One very quiet and very important point: “Supreme Court Asked to Clarify What it Means to ‘Bear’ Arms”

Jefferson the Use of ArmsFrom the Wall Street Journal Law Blog:

By Jacob Gershman

You might think the question would be settled by now, but the U.S. Supreme Court has yet to opine on whether the Second Amendment right to “bear” arms for self-defense extends outside the home.

We may soon get an answer. Lyle Denniston, writing for the Constitution Daily, reports about two gun rights cases that may get a hearing before the U.S. Supreme Court. Both cases, dealing with restrictions on the ability of minors to possess weapons in public, hinge on the difference between the right to “keep” a gun and a right “bear” one. The National Rifle Association thinks the issue is ripe for Supreme Court review. The justices are expected to discuss the cases next week and may then decide whether to grant review.

And yes, trust me, there is a massive arguable difference between “keep” and “bear.”  You may think this is slight, but it may become the Crux of the Biscuit.

The point seems as this:

The Supreme Court in 2008 made it clear that the right to “keep” a gun is a personal right, and that it means one has a right to keep a functioning firearm for self-defense within the home. But it has refused repeatedly since then to take on the question of whether that right exists also outside the home. If there is a separate right to “bear” a gun (and the Court, in fact, did say in 2008 that the two rights were separate), it has not said what that means.

WITHIN THE HOME.  My quite specific emphasis.

Does that right extend outside the home?

And yes, that is a major question that needs reaffirmation.

The NRA says you can’t really ‘bear’ something in the privacy of your home.  I submit, when the issue revolves around any firearm: the founders meant to “bear” a firearm in the defense of your investment surrounding and outside your home.  Most everything but.

NRA lawyers say:

“The explicit guarantee of the right to ‘bear’ arms would mean nothing if it did not protect the right to ‘bear’ arms outside of the home, where the Amendment already guarantees that they may be ‘kept.”

Facts in evidence, assisted with clarity and logic.

Which is why this point is challenged.

BZ

P.S.

You may ask: why is it that I have been focusing on the Second Amendment so much these past few days when there are other, more allegedly immediate topics of interest to discuss with my readers and the nation?

An easy answer: because this nation will explode.  There is an astounding erosion of the standard “rule of law” in this nation by the current White House occupant.  It is on a death spiral that cannot be recalled, no matter how hard we want it or wish it or “hope” for it.  Hope is for idiots.  Preparation is for the intelligent.  I’m certain you’re quite reading between these lines.  I’m simply suggesting.

 

Now legal in New York:

AR-15 Legal In NYVarious laws in New York ban firearms upon what amounts to appearance.  From the NationalReviewOnline:

by Charles C.W. Cooke

Pass a stupid law, get a stupid result. This, Clash Daily reports, is a remodeled AR-15, and it is legal in New York despite the state’s “assault weapons” ban.  (see above)

Now, from the ClashDaily.com:

HISSY FIT: The New AR-15 Design is Compliant with “SAFE Act” and Has Gun Control Activists Pouting

by Jonathan S., Guns-n-Freedom

Prototypes for the newly designed AR-15 are hitting gun shops across New York, as gun shops and machinists have designed a rifle that complies with the anti-gun law. At least one gun shop has received a letter from state police saying that the new AR-15 style rifles should be legal in the state as long as they don’t have some of the features that the law prohibits.

The new gun law bans all kinds of semi-automatic rifles that have been labeled with the “assault” term even though these are very common rifles and are no more powerful than the average hunting rifle.

Once again, proving that Leftists predicate all their actions but upon emotions.  “Assault rifles” look mean — they look “bullying.”

A mind is a terrible thing to waste, is it not?

BZ

 

 

Obama’s State of the Union speech, 2014:

A comment from a journalist who happens to be black:

Obama Imperial TreeGreat Caesar’s Ghost
On the nauseating spectacle that is the State of the Union address

The annual State of the Union pageant is a hideous, dispiriting, ugly, monotonous, un-American, un-republican, anti-democratic, dreary, backward, monarchical, retch-inducing, depressing, shameful, crypto-imperial display of official self-aggrandizement and piteous toadying, a black Mass during which every unholy order of teacup totalitarian and cringing courtier gathers under the towering dome of a faux-Roman temple to listen to a speech with no content given by a man with no content, to rise and to be seated as is called for by the order of worship — it is a wonder they have not started genuflecting — with one wretched representative of their number squirreled away in some well-upholstered Washington hidey-hole in order to preserve the illusion that those gathered constitute a special class of humanity without whom we could not live.

It’s the most nauseating display in American public life — and I write that as someone who has just returned from a pornographers’ convention.

It’s worse than the Oscars.

Many times worse, I’d posit.  Because it’s not about a number of so-called “artistes,” but about ONE MAN.

Please read the entire article here.

BZ

P.S.

Full text of the speech is available here.

 

 

A ray of hope for US freedom — “Court: Bloggers have First Amendment protections.”

First Amendment FlagFrom the Associated Press:


GRANTS PASS, Ore. (AP) — A federal appeals court ruled Friday that bloggers and the public have the same First Amendment protections as journalists when sued for defamation: If the issue is of public concern, plaintiffs have to prove negligence to win damages.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ordered a new trial in a defamation lawsuit brought by an Oregon bankruptcy trustee against a Montana blogger who wrote online that the court-appointed trustee criminally mishandled a bankruptcy case.

At first blush, good news for our First Amendment overall.  I have had concerns for quite some time, relating to our foundational freedoms — most recently by writing this post regarding Demorats wanting to expand so-called “hate speech” — and their ability to thrive and continue in a “Progressive” and “politically correct” world.

Gregg Leslie of the Reporters Committee for the Freedom of the Press said the ruling affirms what many have long argued: Standards set by a 1974 U.S. Supreme Court ruling, Gertz v. Robert Welch Inc., apply to everyone, not just journalists.

“It’s not a special right to the news media,” he said. “So it’s a good thing for bloggers and citizen journalists and others.”

Is it possible the nation is beginning to realize that “breaking news” is no longer continuously and regularly broken by staid and old media outlets but, occasionally, by those persons and concerns who have an immediate and compelling presence in the blogosphere and the internet in toto?

“It makes clear that bloggers have the same First Amendment rights as professional journalists,” he (UCLA law professor Eugene Volokh) said. “There had been similar precedents before concerning advocacy groups, other writers and book authors. This follows a fairly well established chain of precedents. I believe it is the first federal appeals court level ruling that applies to bloggers.”

This is the same Eugene Volokh of the Volokh Conspiracy site, an older and respected blog in the digital ether with millions of hits extant.

A plus for bloggers; like myself and my cohorts.

One win this week.  Is it enough?

BZ