This is very good news for gun rights fighters. The Supreme Court has accepted the case to answer the question on whether the 2nd Amendment applies, or is “incorporated”, to the states.
WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court agreed Wednesday to decide whether strict local and state gun control laws violate the Second Amendment, ensuring another high-profile battle over the rights of gun owners.
The court said it will review a lower court ruling that upheld a handgun ban in Chicago. Gun rights supporters challenged gun laws in Chicago and some suburbs immediately following the high court’s decision in June 2008 that struck down a handgun ban in the District of Columbia, a federal enclave.
The new case tests whether last year’s ruling applies as well to local and state laws.
While this is good news for hopeful gun rights activists it raises questions for die hard Constitutionalists. The dirty details of “incorporation” reveals some divisions among us. I’ve previously discussed my own thoughts on “incorporation”, but I can certainly understand the opposing viewpoint. The question came up earlier this year when the states rights argument was utilized by the anti-gun rights Senators in reference to the Thune amendment that would have permitted concealed carry reciprocity between the states.
The conventional wisdom is that the Supreme Court has a very good chance of voting in favor of 2nd Amendment incorporation. Perhaps, the more interesting thing, similar to Heller, will be what the majority opinion says at the conclusion of the case.
A couple months ago we revealed the lawsuit former VA congressional candidate Vern McKinley brought against the Federal Reserve and FDIC because the organizations were less than forthcoming in responding to FOIA requests.
Judge Andrew Napolitano takes a look at the Wilson fiasco from a different angle than most of the mainstream media, which tends to focus on the “respect” that the [office of the] President of the Unites States “deserves”. The Judge points out that Wilson shouted “you lied!” while the president was claiming that illegal aliens would not receive health care benefits under the “public option” proposal, and then examines this with respect to the Constitution’s “Equal Protection” provision.
The Constitution imposes on the government numerous burdens that we as individuals do not have. For example, I can tell my nephew to keep quiet at the dinner table because I don’t like what he said about grandma, but the First Amendment prevents the government from keeping him silent on a street corner when he criticizes it. Similarly, I can give a gift to some of my nephews and nieces because they are great kids, but I don’t need to give gifts of equal value, since I can spend my money on gifts however I wish. But the government has some burdens here that individuals do not. The Constitution requires that the government treat all persons similarly situated in a similar manner. This is the essence of “Equal Protection,” which the Constitution requires of the states and the federal government.
Napolitano goes on to cite case-law in which the Supreme Court has ruled that states may not deny people the right to an education based on citizenship status, and undoubtedly “an education is in the same class of social benefits as providing health care.” He points out that Obama with all his collegiate accolades certainly must know this.
Can anyone really suggest that the Harvard Law School-educated University of Chicago-employed professor of constitutional law did NOT know the law when he contended that the Congress can keep universal health care away from illegals? He must have known that, short of amending the Constitution to re-define “persons” and “Equal Protection”, whatever the Congress makes available by way of social services to the general population, it must make available to all persons.
There is no question that under the present law, Congress simply cannot pick and choose which “persons” to whom it will afford social benefits and to which “persons” it will not. How could the president not have known that?
Judge Andrew Napolitano takes on Obama, Health Care reform and how it relates to the commerce clause in the Constitution in an Op-Ed piece in the Wall Street Journal today.
James Madison, who argued that to regulate meant to keep regular, would have shuddered at such circular reasoning. Madison’s understanding was the commonly held one in 1789, since the principle reason for the Constitutional Convention was to establish a central government that would prevent ruinous state-imposed tariffs that favored in-state businesses. It would do so by assuring that commerce between the states was kept “regular.”
The Supreme Court finally came to its senses when it invalidated a congressional ban on illegal guns within 1,000 feet of public schools. In United States v. Lopez (1995), the Court ruled that the Commerce Clause may only be used by Congress to regulate human activity that is truly commercial at its core and that has not traditionally been regulated by the states. The movement of illegal guns from one state to another, the Court ruled, was criminal and not commercial at its core, and school safety has historically been a state function.
Applying these principles to President Barack Obama’s health-care proposal, it’s clear that his plan is unconstitutional at its core. The practice of medicine consists of the delivery of intimate services to the human body. In almost all instances, the delivery of medical services occurs in one place and does not move across interstate lines. One goes to a physician not to engage in commercial activity, as the Framers of the Constitution understood, but to improve one’s health. And the practice of medicine, much like public school safety, has been regulated by states for the past century.
Ina 47-page judgement, U.S. District Judge Lorena Preska recently ruled that the Federal Reserve, America’s quasi-private central bank, must reply to Bloomberg News’s request under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) by August 31st.
The senior legal counsel for the FED, Ms. Yvonne Mizusawa, claims thatthe Fed and U.S. banks would suffer irreparable harm if details of the loan programs were made public. The claim was initially filed by Bloomberg last year during the public outcry following October’s Banker Bailout. So far the names of the recipients of over $2 Trillion USD in off-balance sheet transactions are secret.
