerk 15 minutes after I left for vacation. The only one I expect at the Court after the ruling is given is Breyer who will issue his opposition ruling on the court steps to a massed group of journalists.
As for gold-plated guns, wait for it. They will have the gold plated commemorative pistols for sale within months just to capitalise on the ruling.
My fantasy is that, after delivering a 9-0 decision holding gun control laws are per se unconsititional, respondent Dick Heller is asked to approach the bench. The justices present him with a "US Supreme Court" special edition Kimber model 1911 pistol in a handsome wood presentation case signed by all the justices.
A truly symbolic gift would be a shotgun with a 17” barrel.
But, if I was hearing the oral arguments tape right, and its Scalia that is writing the ruling, its going to be individual rights
Seriously, people. Did anybody listen to arguments? The individual right is in the bag - 6-3 at least, but probably more. The rest is in play, but this is not a loss for the pro-gun crowd (no matter what the NRA says tomorrow and in its next round of fundraising).
I am certainly interested in the outcome of this decision, but despite all of the discussion of the stress associated with this decision, I fail to see how this decision is really all that important from a practical standpoint. This is not Brown v. Board of Education or Roe v. Wade where the decision has significant impacts on a large portion of the populations actual lives.
If the Court finds in favor of DC, we are basically left with the status quo. The Second Amendment hasn't really protected a private right to own guns since at least the 1930s. I can't imagine that a ruling for DC would result in new gun bans popping up across the country, as those have mostly been prevented by lack of political support, not due to Court holdings. If anything, you will see some gun bans fall due to a backlash to the decision, as occurred following Kelo (another case that, despite popular opinion, really just kept the status quo).
If Heller wins, people in DC and NYC and maybe a few other locations will have access to guns, which won't really change much either. As libertarians are fond to point out, criminals already have guns, so there won't be much of a change on that front, and even though pro-gun rights people are fond of publicizing every story about someone who successfully defends themself with their gun, I can't imagine that guns ever amount to much more than a somewhat dangerous toy to 99.999% of gun owners (using a gun for hunting trips and at the shooting range is comparable to using a tennis racket at the tennis court).
Don't stress, after tomorrow, no matter how this decision comes down, your life is probably not going to change in any meaningful way.
Much as I'm disturbed by his handle, crackmonkeyjr's analysis is dead-on.
"The paranoia on these threads is unreal."
I wouldn't call it paranoia. Hysteria might be a better word.
DangerMouse, you do realize that "outlawing guns" isn't even a possible outcome of this case, don't you? The Court assuredly will not say tomorrow that you are no longer allowed to own guns. At worst it will say that the Second Amendment does not prevent Congress from prohibiting you from owning guns -- which is a very different (and, I think, pretty unlikely) thing.
DangerMouse, you do realize that "outlawing guns" isn't even a possible outcome of this case, don't you? The Court assuredly will not say tomorrow that you are no longer allowed to own guns. At worst it will say that the Second Amendment does not prevent Congress from prohibiting you from owning guns -- which is a very different (and, I think, pretty unlikely) thing.
Leopold Stotch,
Your analysis is wrong. A ruling for DC would enable state and local governments to freely ban guns as well, as DC basically has, without fear of an incorporated individual right to keep and bear arms. While Congress is not likely to ban all guns, many states and localities might do just that.
Try understanding the issues before calling others hysterics.
For Carl in Chicago: What does "the right...shall not be infringed" plainly mean?
Some in the legal profession seem to have accepted the suggestion that to infringe relative to a right means to completely destroy it, but that extensive reasonable regulations are OK and do not infringe the right. A contrary understanding is that infringe means to encroach upon or narrow the right in any way and that the purpose for the "shall not be infringed" language was to prevent regulation of the right, period.
A good indication of what "shall not be infringed" meant to the Founders can be gleaned from their use of the phrase in relation to other Bill of Rights provisions. Here are some of them.
The Second Amendment's current "shall not be infringed" language is exactly as proposed by Madison in what was originally the first clause. In addition to that language, Madison indicated in his Bill of Rights proposal to Congress that the rights of conscience (freedom of religious belief) could not be "infringed." It does not seem logical that Madison's intention in using not infringe relative to religious beliefs was to allow for considerable reasonable regulation by the government.
