Second Amendment: 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.

Why couldn't our forefathers write simple English? Sounds like a Shakespearean dialogue: "I am for thee straight: take thou the
bill, give me thy mete-yard, and spare not me."

Arrrrrggghhh!!!!!!

The regional ANCs will have direct control of their territories.

This may be the funniest line of the entire post.

Forget English. Why couldn't they write in American?

Lock a bunch of rich honkey Freemasons, deists, slaveowners, hempsmokers, and lawyers in wigs in a room and this is what you get.

SCOTUS just sounds dirty. Can I get a ruling on that?

DCist20009,

Well, not just any large group of people could gather in downtown DC and protest whenever they wanted and without consequences. I'm as big a fan of freedom of speech and assembly, but in a city like D.C. or New York or LA there are regulations limiting when and how large groups can gather. So yes, this is an urban/rural issue.

The same goes for gun ownership. If you live in a town of 600 in the middle of Nebraska, gun ownership may not be much of an issue in terms of general crime and public safety. But in a dense urban setting like D.C., gun control is a bigger issue.

If the gun ban is stricken down, can we bring back duels? I'd love to go and slap someone upside the head with my lacey gentleman's gloves and offend their honour. Pistols at dawn!

Regardless of how you feel about it, the Second Amendment is the most seriously antiquated of the lot.

IMHO that honor has to go to the Third Amendement re: quartering troops.

Hillrat:

Haha, good point. I was going to say that but for some reason I was thinking that was lumped in with searches and seizures. Now I feel stupid, thanks.

I beg to differ on the URBAN ISSUE, Martin. My constitutional rights should not be subjected to where I choose to live, work or play.

Let's not forget the opening words of the Preamble: We the People of the United States ... it does not state "We the People of Nebraska or Texas."

Now I feel stupid, thanks.

Don't. We're discussing the Bill of Rights instead of accusing each other of being hipsters/racists/Brosephs/elitists or any of the thousand other *really* stupid things we could be talking about on DCist.

Wizzyliz,

I didn't mean to say that your fundamental constitutional rights changes with where you live. Quite the contrary -- they remain consistent throughout the U.S. But since we accept that every right can be reasonably restricted (the whole you can't scream "Fire!" in a crowded theater), different parts of the country will apply those restrictions based on their circumstances.

If you want to get 500 of your friends and march around downtown DC, you'll probably have the police stop you unless you have a permit because that is a clear disruption of many other peoples' daily lives and needs. If you choose to do the same in a small town in the middle of nowhere, they may look at it differently, at least in terms of the impact it would have on the general public.

No one is saying you don't have the right to free speech or assembly to press in an urban area. What I am arguing is that the restrictions on those rights will differ from area to area. And yes, I do believe there is a difference between urban and rural in this sense.

From Monkey's Wiki link:

"Jonathan Ciley, a Representative from Maine, was reluctant participant in another duel here. In February 1838, Ciley was killed by Congressman William Graves of Kentucky. Graves was a stand-in for New York newspaper editor James Webb, whom Ciley had called corrupt. Ciley was inexperienced with guns, and Graves was allowed to use a powerful rifle. A shot to an artery in Ciley's leg caused him to bleed to death in ninety seconds."

WTF? You can challenge someone to a duel and then use another guy as your stand-in? And the other guy can use a rifle? That's bad ass!

Ciley and Graves were the Tupac and Biggie of their day. Many a Congressman poured out a forty of claret and marsala over their dead homies.

It's as true today as it was then: smoke blunts, not brothas.

seriously, people, when are we going to actually see the trebuchet in action? because the suspense is killing me (and i'm sure the smell is driving monkey's family crazy)

The first thing I thought when I saw that picture was, I'll bet that's what John Wilkes Booth saw when he got to the President's booth in Ford's Theater too early. "S'blood! Still no sign of the villain! I'll bide my time in the saloon. A nip of demon rum to give me courage! Yea, at least they'll never ban liquor or pistols in my fair city!"

