Say Anything Blog

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This will be the first case concerning guns with Sotomayor, and it appears she believes the states can outlaw gun ownership.

The Supreme Court has agreed today to hear a landmark Second Amendment case challenging Chicago’s ban on handguns and onerous registration procedures on other firearms.

The Illinois State Rifle Association and the Second Amendment Foundation filed a lawsuit against the city of Chicago claiming the city enforces a handgun ban identical to the one struck down by the Supreme Court in the case District of Columbia v. Heller and that the ban violates residents’ Second Amendment rights.

In Heller, the court rejected a lower court position that claimed the Second Amendment applied only to state “militia,” such as the National Guard. However, the 5-4 ruling referenced the federal jurisdiction of Washington, D.C., and not states and localities.

he Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution states: “A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

Furthermore, Section 1 of the 14th Amendment, or the Privileges or Immunities Clause, states:

  All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

If it can be rightly asserted that the states can deny citizens the right to own and bear arms, then it seems to me that every right in the entire Bill of Rights can be regulated by the states, except on federal property, and thereby the Bill of Rights are then made wholly meaningless.

Every part of the Bill of Rights must apply at all times and in all places or we cannot rely upon their protections anywhere at all. They will have been removed from the Constitution.

Quite frankly I do not own any private firearms, never had any interest in owning any; but I have always believed that even gun registration is unconstitutional, as it is the means for the State to know who has guns and should they decide to institute marshal law on a federal level, they will know where to come and get those guns, leaving the people powerless to defend themselves. I think laws prohibiting their use in legitimate self defense are unconstitutional and a host of other laws restricting gun ownership as well.

I hope we still have enough sane justices left to make it clear this time, with no limited applications or fuzzy judgments that, the Second Amendment applies to every U.S. citizen and no one within the United States my abridge that right.