Sound Off if you've got a gun!!

[Driven1]

Supreme Court Affirms the 2nd Amendment!!!!

WHOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Americans have right to guns under landmark ruling
By James Vicini

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Individual Americans have a right to own guns, the Supreme Court ruled on Thursday for the first time in the country's history, striking down a strict gun control law in the U.S. capital.

The landmark 5-4 ruling marked the first time in nearly 70 years the high court has addressed the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. It rejected the argument the right to keep and bear arms was tied to service in a state militia.

Justice Antonin Scalia said for the majority the Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with militia service and to use it for traditional lawful purposes, such as self-defense in the home.

However, he said the new right was not unlimited.

The court struck down two parts of the country's strictest gun control law adopted in Washington, D.C., 32 years ago -- the ban on private handgun possession and the requirement that firearms kept at home be unloaded and disassembled or bound by a trigger lock.

The ruling marked the first time the court has struck down a gun control law for violating the Second Amendment.

The ruling won praise from President George W. Bush, Republican presidential candidate John McCain and Wayne LaPierre of the politically powerful National Rifle Association, who said, "This is a great moment in American history."

It drew fire from gun control groups, which warned of new legal attacks on existing gun laws, and some Democrats in Congress like Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who said the decision "opens this nation to a dramatic lack of safety."

The four liberal dissenting justices warned of the ruling's consequences. "The decision threatens to throw into doubt the constitutionality of gun laws throughout the United States," Justice Stephen Breyer said.

Although an individual now has a constitutional right to own guns, that new right is not unlimited, wrote Scalia, a hunter.

He said the ruling should not be taken to cast doubt on long-standing prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill or on laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in places like schools and government buildings or laws imposing conditions on gun sales.

The Supreme Court's last review of the Second Amendment came in a five-page discussion in an opinion issued in 1939 that failed to definitively resolve the constitutional issue.

In the 64-page opinion, Scalia said an individual right to bear arms is supported by "the historical narrative" both before and after the Second Amendment's adoption.

"What is not debatable is that it is not the role of this court to pronounce the Second Amendment extinct," he said.

"Few laws in the history of our nation have come close to the severe restriction of the district's handgun ban," Scalia said.

GUN POINTED AT BURGLAR WHILE CALLING POLICE

Scalia said a citizen may prefer may prefer a handgun for home defense because "it can be pointed at a burglar with one hand while the other hand dials the police."

The justices split along conservative-liberal lines in the ruling, one of the most important of the court's current term, in deciding a legal battle over gun rights in America. The ruling came on the last day of the court's 2007-08 term.

Bush's two appointees on the court, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito, both voted with the majority in finding an individual right to keep firearms.

Bush said in a statement he applauded the "historic decision today confirming what has always been clear in the Constitution: the Second Amendment protects an individual right to keep and bear firearms."

Republican presidential candidate John McCain applauded the ruling and criticized his Democratic opponent Barack Obama for comments he had made during the political campaign.

"Unlike the elitist view that believes Americans cling to guns out of bitterness, today's ruling recognizes that gun ownership is a fundamental right -- sacred, just as the right to free speech and assembly," McCain said.

"I have always believed that the Second Amendment protects the right of individuals to bear arms," Obama said, "but I also identify with the need for crime-ravaged communities to save their children from the violence that plagues our streets through common sense, effective safety measures."

The United States is estimated to have the world's highest civilian gun ownership rate. Gun deaths average 80 a day in the United States, 34 of them homicides, according to Centers for Disease Control data.

The ruling was a victory for Dick Anthony Heller, a security guard who lives in a high-crime neighborhood and who wants to keep a handgun in his home for self-defense.

For decades, the meaning of the Second Amendment has been at the heart of a political and legal debate debate over gun control. People have argued whether it guarantees the right to bear arms to individuals or to citizens in a militia.

Written more than 200 years ago, the amendment says, "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."

In a dissent, parts of which he read from the bench, Justice John Paul Stevens said the court left for future cases the formidable task of defining the scope of permissible gun regulations.

"I fear that the district's policy choice may well be just the first of an unknown number of dominoes to be knocked off the table," Stevens said.

(Additional reporting by Jeremy Pelofsky; Editing by Deborah Charles and David Wiessler)

http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSWBT00928420080626?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews&rpc=22&sp=true

[Driven1]

and more good news...

Gun Lobby Quickly Sues To Overturn Chicago Ban
....Chicago has a similar ban on handguns and within minutes of the high court's ruling, the Illinois State Rifle Association began the court fight to get Chicago's ban overturned as well....

http://cbs2chicago.com/local/supreme.court.handguns.2.757471.html

i think you are going to start seeing a whole lot of these now that the legal precedent has been set by the highest court in the land!

[Driven1]

and Ted Nugent (legendary rocker) weighs in on today's monumental SCOTUS decision...

A “SUPREME” COURT? I CAN DO BETTER
by Ted Nugent

It is glaringly obvious that a critical lesson in history 101 is due in America, for it appears that not only does a lunatic fringe of anti-freedom Americans dismiss our founding fathers’ clear declaration of independence and succinct enumeration of our God-given individual rights, but some Americans have the arrogance and audacity to question whether the right to self-defense is indeed one of these individual rights. Dear God in heaven, who could be this soulless? How about 4 out of the 9 so called “Supreme” justices of the land. God help us all.

Who could be so asinine as to believe that a free man has no such right to keep and bear arms for self-defense? What kind of low-life scoundrel would know that courageous heroes of the U.S. Military would volunteer over and over again to sacrifice and die for such self-evident truths, then turn around and spit on their graves by discounting the very freedoms that these brave men and women have died to protect?

