In the New York Times, Adam Liptak (admirably) writes a straightforward article on the effect of Heller:
The only odd statement in the article is that restrictive laws "are almost exclusively urban," when about half of the cities mentioned in the article are suburban. It would be better to say that most such laws are urban and suburban, not rural.Coming Next, Court Fights on Guns in Cities
The individual right to bear arms identified by the Supreme Court on Thursday will have little practical impact in most of the country, legal experts said, though Washington’s comprehensive ban on handguns used for self-defense in the home will have to be revised, and similar laws in several cities are also vulnerable.
Most state and city gun restrictions appear to be allowed under the ruling, including licensing laws, limits on the commercial sale of guns, restrictions on guns in places like schools and government buildings and prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill. “Dangerous and unusual” weapons can also be banned, although that phrase was not fully defined.
Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for the majority in the 5-to-4 decision, also suggested that bans on concealed weapons would probably pass — new locution alert — Second Amendment muster. Justice Scalia added that the court’s list of permissible restrictions was not exhaustive.
The legal battlegrounds will be cities with ordinances similar to Washington’s essentially complete ban, most notably Chicago.
“It’s really the municipalities that are the offenders,” said Robert A. Levy, a lawyer on the winning side of the case and an architect of the victorious strategy.
“There is likely to be quite a flood of litigation to try to flesh out precisely what regulations are to be permitted and which ones are not,” Mr. Levy said. “The challenges are likely to be in Chicago, New York, Philadelphia and Detroit.”
In fact, a lawsuit against Chicago’s very restrictive ordinance was filed almost immediately after the court’s decision. Four Chicago residents and two gun rights groups asked the federal district court there to strike down the ordinance.
Adrian M. Fenty, the mayor of Washington, said the city was taking steps to comply with the court’s ruling. Officials here are considering an amnesty period in which handgun owners can register them without penalty, Mr. Fenty said at a news conference.
Mr. Fenty emphasized that it remains illegal to carry handguns outside the home and that only registered guns may be kept at home. Automatic and semiautomatic weapons will generally remain illegal, he said.
In addition to Chicago, as Justice Stephen G. Breyer wrote in a dissenting opinion, several of its suburbs in Illinois, including Evanston, Morton Grove, Oak Park, Winnetka and Wilmette, ban the possession of handguns in many settings. Toledo, Ohio, bans some kinds of handguns, Justice Breyer wrote, and San Francisco would have a similar ban had it not been pre-empted by state law.
As the list of affected localities demonstrates, gun control laws of the sort most likely to be affected by Thursday’s decision are almost exclusively urban. Indeed, some 40 states pre-empt local gun regulations, indicating significant tensions between state lawmakers and municipal officials. . . . .
The truth be told, it doesn't matter what the 2nd Amendment means as it was adopted because as everyone should know, the constitution had nothing to do with granting rights or securities for anyone other than declaring political rights.
James Madison on the bill of rights said all of the first ten amendments indicated a "jealousy of the federal powers, and an anxiety to multiply securities against a constructive enlargement of them."
Madison wrote one of the "securities adopted by the later amendments" was the "security against a standing army within the several states." According to Scalia, there is no such thing, only a private right for people to own handguns! (laughing)
Scalia completely ignored the rock solid evidence of why the bill of rights was adopted. He ignored the very amendment that prohibits him from taking such great liberties of construction.
What if I get busted for possession on the way home from the gun dealer -- what's my defense?
Semiauto is illegal in DC? Wow, that crazy city was worse than I thought. That's a huge percentage of modern firearms, based on what I see for sale at most gun dealers.
And what does he mean by "generally illegal"? Is that like "kind of pregnant"? Or does it mean if you are rich enough and well enough connected, you can get a permit for an exception?
