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2nd Amendment Does Not Guarantee Right to Carry Concealed Guns, Court Rules

If appealed will SCOTUS overturn the ruling?

  • Total voters
    33
Lutherf said:
The right to defend one's life, property and liberty is inalienable. The only way we lose that right is if we fail to defend it.
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At the risk of sounding fatalistic, the defense of our right to defend one's life, property, and liberty is rapidly requiring more than just political activism, verbal outrage, or holding up signs in protests.

We are on the verge of loosing the right for at least a generation, maybe two.
 
apdst said:
The courts can't interpret The Constitution however they want?
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The Courts are not violating the 2nd Amendment.
 
Beaudreaux said:
At the risk of sounding fatalistic, the defense of our right to defend one's life, property, and liberty is rapidly requiring more than just political activism, verbal outrage, or holding up signs in protests.

We are on the verge of loosing the right for at least a generation, maybe two.
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I suspect that should the courts go much beyond where they are now (on a national level) we will have a whole lot of people out there willing to risk a felony to defend their rights.
 
Lutherf said:
I suspect that should the courts go much beyond where they are now (on a national level) we will have a whole lot of people out there willing to risk a felony to defend their rights.
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Which would not be smart because if you commit a felony to "defend your rights" you would loose your right because felons are not allowed to own guns.

Because that was also not mentioned in the second amendment, or would second amendment rights activists also approve gun ownership for felons, released murderers and all other people at this moment in time not allowed to "use their second amendment right to bear arms"?

Because that right clearly is not absolute or the supreme court would have struck down laws banning felons from owning guns. Maybe the supreme court will decide that this is the same thing when it comes to concealed carry, that this is not a right but a right that states can grant or deny people based on well chosen regulations and permit rules.

I do not know what the supreme court will do, but one thing is sure, with Scalia no longer on the bench, this could to go a 4-4 deadlock which would leave this law in place.

So the supreme court could do neither, it could deadlock quite easily.
 
Peter King said:
Which would not be smart because if you commit a felony to "defend your rights" you would loose your right because felons are not allowed to own guns.

Because that was also not mentioned in the second amendment, or would second amendment rights activists also approve gun ownership for felons, released murderers and all other people at this moment in time not allowed to "use their second amendment right to bear arms"?

Because that right clearly is not absolute or the supreme court would have struck down laws banning felons from owning guns. Maybe the supreme court will decide that this is the same thing when it comes to concealed carry, that this is not a right but a right that states can grant or deny people based on well chosen regulations and permit rules.

I do not know what the supreme court will do, but one thing is sure, with Scalia no longer on the bench, this could to go a 4-4 deadlock which would leave this law in place.

So the supreme court could do neither, it could deadlock quite easily.
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Maybe this is a dumb question but if my right to keep and bear arms becomes restricted to the point where I can no longer legally exercise that right then why should I be concerned about losing it to a felony?

At present ones rights can only be suspended due to conviction on certain crimes. If I have committed no crime other than exercising a right which was protected by the Constitution and then nullified by an activist court I would gladly suffer the consequences to insure that nobody else is subject to such tyranny.
 
Peter King said:
Which would not be smart because if you commit a felony to "defend your rights" you would loose your right because felons are not allowed to own guns.
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Circular argument. The commission of the "felony" to defend one's rights already places you in a "don't give an eff!" situation vis-à-vis adhering to the law. Which means if you survive and are released you are unlikely to obey that restriction once freed either.

Peter King said:
Because that was also not mentioned in the second amendment, or would second amendment rights activists also approve gun ownership for felons, released murderers and all other people at this moment in time not allowed to "use their second amendment right to bear arms"?
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The answer is YES! As far as I am concerned, once a person is released back into society they should be allowed to automatically regain any rights placed in abeyance while in custody.

Peter King said:
Because that right clearly is not absolute or the supreme court would have struck down laws banning felons from owning guns. Maybe the supreme court will decide that this is the same thing when it comes to concealed carry, that this is not a right but a right that states can grant or deny people based on well chosen regulations and permit rules.
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What you don't seem to understand is that citizens don't need permission from the government to exercise this right. If the SCOTUS had ruled the right was not individual, I would simply not obey the restrictions because my right to self-defense is the foundation of my very existence and I am not bound by rules that inhibit this essential right.

In this case? I am not concerned about concealed carry. I consider requirements to seek a permit the equivalent of self-registration; which means notice to the authorities that I am armed and that they need to make sure I am on any list should confiscation become the law of the land.

I feel secure enough to choose not to own firearms at the present time. Should I ever come to change my mind I will certainly not inform my government that I have.
 
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countryboy said:
Where else in the Constitution are "the people" referred to as anything else than individuals?
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By that same argument, where are gay rights and 'born on American soil' rights in The Constitution? The 13th -15th amendments don't mention any of the rights that judges, politicians and pundits have prestidigitated from the 13th - 15th amendments. The bottom line is you and many others spit on The Constitution for your own ideological gains. And you wonder why our country is going so far downhill?
 
cabse5 said:
By that same argument, where are gay rights and 'born on American soil' rights in The Constitution? The 13th -15th amendments don't mention any of the rights that judges, politicians and pundits have prestidigitated from the 13th - 15th amendments. The bottom line is you and many others spit on The Constitution for your own ideological gains. And you wonder why our country is going so far downhill?
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How am I "spitting" on the Constitution?
 
