Gun Decision Now Expected During Kagan Hearing

[usregimechange]

Conservatives are hoping for a windfall when the U.S. Supreme Court releases a highly anticipated decision about gun rights — likely on the opening day of Elena Kagan's confirmation hearing.

A decision in McDonald v. City of Chicago, about state and local regulation of firearms, is all but certain to come down Monday when the Court sits for the last time this term. The justices heard arguments in March in the case, which is a follow-up to the Court’s 2008 decision in D.C. v. Heller in favor of a constitutional right for individuals to own guns.

http://legaltimes.typepad.com/blt/2010/06/gun-rights-decision-expected-during-elena-kagan-hearing.html

[benEzra]

1. Believing that the 14th Amendment applies the Bill of Rights to states and cities

is a "conservative" position? :eyes:

Would the blogger consider it "liberal", then, to allow cities and states to censor speech and press? Ban abortions? Re-enact segregation laws? Ban religions other than Christianity?

If the 2ndA protects an individual right---and the fact that it does is settled law---then the only recourse of gun prohibitionists is to argue that the Bill of Rights does not protect rights from state and local infringement. With all due respect, that position is not a progressive one.

[one-eyed fat man]

2. Progressive

These words appeared in an 8 January 1941 article Orwell wrote for Evening Standard.

'Even as it stands the Home Guard could only exist in a country where men feel themselves free. The totalitarian states can do great things, but there is one thing they cannot do, they cannot give the factory worker a rifle and tell him to take it home and keep it in his bedroom. THAT RIFLE HANGING ON THE WALL OF THE WORKING-CLASS FLAT OR LABOURER'S COTTAGE IS THE SYMBOL OF DEMOCRACY. IT IS OUR JOB TO SEE IT STAYS THERE.'

How could it be stated more eloquently? If the legitimacy of a government comes from the consent of the governed, then only a government of free people can risk ordinary citizens possessing arms. Throughout the last century, and into this one, genocides were preceded by a lawful disarming of those to be slaughtered by their own government. Armenia, the Holocaust, Cambodia, Bosnia, Kosovo, Rwanda, the Iraqi Kurds and the current horror in Darfur, add to that the estimated hundreds of millions offed by Stalin, the Jong-ils and Mao Tse Tung regimes.

How is it again that gun-control became a 'progressive' value?

[friendly_iconoclast]

5. I wonder how that blogger feels about Lawrence v. Texas? Or Proposition 8 in CA?

Would they use the same reasoning?

[Walk away]

3. I hate conservatives. Conservatives suck!

Anything they want is usually bad.

[PavePusher]

4. Broad-brushing much?

I guess we all have our blind spots...

Unless you were being sarcastic, in wich case I apologize sincerely.

[benEzra]

6. The conservative roots of U.S. gun control...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=118&topic_id=134977&mesg_id=134977

[one-eyed fat man]

7. Homer Cummings

He was FDR's attorney general. He was for a complete gun control and Federal registration and taxation of all handguns! It was as much a part of the New Deal as the WPA or the CCC but the NFA 1934 was the best he could get.

The Any Other Weapon classification and associated tax is the only vestige of what would have included all pistols and revolvers. Conservatives do not have a lock on seeing themselves as the "elites."

There are plenty with a D after their name that every bit as elitist as bluest of old money blue-bloods! Naturally, most of those elitists wouldn't sully their hands with something so plebeian as a gun other than a hand-fitted 'London Best' double from Purdey & Sons or Holland & Holland. They most assuredly feel that if you truly were worth protecting you'd either have a security detail provided by the taxpayer or wealthy enough to high your own bodyguards.

The roots of the Democratic party's passion for gun control lies in the Reconstruction South. That the 14th Amendment was referred to as the "Anti-Klan Act" during Congressional debate is an embarrassment to those calling members of the Tea Party racists. As recently as the 1930's the Klan was a bigger factor in the State Democratic party of Indiana than in any of the states of the Confederacy.

There is plenty of non-progressive, even downright evil, history in the Democratic party to pretend it didn't exist, or worse, refuse to learn from it and improve!