Clearing House Association LLC, an industry-owned group in New York that processes payments between banks, filed a declaration that accompanied the request for a stay. Per Bloomberg, Norman Nelson, VP and general counsel for the group, said, “Our members have accessed the discount window with the understanding that the Fed will not disclose information about their borrowing, especially their identity.” The group consists of the following banks: ABN Amro Holding NV, Bank of America Corp., Bank of New York Mellon Corp., Citigroup Inc., Deutsche Bank AG, HSBC Holdings Plc, JPMorgan Chase Inc., UBS AG, U.S. Bancorp and Wells Fargo & Co.
My comments are simply that the FED may be correct in its assessment of the damage the information’s release may cause, but by no means should this be used as a sanction to hide from the public. Readers of this column are very familiar with my views on the American banking system, as can be read in “The FDIC is Bankrupt” and “FDIC: “We Aren’t Bankrupt and Everything is A-OK” This is shaping up to be a very important event and may affect your personal financial future.
Making the 2nd Amendment applicable to the States as referenced in this article from the other day was discussed in a bit more detail on Guntalk over the weekend.
The host Tom Gresham interviewed The Second Amendment Foundation’s Alan Gottlieb about the 9th Circuit Court’s decision to re-hear the case where it decided that the 2nd Amendment is incorporated to the states.
Gottlieb discusses the ramifications of the 9th’s decision. Interestingly enough he suggests it may not be a bad thing and he suspects the Supreme Court will take up the 2nd Amendment Incorporation question regardless of what the 9th does.
Listen to the audio below.
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In the wake of last year’s Heller decision the question of incorporating the 2nd Amendment to the states has seen some play in the U.S. circuit court system. What is “incorporation” and should the 2nd Amendment override state law?
First, here is some audio from Guntalk, a weekly radio show hosted by Tom Gresham of Guntalk.tv, a wonderful resource for all gun-owners.
Gresham reveals the details of the previous incorporation-related cases and a new development that could have a bearing on whether or not the Supreme Court takes up the question. Before it was a no-brainer for the high court to hear the case, but now the 9th Circuit Court appears to be trying their hardest to make it a “brainer”. Listen to Gresham lay it all out in the audio below.
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Originally, the Constitution and Bill of Rights were a set of restraints on the federal government. The states pretty much had free reign on the laws they could enact. The states were governing themselves prior to the ratification of the Constitution. Our Founders (for the most part) tried to avoid trampling on states’ rights to self-govern. The amendments passed following the Civil War, particularly the 14th, set the stage for the trampling to begin.
Ron Paul has HR1207 and over 267 cosponsors. The Senate has S604 and 8 cosponsors. Demanding Federal Reserve transparency is coming from all sides. Vern McKinley, who ran unsuccessfully against Frank Wolf in the 2008 10th district of Virginia’s GOP primary, has been fighting for transparency over the last several months using the law.
This week I’m thinking about the 2nd Amendment and gun control. By now everyone has heard about the Heller Supreme Court victory last year that struck down DC’s gun ban. There is another “gun fight” brewing. The Heller case dealt with applying the 2nd Amendment to the federal government. The new case explores whether the 2nd Amendment applies to the states. Perhaps most compelling about this new case is that it is an effort to strike down Chicago’s gun ban and we have a President who would love nothing more than to extend that ban to all the states.
Make no mistake that is what Barack Obama wants to do. Whether he actually can accomplish it is another story. For more details on the new case and its history see this excellent article from Reason. Let’s all hope that the Supreme Court takes the case and does the right thing.
By Judge Andrew P.Napolitano FOX News Senior Judicial Analyst
The Secretary of the Treasury and the Chair of the Federal Reserve have taken an oath to uphold the Constitution and the federal laws. Among those laws is the obligation of management of publicly traded corporations to inform shareholders in a meaningful way of the risks attendant upon all extraordinary corporate activity, including major acquisitions.
The acquisition of Merrill Lynch by the Bank of America was surely a major acquisition and an extraordinary corporate act. The president of B of A now tells us that the Secretary and the Chair told him not to inform his shareholders that Merrill Lynch was truly a risky investment. As it turns out, when Ken Lewis learned that Merrill Lynch was worth about $17 billion less than the $50 billion agreed upon amount, he attempted to invoke the material adverse change (MAC) clause in the contract of acquisition, which would have given him the option of getting Merrill Lynch for $33 billion or walking away from the deal.
“Ken Lewis, Henry Paulson, John Thain, Ben Bernanke, and Jeffrey Lacker, the President of the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, should all be prosecuted for extortion, conspiracy to extort, criminal fraud, and theft of honest services; and they should be imprisoned if convicted.”
Liberty Maven
Judge Andrew Napolitano takes a look at the Wilson fiasco from 
In
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