Beaudreaux said:
Ownership is a byproduct of the right to keep and bear arms - it's the keeping and the bearing of arms that they are restricting. And, that's the two parts that are actually protected as a right.
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No. Read the history of the passing of the second amendment some time. Madison, who proposed the second amendment to keep ahead of the anti-federalists, wanted a gun right for every individual.

The Shays Rebellion had just occurred in Massachusetts prior to the Constitutional Convention in 1787. Former Revolutionary War members and farmers who were being inundated with Rev. War debt, inflation and fairly worthless states' currencies were having their farms taken away and some put into debtors' prisons. The tiny federal government had to put down the armed insurgence of farmers/former Rev. War soldiers living in Massachusetts. The Shay's combatants used the same weapons they'd used in the Rev. War so they were as heavily equipped as the Massachusetts state militia. Anyway, because of the Shay's Rebellion in Massachusetts, when the second amendment was passed in 1787 and became a part of The Constitution, legislators had diluted the gun right down to a state militia's rights.

Sidenote: The tiny federal government had no standing army. Most Americans thought a standing army was too much a tradition of mother England. That is why (state) militias are mentioned in the second amendment. The guns right was a right to protect the tiny union via state's militias. There was an anti-federalist paranoia over an overbearing federal government so state militias would've also been a protection against the fed overstepping its 'authority'. Later on when the US instituted a standing federal army, state militias weren't needed at all.
 
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cabse5 said:
Since the second amendment is a militia right and not an individual right, the gun ownership right exists or doesn't exist dependent on the circumstances. The appeals court in California ruled (IMO, correctly) that a general fear for one's life doesn't necessitate the right for concealed and carry in public.
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If a court takes away individual gun rights, there must be shown as much a need to take away those gun rights as it will be necessary for the court to show there is a need for individuals to have gun rights and for the court to grant individual gun rights.
 
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countryboy said:
How am I "spitting" on the Constitution?
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By using it for your own political ideology. You say the second amendment is unequivocally about granting individual gun rights. It is not. The second is about militia gun rights. You twist its meaning for your own 'everyone should have a gun' ideology. You are like the gay marriage and 'born on American soil are citizens' advocates who twist the words and meaning of the 13th-15th amendments of The Constitution for their own ideology.
 
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I strongly believe that some trained/qualified men must carry ''concealed weapons'' At the same time , the criminal, the insane , AND the semi-insane MUST NOT be allowed to have a weapon . IMO, the kill-kill-kill 50(at last count) shooter was at least semi-insane ..
 
cabse5 said:
Since the second amendment is a militia right and not an individual right, the gun ownership right exists or doesn't exist dependent on the circumstances. The appeals court in California ruled (IMO, correctly) that a general fear for one's life doesn't necessitate the right for concealed and carry in public.
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The Supreme Court decisions of Heller and McDonald made it very clear that it is an individual right.

Your reasoning is flawed. They have simply said the right to carry is not the same as the right to conceal.

Which means that places like California who have a blanket ban on open carry, and have an effective ban on concealed carry MUST change their laws. They are already in violation of multiple court rulings. And they know it. I wonder if Obama will threaten to pull their Federal funding?


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earthworm said:
I strongly believe that some trained/qualified men must carry ''concealed weapons'' At the same time , the criminal, the insane , AND the semi-insane MUST NOT be allowed to have a weapon . IMO, the kill-kill-kill 50(at last count) shooter was at least semi-insane ..
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And he passed a background check. He was also known to the FBI as being radicalized. The laws already exist. Once again the government failed. Next we will be told we need to form another Department to help coordinated between the other departments.


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Aberration said:
And he passed a background check. He was also known to the FBI as being radicalized. The laws already exist. Once again the government failed. Next we will be told we need to form another Department to help coordinated between the other departments.


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Wasn't Homeland Security supposed to be that bridge? :roll: Government...
 
RetiredUSN said:
Very ignorant decision.

The 2nd amendment does not differentiate between open carry and concealed.
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That's right. It doesn't. I support the 2nd Amendment and worked for 30 years as a police officer in a state that allowed open-carry for virtually everyone. I had absolutely no problem with that.

Concealed weapons and disguised weapons I have a problem with. The 2nd Amendment gives us the right to bear arms but my property rights allow me to say, "Not on my property." Concealed weapons are intended to deny the property rights of others.

As to how the court will rule, I have no idea and since some are liberals, you can't use the Constitution as a guideline.
 
The Heller decision was a 5-4 decision, now one of the 5 is gone,
the court would likely be a split decision which would uphold the lower courts decision.
 
cabse5 said:
By using it for your own political ideology. You say the second amendment is unequivocally about granting individual gun rights. It is not. The second is about militia gun rights. You twist its meaning for your own 'everyone should have a gun' ideology. You are like the gay marriage and 'born on American soil are citizens' advocates who twist the words and meaning of the 13th-15th amendments of The Constitution for their own ideology.
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What a load of utter nonsense. First of all, the Second Amendment doesn't grant anything, it restrains the federal government. The right to keep and bear arms Is inherent and God given. The only people spitting on the Constitution are you and your ilk who lamely attempt to mischaracterize the spirit of the Second Amendment. If it were a so-called "militia right", as you claim, it would read, "the right of the militia". But it doesn't, does it? It reads "the right of the PEOPLE".

What the 2nd Amendment is saying is, since a people's militia is necessary to secure liberty for the common man, the right of the people to keep and bear arms is self evident, and will NOT be usurped. In the days the Constitution was drafted, people supplied their own weapons when the militia was called up. But seriously, you already knew all of this. .
 
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