Another person who used "infringe" in bill of rights proposals for the Constitution was Sam Adams in the Massachusetts Ratifying Convention. He indicated the Constitution should never be construed to authorize Congress to infringe freedom of the press or the rights of conscience (religion beliefs). It also seems illogical that such usage by Adams and the supporters of his proposal indicated an intention of allowing exensive reasonable regulations to be applied to freedom of the press and religious beliefs. It seems much more likely that such language was intended as the strongest of limits upon government actions, just as in Madison's case with his proposals in Congress.
There is another interesting period Bill of Rights related use of "shall not be infringed" language often overlooked today. The Committee of Eleven, to which Madison's proposals were submitted by Congress, accepted his use of "infringed" relative to freedom of religion and added Madisons original Second Amendment restrictive language ("shall not be infringed") to other First Amendment rights from which it was missing - freedom of speech - freedom the press - the right of peaceable assembly - the right to apply for redress of grievances. Once again, it does not appear that such period usage indicated the Committee members understood that religious beliefs could be subjected to extensive reasonable regulations, or that they used "shall not be infringed" with the intention that it would condone extensive and reasonable regulation of freedom of speech, freedom of the press, the right of peaceable assembly, and the right to apply for redress of grievances.
Another interesting period fact is that the type of language ultimately used in the First Amendment - "shall make no laws" - was first found in Second Amendment related provisions. The Pennsylvania Minority indicated "that no law shall be passed for disarming the people, or any of them. . ." New Hampshire adopted a Second Amendment related provision that "Congress shall never disarm any citizen. . ." - somewhat akin to the type of language used in the First Amendment. I am not suggesting that these particular provisions were relied upon directly to develop the First Amendment's language. I am suggesting that First and Second Amendment protections were all given the very strongest possible protective language, and that "shall not be infringed" was not intended to allow for extensive reasonable regulation. It was clearly intended to prevent regulation of the right by the government.
As I pointed out above, the status quo is already that state and local governments can ban guns. Heller is seeking to change existing precedent. If a state or local government was going to ban all guns, they already would have done so (as DC and NYC pretty much have). The reason why more localities haven't banned "all guns" isn't because the Supreme Court was preventing them from doing so, but because politicians realized that, in most places, doing so would be a fast track to the unemployment line.
Paranoia, paranoia, and more paranoia. Having planned to write the ruling for even years doesn't mean Scalia just slaps it together. We certainly don't want another Miller ruling with its ambiguous wording. Any mistakes will be used by the gun controlists.
I still say it will be 7-2 individual right, 6-3 strict scrutiny, and possibly a split court on incorporation of the 14th amendment. Several people on this thread are right, States (and a few cities) have for decades viewed it as their right to prohibit or not prohibit firearms as they see fit. It goes with the view that the 2nd amendment protects against Federal laws only. But this ruling is not against a Federal law but a city law. Its incorporation of the 14th amendment that will be the Earthquake; that is if we get that.
The laws in question in Heller are federal laws in the sense that D.C. is a federal enclave.
Crackmonkeyjr,
The uncertain constitutional status of state and local gun bans operates as a limit on their passage in many jurisdictions. Only the most fearlessly liberal places dare pass outright bans.
Once again, Crackmonkeyjr (seriously, dude, what's up with that handle?) has it exactly right. The de facto status quo for the past several decades, except recently in the Fifth Circuit, has been that the Second Amendment was a meaningless dead letter. It has had no legal effect on the power of government at any level to restrict the right to keep and bear arms. (Your reference to incorporation is just bizarre. I do not think it means what you think it means.) Further, it has had very little value as a rhetorical device in political gun debates except in jurisdictions that weren't inclined to ban guns anyway.
An anti-individual rights ruling would effectively maintain the status quo. Gun control would remain a political war -- and one in which our side does pretty well in, I might add.
"If Heller wins, people in DC and NYC and maybe a few other locations will have access to guns, which won't really change much either." -- CrackMonkeyJr
That's more than just a 'few other locations'. We're talking about MILLIONS of people—mostly in major metropolitan areas—whose local officials have prohibited them the right to defend themselves.
Disclaimer: the above is not an advertisement for Tums but rather only a reference to my antacid of choice. I did not get permission to use the name from the company, and the IP police will be knocking on my door soon.
My fantasy is that, after delivering a 9-0 decision holding gun control laws are per se unconsititional, respondent Dick Heller is asked to approach the bench. The justices present him with a "US Supreme Court" special edition Kimber model 1911 pistol in a handsome wood presentation case signed by all the justices.