Baltimore had "rat fishing" contests for years until PETA shut them down. Good luck getting a rat hunting expedition in DC. You'd have better luck running one for an At-Large Council seat. They'd be much more responsive to constituents' needs and the fact that they're carrying plague only sweetens the deal.

"I beg to differ on the URBAN ISSUE, Martin. My constitutional rights should not be subjected to where I choose to live, work or play."

So should you be able to carry a firearm into the Supreme Court building, or the US Capitol?

How about up and down Embassy Row?

Or in the middle of a Roe v Wade protest?

After all, people do work there. And that US Capitol underground parking area, I mean, really, a hot young thing could get messed with there pretty easily....

And how about in our public parks? You could argue that people live there. There are cases out there saying a shack in a park is a legal domicile.

That honestly is my biggest gun concern. We have a stunning number of whack-jobs that come to DC because the microchip in their brain tells them to come for their special audience with the President or some such crazy crap. A good number of them end up living in parks and on the street. I shudder to think what happens when we arm all these folks.

Tonight! Ultimate Shaved Interspecies Fighting comes live from the National Zoo where local favorite Tian Tian hopes to hold his title against newcomer tourists, Sloane and Tyler Fagan-Dinwittie of Park Slope, New York! The victor goes on to face Shanha, Kloog, and Lars in the regional semifinals to be held on the Planet Triskelion. Contestants will stay at the beautiful Treskelion Hilton as well as recieve the home game version of Ultimate Shaved Interspecies Fighting.

Back to you, Wink.

My Constitutional rights do not change by location, you are confusing infringement on these rights with breaking the law. You have the freedom to peacefully assemble and speak your mind, but you do not have the right to break traffic laws, harrass people, and otherwise shut down commerce to make your point. If you march down the middle of Pennsylvania Avenue, you are breaking the law, regardless of whether your intent is to exercise your right of freedom of speech, or because you're a drunken moron who thinks its the sidewalk. It would matter less in Nebraska because they would look the other way on the relatively minor nature of the lawbreaking, not because they have different attitudes toward freedom of speech. Similarly, the freedom of speech DOES NOT give you the right to march straight into a closed convention and interfere with their proceedings. You do however, have the right to sit outside the fence and whine to your heart's content. Thus your freedoms have not been abridged. Nowhere does it say that you have the freedom of speech and the right to practice it loudly in the middle of the DNC meeting.

Gun rights, on the other hand, are abridged far too much, in that I can't even choose to have one in my own home, let alone in a public place where it can harm or affect others. Even if the ruling brings guns flowing into the streets, there will still be Federal and museum buildings than ban guns from the premises. Does that mean that my Constitutional right to bear arms has been taken away? No, I have the right to bear arms the way I want, but not on wherever and however terms I choose. That is a reasonable restriction, but preventing me from owning a gun in the first place is an outright insult to the Constitution.

G.Lover:

My reading and understanding of the District's brief is a little different than yours. The argument is that the 2nd Amendment only limits Congress' power, not states' power, and thus it does not affect the District's power as it is much like a state. In this way, the amendment is federalist to the core, protecting States' (and the District's) rights to act for themselves. Read this way, it is actually expressing the idea that the District is much like a state. (see the concluding paragraph of this section, at p.40)

I would not put much money on this one as a winner argument, and would suggest that the brief's structure supports this. I used to write briefs for a living and I always stuck my weakest argument in between the 2 strong ones. Even more, we see that this argument is the only one without subheadings. So, aside from the legal ground on which this argument relies, the brief's structure belies its weakness in comparison to the other arguments.

By the way, Monkey, Dulles is undergoing a $2B renovation that will get rid of the rolling tram dealies. Whenever it's finished, that is.

True, but the gun ban does allow federal or local police to disarm the nutjobs when they find them.

It's one thing to know that occasionally a whack job will enter DC with a gun, but knowing that when discovered they can legally be disarmed.

It's quite another to know that they can legally live in the park for years with same gun, waiting for their level of crazy to peak.

