[TheForge] banning samurai swords (in england)

[Jerry Smith]

Bob,

Until the Second Amendment is affirmed or denied by
the Supremes, DC remains Gun Free.

Plus with the Patriot Act, the Current Threat level
garbage and other War on Terror issues, the national
capital may get the right to keep and bear arms and
then be put on hold until this global insanity is over
with. I think "heck" may freeze over about that time.

Jerry
--- schade at acegroup.cc wrote:

> 
> On Dec 16, 2007, at 9:48 PM, Jerry Smith wrote:
> >  DC is gun free,
> 
> 
> 
> The DC law is going to be heard by the Supremes.
> Decision due next 
> summer.
> 
> Bob
> _____________________________________
> 
> Court Sets Its Scope on Handgun Ban
> By NICK TIMIRAOS
> November 24, 2007; Page A8
> 
> (See Corrections and Amplifications item below.)
> 
> The Supreme Court agreed this past week to decide
> whether the 
> Constitution grants individuals the right to own
> firearms, thrusting 
> the court into a political thicket ahead of next
> year's election.
> 
> The court will decide whether the District of
> Columbia's 1976 law that 
> bans handguns, generally considered to be the
> nation's strictest, 
> violates the Second Amendment. A federal appeals
> court struck down the 
> handgun ban in March, becoming the first federal
> court to overturn such 
> a law on Second Amendment grounds.
> 
> POINTS OF VIEW
>  
> "The Supreme Court's decision in this case ... may
> be the most 
> important ever regarding the Second Amendment."
> 
> --Paul Helmke, Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun
> Violence
> "This case is about a lot more than gun control. It
> is about 
> fundamental visions of constitutional democracy."
> 
> --Carl T. Bogus, Roger Williams University School of
> Law
> BY THE NUMBERS
>  
> • The ruling would have broad implications.
>  
> COMMENTARY
>  
> • Review & Outlook: Guns and the Constitution1
> 
> The high court, which is expected to hear arguments
> in the spring and 
> to issue an opinion by July, hasn't ruled on the
> issue in nearly 70 
> years, leaving plenty of uncertainty about its
> decision.
> 
> Here's a closer look:
> 
> What will the court consider? Historians and legal
> scholars have long 
> debated the exact meaning of the 27 words of the
> Second Amendment, 
> which reads: "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."
> 
> The court will consider whether the amendment
> guarantees individuals' 
> rights to possess firearms, as gun-rights proponents
> have argued, or if 
> it guarantees only the collective right to own guns
> as part of an 
> organized military force.
> 
> Robert Levy, a fellow at the libertarian Cato
> Institute, spent years 
> planning a test case that would reach the court and
> recruited the lead 
> plaintiff, Dick Heller, a district resident and
> security guard who had 
> been denied a permit to keep a handgun at his home.
> 
> How have courts ruled in the past? The Supreme Court
> last ruled on the 
> matter in a 1939 case that upheld convictions of two
> men who had 
> illegally transported sawed-off shotguns. The court
> ruled such weapons 
> weren't ordinary military equipment. Since then,
> lower courts 
> interpreted the Second Amendment to protect the
> right of a state to 
> field a militia and not an individual right to
> possess firearms.
> 
> But over the past two decades, a growing number of
> scholars have 
> published research supporting the individual-rights
> view. The Fifth 
> U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans
> endorsed that 
> interpretation in a 2001 case, and the three-judge
> panel of the 
> District of Columbia Court of Appeals followed in
> March with the split 
> decision that struck down the district's handgun
> ban.
> 
> How could the court rule? It is impossible to
> predict because the 
> justices have ruled on very few Second Amendment
> cases. Four justices 
> that dissented in a case invalidating parts of the
> federal Brady 
> gun-control act in 1997 -- John Paul Stevens, David
> Souter, Ruth Bader 
> Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer -- still are on the
> court. Meanwhile, 
> Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas have
> hinted at their 
> openness to an individual-rights argument, and Chief
> Justice John 
> Roberts said the Second Amendment was still "very
> much an open issue" 
> at his confirmation hearings two years ago.
> 
> One possible outcome could protect individuals'
> rights while allowing 
> states to set certain regulations on gun ownership,
> said Mark Tushnet, 
> a Harvard law professor and author of a new book on
> the gun-control 
> debate. But the stakes are so high and the case is
> so wide open that 
> players on both sides initially resisted efforts to
> bring the case 
> forward.
> 
> The plaintiffs have charged that the National Rifle
> Association tried 
> to prevent them from pursuing the case, going so far
> as to push for a 
> legislative repeal of the District of Columbia
> handgun ban so the case 
> wouldn't have standing. "I myself was skeptical
> about the risk-reward 
> ratio of this test case," said Nelson Lund, a
> constitutional law 
> professor at George Mason University, who holds a
> professorship endowed 
> by the NRA.
> 
> The NRA's Wayne LaPierre acknowledges considerable
> "back and forth 
> among lawyers" about the merits of bringing the case
> given 
> uncertainties over how the court would rule, and
> says the organization 
> pushed for a repeal of the handgun ban long before
> the current court 
> battle began. The NRA filed briefs supporting the
> plaintiffs before the 
> lower courts.
> 
> Meanwhile, gun-control supporters encouraged the
> District of Columbia 
> to relax its ban to forestall any unfavorable ruling
> that might open 
> the door to more challenges against hard-fought gun
> restrictions, such 
> as background checks or assault-weapons bans. "You
> get nervous any time 
> you're looking at a 5-4 split," said Paul Helmke,
> president of the 
> Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.
> 
> How could the ruling influence the election? Over
> the past decade, the 
> Democratic Party has concluded that support for more
> gun restrictions 
> has cost them votes, particularly in rural areas and
> swing states such 
> as Tennessee, Ohio and Nevada. Any ruling that
> threatens gun ownership 
> could be especially troubling, and the leading
> Democratic candidates 
> have remained quiet on the issue. Polls show that
> support for stricter 
> gun laws has fallen considerably, from highs of 78%
> in 1990 to 56% last 
> 
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