Maybe the shipment from Kimber got delayed?
By holding it for the last day, he can end the term on a positive note
Would the SC hold the case for dramatic effect, or so they have another day to read the blogs and laugh at all the wild speculations?
The justices are human. They know that waiting until the last minute with the Heller decision is making people look at all the other decions in the mean time. I have not checked out so many rulings, ever. This is a marketing ploy that is working well!
No, no, and no. The Justices release opinions when they are ready to go. End of story.
That's what it was like listening to the beeps on ScotusBlog this am as he did his live bloging ....
Well, he did say they would release ALL remaining opinons tomorrow - which suggests they're not going to punt Heller to next term. Unless Roberts meant 'all decisions that ARE GOING TO BE released' :-(
How do we know this? The Supreme court as an institution is about as transparent as 23 light years of lead.
Brown came down on May 17, 1954; there were three later dates on which opinions were released (May 24, June 1, June 7). Opinions in an NLRB injunction case, a Sherman Act/Clayton Act case, a Federal Tort Claims Act case, and another Sherman Act case came down the same day as Brown and Bolling.
Not necessarily.
Not necessarily.
Maybe the shipment from Kimber got delayed?"
That's my new favorite fantasy, thank you for that image.
Just substitute the special order "Ginsburg Signature model Springfield Armory .45" for a Kimber and we're on the same page.
Anyone taking bets on the SCOTUSBLOG server possibly crashing tomorrow morning? It took me 20 minutes before I got past an error message this morning.
My sense is that the meaning of the fact that Heller is coming down on the last day is this (and only this): The Justices think this is one of the most important cases of the Term, and they want to do the best possible job they can.
That would give a whole new meaning to the expression "Supreme Court BAR".....
Yay! Only one more day to find out if I have a right or not!
I'd like to expand your statement a bit. Regardless of the Heller decision, you will have a right (the right) to keep and bear arms. What depends on the Heller decision, however, is whether the government will be barred from infringing on your right.
There's always a boom tomorrow.
Whatever the reason for the opinion not being released yet, certainly the Court isn't delaying its opinion because it wants to "do the best job." That is a delusion based upon a fantasy that the Judges actually give a crap about the People. They don't.
And if by some miracle enough Judges actually hold that there is an individual right to own a gun, it will only come upon further review of that right by the Courts, through years of endless litigation. Anything to increase their own power.
I strongly feel that the court will recognize a robust individual right to keep and use personal arms, particularly for the purposes of self and home defense, if not more. What seems less clear is how they will articulate the "militia" preamble with the right guarantee, and how these both relate to the militia clauses. It seems impossible for them to divorce the right from the purpose of fulfilling a citizen militia, because personal defense and community defense are so closely linked. But in many ways the militia and purposes thereof are among the most contentious bigger issues surrounding the right to arms.
Following this ruling, I believe we will see much scholarly work regarding the militia - what it is, and was, why it is and was important, etc. Moreover, I think that we shall see much of the pro second amendment community leaving behind this "distraction" of whether the right is individual or collective, and move specifically into discussions of just what "shall not be infringed" means, or should mean.
Think about it. What does "the right...shall not be infringed" plainly mean?
Or two concurrences stating that it should have been a Glock, with Scalia proposing to give him both plus some hunting rifles.
RE: Does....
....the Declaration of Independence TRUMP the Constitution of the United States?
Legally speaking?
Regards,
Chuck(le)
Why is the Supreme Court being more of a tease than a giggly high school girl?
Why has Volokh not started a March Madness style betting pool?
That has just surpassed "passing the bar" as my #1 fantasy. Thank you.
RE: Perhaps....
they're trying to get the 1911 gold-plated?
Regards,
Chuck(le
No one at the Court has an FFL. Until one is issued, the decision is in limbo.
...An da court ain't gots to show you no stinking FFL.
Kennedy thinks that the mark of a good society is how it treats its criminals. I think the mark of a good society is how it treats its children. Abraham Lincoln once said that “The shepherd drives the wolf from the sheep's for which the sheep thanks the shepherd as his liberator, while the wolf denounces him for the same act as the destroyer of liberty[.]” Today the Supreme Court let the wolves tear the throats of the sheep, and they call themselves liberators.