Then we must create a militia to hunt down all of the wack jobs from other states in order to insure peace and tranquility

west - There was this little thing called Hurricane Katrina? In the event of a catastrophe, (natural or manmade), who will be responsible for your protection? The police? The National Guard? In the absence of a law enforcement mechanism, YOU will have to fend for yourself. How are you going to defend yourself when they think you have something they want? Harsh language?

The disaster itself is irrelevant, it's the aftermath that's my concern. DC is totally dependent on outside interests for power, electricity, food, water. How long can an urban environment remain civil if you haven't had clean drinking water for days? Are you just going to wait patiently for weeks until help arrives, particularly when you know the closest National Guard unit is in Kabul? How civil will those neighbors of yours remain when their family is starving? Because everybody has a breaking point.

Man, I can't WAIT for the Rapture! All those smug Jeebus types getting sucked up into the core of the sun and all that's left will be a handful of armed maniac warlords and their legions of pathetic thralls to be used as currency, food, and fuel. So while you hiptard clowns are huddled for warmth in your squalid, gutted condos, we'll be living it up in our subterranean sex bunkers, fueled by tons of liquid PCP, bathtub absinthe, and Ledo's pizza, only to emerge to check the vegetable garden, the squirrel smokehouse, and the animal hide tanning beds.

In the world I see -- you're stalking elk through the damp canyon forests around the ruins of the Convention Center. You will wear leather clothes that last you the rest of your life. You will climb the wrist-thick kudzu vines that wrap the Washington Monument. You will see tiny figures pounding corn and laying-strips of venison on the empty car pool lane of the ruins of the 14th Street Bridge.

Feel better, champ.

The next time we meet, I will not fail. I will go up to you and say, "Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die."

Then, and only then, shall unleash the sewage trebuchet.

DC's case is fairly crappy.

The Supreme Court has basically established precedent that the Bill of Rights applies to states as well as the federal government:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incorporation_(Bill_of_Rights)

Yeah, sorry. The handgun point has certainly gotten lost.

** It could be a knife.

Monkey:

Generally you are right about parkers being a threat to themselves first.

But that's not necessarily the case here on the Hill. We have our own brand or crazies, and for many they are here because the Capitol Police chase them off the Capitol grounds, so the parks in the residential neighborhood is the first place they can camp out indefinitely while they await further instructions from their alien military commanders.

I'm thinking they re-open White Jimmy's Tinhat Parlor and Arms Bazaar on 14th.

Unless the owner's planning on turning it into yet another goddamned leather sofa store.

Coro:

You are spot on. I missed the point there. DC says: Since Congress is the only entity on which a limitation is placed by the 2nd Amendment, then the amendment doesn't go to the question of whether the states (or DC acting in place of a state) can independently make limitations not otherwise addressed by the Amendment. My bad.

But now (and I'm not arguing with you here, but simply pointing out) isn't it interesting that the Second Amendment doesn;t refer to Congress's right to regulate militia, but it simply says the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed"? A plain reading of the Amendment doesn't make the distinction about who might be placing the limitation on the right.

Reading back over my post, I was too categorical in my prediction: all that could be up for a change this summer, but who knows--and maybe not.

HCE:

I see what you meant to say now. Well, in that case, Supreme Court precedent is pretty clear that the 2nd Amendment is not one that should be incorporated. Both decisions to really discuss this idea, the Cruikshank case I cited in my previous post and the Presser case, 116 U.S. 252, 265 (1886), say that the 2nd regulates only Congress and not the states. Presser says, "the amendment is a limitation only upon the power of congress and the national government, and not upon that of the state." Id.

Now, as to whether the Heller opinion will overrule these two cases on this issue, who knows. I doubt it though, because the Supreme Courts deciding this issue were much closer in time and, I'd surmise, understanding, to the Amendment, leaving them in a better position to grasp its true purpose. Let the debates begin, though!

Meh. Just duct tape a bunch of M80s together. Same difference.

I've got dibs on the medical waste from all the liposuction clinics in Foggy Bottom and Georgetown. Tyler says tonight we make soap, and I always trust Tyler.