As for other major cities who think they have a statute problem, it might behoove them to look at the fact that their restrictions don't have much effect now. Somehow urban gangbangers and drugdealers don't exactly comply. It isn't the guns; it's the underlying social pathology and economic incentives of the illegal markets in controlled substances. If soda cost $500 a can, you'd see Coke and Pepsi truck drivers shooting at eachother too. With company-supplied weapons!
The laws just drive up the price of a street weapon (think analogy with prohibition and drug wars), and disarm the law-abiding citizens. Strict gun restrictions just don't work, whether they are Constitutional or not.
The purpose of the government is to serve the people, not the other way around. I fear a government that thinks it needs to disarm us for it's own protection.
Can someone with more legal expertise comment on this for me?
Its because DC bans any weapon capable of holding 12 rounds (not just the standard magazine, if any magazine was ever made for that firearm with the capacity of 13 or more rounds, which is 99% of all semiautos) as a 'machine gun'. Even a policeman who registered a WWII M1 Carbine with a 5rd magazine had his registration revoked because there were 15 and 30rd magazines available for his weapon.
It's sort of a sad commentary that this seems sufficiently unusual to note.
So a Colt Officers Model .45, with it's smaller mag, would be OK? (Never seen hi capacity mags available for it.) But a regular 1911 .45 model wouldn't, because of the potential for hi capacity aftermarket mags?
As if reloading a mag takes more than a second or so ...
Totally nonsensical. And government wonders why we think there must be a maximum on IQ required (under 80) to work there.
Fenty the gift that keeps on giving, If he goes forward with that position, He will have Washington right back in court. The regulation clearly bans weapons that are in common use the standard used in Miller. Once in court I would argue that not only is it a violation of the commonly used standard but that regulation of the type of arms available to the public is reserved to Congress under the Militia Clause of the Constitution. I would also point out that no decsion on the validity of licensing was made in Heller it was a conceded point open to challenge.
But their game is to keep litigation going while they continue to ban guns. Constitution or Supreme Court be damned. They know better.
What do the liberals that comment here think of this kind of lawless behavior by goverenment officials?
That's an odd statement. Aren't cities by definition urban? My OED defines "urban" as "[p]ertaining to or characteristic of, occurring or taking place in, a city or town".
Interesting. My KY permit is a "Concealed Deadly Weapons License". It specifically includes knives and ninja stars and etc.
At some point it might be time to bring up the possibility of criminal prosecution under 18 USC 242, "Denial of rights under color of law."
Right. Human beings already possessed the right to armed self-defense under the Natural Law. See Grotius, Locke, et al. The Bill of Rights simply enumerates certain rights, it does not grant any.
Aren't cities by definition urban?
To be precise, Oak Park, Morton Grove, Wilmette, and Winnetka are Villages. Once a Village, Evanston is now a City. Here the distinction between city and suburb is not that useful, because Chicago grew by annexing adjacent suburban townships. Oak Park and Evanston were already incorporated by the time Chicago reached their doorsteps. Wilmette abuts Evanston, and perhaps is a suburb of it. Winnetka is further up the lake, perhaps far enough to no longer be considered a Chicago suburb. Morton Grove is a typical farm-field-to-single-family-homes postwar suburb.
The Unbeliever suggested that "even artillery like cannons and such were held privately at the time [of the Revolution]" - does anybody know of a good book or article discussing this subject? Thanks.
And D.C. intends to continue flunking the laugh test when it rewrites its laws to "comply" with Heller. I assume that as soon as Alan Gura gets a bit of free time, he's got another case to file in D.D.C.: D.C.'s semi-auto ban flies directly in the face of Heller's reaffirmation of the Miller "common use" test. Perhaps Mr. Heller should show up at police headquarters and try to register an M1911 (with a standard-capacity magazine just to keep the issues simple) rather than a revolver, and use that as the springboard for the next case...