Seems to me it's unusual to see posts with FEWER comments than letters of the alphabet in the OP. Considering the most possible letters of the alphabet in the OP is 26, it's easy to test my theory. Any post with more than 26 responding comments doesn't even need any counting done.
Surely you meant to say "characters in the original post" instead?
Well ... they could always check with Josh Sugarman over at the VPC across town. He has a valid Class 1 FFL and would probably be more than happy to make them a really great deal on that 1911.
If the supremes dare to ignore the right to bear arms, after banning the war powers and deciding that the constitution demands niceness to child rapists, they will be courting the angriest public they have seen since the 30's. I am personally at my wit's end, because these rulings are not constitutional, they are baldly in excess of their appointed powers.
That being said, consider the fact that the gun control movement is expecting a split court. They want it 5-4 to argue they lost simply due to politics. But if we get 6-3 or better, they will FREAK. All their already voiced- post Heller- gun control plans will be gone. And the journalists who have been projecting that Heller will loose will also have sharp questions for the justices (to try and prove the Court got it wrong)
If I was the court, and I had to face those people, I would wait until the last day and have the ruling issued by a clerk 15 minutes after I left for vacation. The only one I expect at the Court after the ruling is given is Breyer who will issue his opposition ruling on the court steps to a massed group of journalists.
As for gold-plated guns, wait for it. They will have the gold plated commemorative pistols for sale within months just to capitalise on the ruling.
Seriously, people. Did anybody listen to arguments? The individual right is in the bag - 6-3 at least, but probably more. The rest is in play, but this is not a loss for the pro-gun crowd (no matter what the NRA says tomorrow and in its next round of fundraising).
The paranoia on these threads is unreal.
If the Court finds in favor of DC, we are basically left with the status quo. The Second Amendment hasn't really protected a private right to own guns since at least the 1930s. I can't imagine that a ruling for DC would result in new gun bans popping up across the country, as those have mostly been prevented by lack of political support, not due to Court holdings. If anything, you will see some gun bans fall due to a backlash to the decision, as occurred following Kelo (another case that, despite popular opinion, really just kept the status quo).
If Heller wins, people in DC and NYC and maybe a few other locations will have access to guns, which won't really change much either. As libertarians are fond to point out, criminals already have guns, so there won't be much of a change on that front, and even though pro-gun rights people are fond of publicizing every story about someone who successfully defends themself with their gun, I can't imagine that guns ever amount to much more than a somewhat dangerous toy to 99.999% of gun owners (using a gun for hunting trips and at the shooting range is comparable to using a tennis racket at the tennis court).
Don't stress, after tomorrow, no matter how this decision comes down, your life is probably not going to change in any meaningful way.
In the words of that old beer commercial, "It's Miller time!"
RE: Symbolic
"A truly symbolic gift would be a shotgun with a 17” barrel." -- Larry A
I disagree. I think an FN FLA with night scope and bipod would be better. Or a Light Anti-Tank Weapon (LAW). The latter would be 'poetic'.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
Paranoia? The Court so far saw it keen to protect child rapists and terrorists. They'll have no difficulty outlawing guns.
Buy a gun tonight. You won't regret it.
"The paranoia on these threads is unreal."
I wouldn't call it paranoia. Hysteria might be a better word.
DangerMouse, you do realize that "outlawing guns" isn't even a possible outcome of this case, don't you? The Court assuredly will not say tomorrow that you are no longer allowed to own guns. At worst it will say that the Second Amendment does not prevent Congress from prohibiting you from owning guns -- which is a very different (and, I think, pretty unlikely) thing.
Leopold Stotch,
Your analysis is wrong. A ruling for DC would enable state and local governments to freely ban guns as well, as DC basically has, without fear of an incorporated individual right to keep and bear arms. While Congress is not likely to ban all guns, many states and localities might do just that.
Try understanding the issues before calling others hysterics.
Some in the legal profession seem to have accepted the suggestion that to infringe relative to a right means to completely destroy it, but that extensive reasonable regulations are OK and do not infringe the right. A contrary understanding is that infringe means to encroach upon or narrow the right in any way and that the purpose for the "shall not be infringed" language was to prevent regulation of the right, period.
A good indication of what "shall not be infringed" meant to the Founders can be gleaned from their use of the phrase in relation to other Bill of Rights provisions. Here are some of them.