Will these supreme legal scholars also affirm an individual right to choose the religion of our individual choice? Do they authorize our individual freedom of speech? Can you imagine? Them is fighting words my friends, and the line drawn in the sand has never been more outrageous.

Recent USA Today and Gallup polls showed a whopping 73% of good Americans know damn well that we are all created equal, and that we each have an individual right to protect our life, liberty and pursuit of happiness. What kind of jackass doesn’t know this? Allow the guitar player to translate for the soul-dead among us.

Keep-this means the gun is mine and you can’t have it. This does not mean I will register it with a government agency. The government works for “we the people,” not the other way around, regardless of what Hillary Clinton, Ted Kennedy, Hitler, Mao Tse Tung, Pol Pot, Saddam Hussein or Barack Hussein Obama or 4 supreme justices may try to tell you.

Bear-this means I’ve got it right here, on me, either in my grasp or damn near. This does not mean locked away in a safe, trigger-locked or stored at the local sporting club.

Shall not be infringed-this of course is another way of saying Don’t tread on me, for we will not be your willing crime victims, subjects, servants or slaves, so don’t even think about it.

When the evil King’s gangsters came to collect unfair taxes from Americans, we tossed their tea into the drink. When they came to disarm us into helplessness against their old world tyrannical ways, we met them at Concord Bridge and shot them dead till they quit treading on us. Any questions children? I didn’t think so.

Corrupt men cannot be trusted, hence the right of “the people” to choose the individual church of our choice, to speak our individual ideas and beliefs, to have individual freedom from unwarranted searches and seizures, and ultimately, to exercise our individual right to keep and bear arms so that evildoers cannot do unto us that which we would not do unto them. Get it? I would love to meet the human being who would argue these points with us. We would be looking at a fascist, and of course fascists, by all historical and empirical evidence, must be eliminated.

If you value the American Way, if you believe in the words and spirit of the US Constitution and our sacred Bill of Rights, if you know in your heart that you have the right, the duty, the spiritual obligation to protect yourself and your loved ones from evil in all of its forms, then you had best contact each and every one of your elected officials right away and let them know that you know exactly what the Second Amendment says and stands for. Remind them about the “shall not be infringed” clause.

It will not be the fault of the rotten anti-Americans out there who don’t believe in individual rights that rape and pillage our Constitution, it will be the fault of those who know better but failed to speak up. Now is the time to fortify America, and we better inform the Supreme Court just who truly is the “Supreme” Court of America-We the people. Individual people with individual, God given rights. The real America. Live free or die.

[Driven1]

[willydenn]

Huge victory!  I am headed out to purchase several firearms before there is some other violation of my freedom.  When did liberals forget about personal responsibility/acountability and start legislating it? 

[Charleston native]

The sad thing is that we're celebrating a ruling that should've been a no-brainer, but we've been handed shit rulings for so long, we're ecstatic when something major actually breaks through.

Keep in mind that this decision fell on one vote. ONE VOTE. It's about time to revolt against the four most activist judges in the history of the United States.

But on a positive note, I will say F--K YEAH!!!! Driven, hilarious/awesome diversity poster!! I think I may need some diversity like that in my house. 

[BridgeTroll]

I concur Charleston... yippee... they affirmed what is clearly written.  They gave us what we already had.  The sad thing is that this even needed to go to the Supreme Court.  One lousy vote away from actually losing a constitutional right.  It is almost inconcievable that it was not unanimous...

[Jason]

Sounding off!!

I'm glad this one passed.  I also fully agree with the standing limitations on who can get guns and where the guns can be taken.

[will]

This is a terrible ruling. Humans frankly, on the average, cannot be trusted with guns. I'd rather have a happy and safe community than have a gun. The framers included the 2nd amendment for precise historical reasons. They had all come from totalitarian or oligarchal government and wanted to be ready to raise a militia to fight one if it occurred on American soil. If you wanted the equivalent today, each of you would have to have your own tank or bomber. So the original purpose of the amemdment is nullified. Additionally, the right was to have weapons for the purpose of forming a militia. If you are not part of a militia then this right does not apply.

[BridgeTroll]

This is a terrible ruling. Humans frankly, on the average, cannot be trusted with guns. I'd rather have a happy and safe community than have a gun. The framers included the 2nd amendment for precise historical reasons. They had all come from totalitarian or oligarchal government and wanted to be ready to raise a militia to fight one if it occurred on American soil. If you wanted the equivalent today, each of you would have to have your own tank or bomber. So the original purpose of the amemdment is nullified. Additionally, the right was to have weapons for the purpose of forming a militia. If you are not part of a militia then this right does not apply.

Then the correct and proper way to do what you propose is to amend the constitution... NOT legislate from the bench.

[David]

[gatorback]

I always like the Browing 9MM

[Driven1]

This is a terrible ruling. Humans frankly, on the average, cannot be trusted with guns. I'd rather have a happy and safe community than have a gun. The framers included the 2nd amendment for precise historical reasons. They had all come from totalitarian or oligarchal government and wanted to be ready to raise a militia to fight one if it occurred on American soil. If you wanted the equivalent today, each of you would have to have your own tank or bomber. So the original purpose of the amemdment is nullified. Additionally, the right was to have weapons for the purpose of forming a militia. If you are not part of a militia then this right does not apply.

you miss the point completely.  the people's right SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED UPON...to always make government aware that they cannot just roll over us tyranically.  go read up on some history.

[adamh0903]

I personally like the kel-Tec .380, Glock 19 and 27, Herritage .22lr and .22MAG, S&W sigma .40, old Ithica 20ga, older H&R .410. Browning Gold 12ga auto, Rock River M4A1 .223 and Browning .270 A-Bolt Stainless Stalker. 

[gatorback]

Yes, I agree, those are nice, but they just don't fit so easily in the small glovebox I have.