Every time that Schmuck-o Trump-o gets up in front of one of his Ku Klux Klan rallies, sooner or later he promises the crowd that he’ll ‘protect’ their 2nd-Amendment ‘rights.’ And lately, this seems to be about the only thing he can say without getting into trouble, so he makes sure to say it every time out. Of course he always gets a response from the crowd because if we know one thing for sure about Hillary, we know that she’s an enemy of the 2nd Amendment and if she becomes Number 45, then 2nd Amendment goes bye-bye.
I bought my first real gun in 1956 when I was 12 years old. It was a Smith & Wesson 6-inch revolver in one of those blue cardboard boxes and it was sitting on a table in the middle of a big flea market somewhere in the Glades outside of Fort Lauderdale near Highway 441. Old boy wanted fifty for the gun, I had fifty on me, he got the fifty, I got the gun. Of course thirty minutes later my great-uncle Nat grabbed the gun away from me and probably sold it in a pawn shop the next day. But it was still and always will be my very first gun.
Between 1956 and 2008, that’s more than fifty years, I probably owned more than 500 different guns. That may sound like a lot but actually it’s only ten guns a year which is pretty light for a gun nut like me. I also probably sold 450 guns over that same period because, on average, I usually kept around 50 guns at any one time. Always had a couple of Colt 1911s, a Smith 39 and a Smith 52; I was also partial to Walther, particularly the P-38 and never passed up the opportunity to own a Browning Hi-Power, aka the Model P-35. Those are for starters.
Between 1956 and 2008 I probably bought, sold and traded one thousand guns, and not a single one of those transactions was protected by the United States Constitution at all. Because when I first started fooling around with guns the 2nd Amendment was defined as only protecting guns that could or would be used for military service of one kind or another; this was the gist of the 1939 United States vs. Miller decision which basically said that the 2nd Amendment only protected the ownership of guns that would be used in a militia-type of activity like the National Guard. And of all the guns I had owned since 1956, not one of them could have been regarded as useful only for military or militia service, not one.
The 2008 District of Columbia vs. Heller decision changed all that. Because for the very first time the SCOTUS gave Constitutional protection to civilian gun ownership, but also explicitly gave Constitutional protection to a very specific kind of civilian ownership, namely, the ‘right’ to keep a loaded, unlocked handgun in the home. Meanwhile, in the years since I bought and briefly owned that S&W revolver in Florida, virtually every state began issuing licenses to carry a concealed weapon outside the home, and some states even now allow guns to be carried openly in the public space.
I hate to break the news to Schmuck-o and his band of merry followers, but carrying a gun outside your house, concealed or in open view, is not protected by any Constitutional ‘right’ at all. And when various jurisdictions have been challenged for limiting the carrying of guns outside the home, these challenges (e.g., Peruta vs. San Diego) haven’t gone anywhere at all.
So when Schmuck-o Trump gets up there and says he’s going to ‘protect 2nd-Amendment rights,’ he’s just embellishing a noisy fiction that without the 2nd Amendment, we would all fall prey to gun-grabbers like Hillary who would quickly and easily take away our guns. It’s not true, it never was true, but since when is truth a defining criteria for what tumbles out of Schmuck-o Trump’s mouth?
Aug 12, 2016 @ 19:49:24
Indeed. Recent U.S. circuit court decisions have demonstrated that Heller isn’t that Wall of Separation between citizens and gun control that some had thought. Adam Winkler is a good read on this subject.
My read is that when Hillary says she wants to revisit Heller, it is to give both states and the Feds more latitude to make place and time restrictions. Heller was pretty narrow–it said a person had the right to keep a serviceable firearm in the home for self defense. Back when Dee Cee competed to lead the nation in homicide rate, that was perhaps not a bad idea. What Heller also said was that Dee Cee and other jurisdictions could require permits and licenses. There is plenty that can be done under Heller. We need to, as Winkler alludes, stop focusing on Heller and start focussing on GVP.
Aug 13, 2016 @ 10:54:42
p.s. Hillary can’t abolish the 2A. It would be both houses of Congress by 2/3 majorities and 3/4 of the states. Not likely.
Aug 12, 2016 @ 20:22:35
Good arguments! While I realize presidents have an influence on nominating judges, they don’t get to appoint them carte blanche. All have to be confirmed. Aside from that, a president can’t repeal Constitutional amendments! You can mount a repeal through Congress and the states, or the courts can redefine based on constitutionality, but all presidents can do is offer opinions about what laws are needed, or wrong.
Aug 12, 2016 @ 20:28:45
Greetings from DC where it was 108 today! Arrived at the hotel in time to take a nap and have a great dinner at a wine and tapas bar. Love the education I get from reading your articles and hope our paths cross someday. Can’t wait to see how trump spins “Obama the founder of ISIS” now that the Prez took out one of their leaders. I follow Nate Silver from FiveThirtyEight and It appears Clinton will trounce trump. Hope it keeps going in that direction.
Sent from Gail Lehmann’s iPad 203-438-7755
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Aug 13, 2016 @ 01:39:18
So again, you proffer that no activity explicitly related to a Constitutional right [in this case, the bearing of arms], is protected by that right….unless it a suit has been submitted and has been adjudicated by SCOTUS?
That’s a mighty bizarre legal theory.
Aug 13, 2016 @ 01:43:11
And of all the guns I had owned since 1956, not one of them could have been regarded as useful only for military or militia service, not one.
I’m curious how you came to this conclusion.
Aug 13, 2016 @ 01:53:21
The 2008 District of Columbia vs. Heller decision changed all that. Because for the very first time the SCOTUS gave Constitutional protection to civilian gun ownership,
You’re incorrect; remember, that a case need never rise to SCOTUS to interpret Constitutional law. Per the 2001 majority ruling in United States v. Emerson:
E. Second Amendment protects individual rights
We reject the collective rights and sophisticated collective rights models for interpreting the Second Amendment. We hold, consistent with Miller, that it protects the right of individuals, including those not then actually a member of any militia or engaged in active military service or training, to privately possess and bear their own firearms, such as the pistol involved here, that are suitable as personal, individual weapons and are not of the general kind or type excluded by Miller.
There are other federal cases before that, back to the early 19th century that ruled likewise. Using SCOTUS as your benchmark, is disingenuous.