The Second Amendment's current "shall not be infringed" language is exactly as proposed by Madison in what was originally the first clause. In addition to that language, Madison indicated in his Bill of Rights proposal to Congress that the rights of conscience (freedom of religious belief) could not be "infringed." It does not seem logical that Madison's intention in using not infringe relative to religious beliefs was to allow for considerable reasonable regulation by the government.
Another person who used "infringe" in bill of rights proposals for the Constitution was Sam Adams in the Massachusetts Ratifying Convention. He indicated the Constitution should never be construed to authorize Congress to infringe freedom of the press or the rights of conscience (religion beliefs). It also seems illogical that such usage by Adams and the supporters of his proposal indicated an intention of allowing exensive reasonable regulations to be applied to freedom of the press and religious beliefs. It seems much more likely that such language was intended as the strongest of limits upon government actions, just as in Madison's case with his proposals in Congress.
There is another interesting period Bill of Rights related use of "shall not be infringed" language often overlooked today. The Committee of Eleven, to which Madison's proposals were submitted by Congress, accepted his use of "infringed" relative to freedom of religion and added Madisons original Second Amendment restrictive language ("shall not be infringed") to other First Amendment rights from which it was missing - freedom of speech - freedom the press - the right of peaceable assembly - the right to apply for redress of grievances. Once again, it does not appear that such period usage indicated the Committee members understood that religious beliefs could be subjected to extensive reasonable regulations, or that they used "shall not be infringed" with the intention that it would condone extensive and reasonable regulation of freedom of speech, freedom of the press, the right of peaceable assembly, and the right to apply for redress of grievances.
Another interesting period fact is that the type of language ultimately used in the First Amendment - "shall make no laws" - was first found in Second Amendment related provisions. The Pennsylvania Minority indicated "that no law shall be passed for disarming the people, or any of them. . ." New Hampshire adopted a Second Amendment related provision that "Congress shall never disarm any citizen. . ." - somewhat akin to the type of language used in the First Amendment. I am not suggesting that these particular provisions were relied upon directly to develop the First Amendment's language. I am suggesting that First and Second Amendment protections were all given the very strongest possible protective language, and that "shall not be infringed" was not intended to allow for extensive reasonable regulation. It was clearly intended to prevent regulation of the right by the government.
As I pointed out above, the status quo is already that state and local governments can ban guns. Heller is seeking to change existing precedent. If a state or local government was going to ban all guns, they already would have done so (as DC and NYC pretty much have). The reason why more localities haven't banned "all guns" isn't because the Supreme Court was preventing them from doing so, but because politicians realized that, in most places, doing so would be a fast track to the unemployment line.
I still say it will be 7-2 individual right, 6-3 strict scrutiny, and possibly a split court on incorporation of the 14th amendment. Several people on this thread are right, States (and a few cities) have for decades viewed it as their right to prohibit or not prohibit firearms as they see fit. It goes with the view that the 2nd amendment protects against Federal laws only. But this ruling is not against a Federal law but a city law. Its incorporation of the 14th amendment that will be the Earthquake; that is if we get that.
The laws in question in Heller are federal laws in the sense that D.C. is a federal enclave.
Crackmonkeyjr,
The uncertain constitutional status of state and local gun bans operates as a limit on their passage in many jurisdictions. Only the most fearlessly liberal places dare pass outright bans.
Once again, Crackmonkeyjr (seriously, dude, what's up with that handle?) has it exactly right. The de facto status quo for the past several decades, except recently in the Fifth Circuit, has been that the Second Amendment was a meaningless dead letter. It has had no legal effect on the power of government at any level to restrict the right to keep and bear arms. (Your reference to incorporation is just bizarre. I do not think it means what you think it means.) Further, it has had very little value as a rhetorical device in political gun debates except in jurisdictions that weren't inclined to ban guns anyway.
An anti-individual rights ruling would effectively maintain the status quo. Gun control would remain a political war -- and one in which our side does pretty well in, I might add.
RE: Heller Won
"If Heller wins, people in DC and NYC and maybe a few other locations will have access to guns, which won't really change much either." -- CrackMonkeyJr
That's more than just a 'few other locations'. We're talking about MILLIONS of people—mostly in major metropolitan areas—whose local officials have prohibited them the right to defend themselves.
That IS rather 'significant'.
Regards,
Chuck(le)