Incidentally, following up on Kharn's post about D.C.'s refusal to register WWII-era M1 Carbines: The District has company on that harebrained ban -- New Jersey also flatly bans possession of the M1 Carbine by defining it as a prohibited "assault weapon." Notwithstanding that the Federally-chartered DCM/CMP has been selling surplus M1 Carbines to civilians for decades -- and the total number of criminal uses of that vintage C&R rifle over the years can be counted on the fingers of one hand with a few digits left over. Mr. Gura, you're needed in the Garden State, too...
"The Unbeliever suggested that "even artillery like cannons and such were held privately at the time [of the Revolution]" - does anybody know of a good book or article discussing this subject? Thanks."
I cannot speak to Revolutionary times, but I have a friend right here in VA with a battery (6 tubes) of functional 75mm howitzers.
Of course, we live nowhere near any city.
So, guessing the urban crime that is the impetus for restriction makes it's way to nearby suburbs; it remains the these urban areas influence, unfairly IMO, the lifestyles of non-urban citizens.
'nother point- the rules, regulations, fees, and waiting periods of an area, like NYC, are designed to discourage gun ownership, very effectively. To own a handgun, a form must be filled out absolutely correctly- the only way to get it done properly is to have a professional do it for you. The form has pitfalls: you have to identify yourself as a NYC resident, the proof allowed is stated as a utility bill, phone bill, rent receipt, etc; however, when you hand deliver the form to the police at the only location allowed, it turns out the only form of ID they'll accept is your phone bill. Trickery, and what if you don't have a phone? The right to a firearm is contingent on a Verizon account.
Then there's the six month limit that the permit has to be denied or approved within- try a year and a half, and at that, you have to hire a gun lawyer to get it moving (about two grand).
And the fee, up around four hundred dollars, I don't know for what period of time the permit and fee are good for, renewal-wise.
And the permit can be denied or canceled for any reason at any time.
Is there a law against this, or a denial of right?
Miller is as subject to various interpretations as the writings of Nostradamus. Anyone anywhere on the gun rights/gun prohibition spectrum can find excerpts that give them comfort. One problem is that the holding is nowhere near the end of the opinion.
In the absence of any evidence tending to show that possession or use of a 'shotgun having a barrel of less than eighteen inches in length' at this time has some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia, we cannot say that the Second Amendment guarantees the right to keep and bear such an instrument.
Notice the use of a double-negative. Without evidence, we can't. This is very different from saying "the Second Amendment does not guarantee." It leaves open the possibility that the Second Amendment CAN "guarantee the right to keep and bear such an instrument" ...if you provide some evidence that it does. And it only has to be SOME evidence, because the case says "absent any evidence." I'm thinking scintilla.
Which means Miller has even less value than anyone thinks it does...
No, actually i dont wonder at all. They wont.
This is the New Jersey problem. Technically, one is exempted from the Firearms ID card and Handgun Permit statutes for possession on one's own property, usage at a firing range, and even hunting in the field; however, without the FID and/or handgun permits, a New Jersey resident cannot legally take possession of a weapon, except for non-handgun antiques. Which means black powder long arms only. Also, technically, New Jersey is a "shall issue" CCW state, but in actual practice, this is subject to the arbitrary approval of the local constables.
as per my post above; where does a situation like this fall legally- that is, how can a government actively price or obstruct out of existence what that government doesn't want?
On the one hand, they do not want more black men to go to jail (e.g. for carrying handguns for self-protection or crime), yet on the other hand, they want urban blacks disarmed for their own good.
One solution was banning handguns completely, yet black men have gone to extreme lengths to get their hands on guns -- traveling hundreds of miles to rural areas in other states to purchase them. The final solution was to convict the gun manufacturers of ... gun manufacture .. sadly, that also failed.
We really must respect the black community and the terrible toll that guns have taken on it. Perhaps a ban on gun ownership by blacks, if nothing else?
I have a guy charged with aggravated unlawful use of a weapon -to wit: A firearm, uncased and loaded without having in his possession a valid FOID card. The "firearm" was a stun gun he bought at an army surplus store on the south side of Chicago. Anybody have any thoughts?