Heller Oral Arguments Discussion

[ctdonath]

I'm not really comfortable with having it legal for my 8 year old idiotic neighbors purchasing howitzers.

When your 8 year old neighbors can AFFORD a howitzer, AND operate it, THEN maybe one's comfort level with the situation should be revisited.

I'm getting tired of this rhetoric - especially when coming from our side - that views crew-served arms & WMDs as if some kid is going to come across one in dad's sock drawer.

If someone can afford such an item, they're not likely to do anything stupid with it. In the extremely unlikely chance they DO choose to do something stupid with it, the whole point of RKBA is that others can do something about it - promptly.

 

[LawBot5000]

Reading the OA, it struck me that Breyer and Stevens are heavily against us and looking for any way to uphold as much gun control as possible.

Kennedy and Ginsburg said a few encouraging things. Souter, I'm not sure about.

I think I see 5 votes in there for strict scrutiny, but after Scalia's ****ty performance in Raich, I have little faith left.

 

[buzz_knox]

You will never, ever get any popular, legal, or political consensus for the notion that RKBA is not subject to reasonable restrictions.

I presume that you are using "reasonable restrictions" in its layman sense. Under the law, the "reasonable" standard is the lowest standard of review, where the gov't can effectively burn the barn down to kill a mouse.

 

[TexasRifleman]

If someone can afford such an item, they're not likely to do anything stupid with it.

Which is why there has only been ONE murder with a registered machine gun (and that one by a cop for the record).

The whole argument is ridiculous on the face.

Friend of mine owned an F-104 Starfighter. All it ever did was burn kerosene, didn't harm anyone. What's the difference between an F-104, an M16, or a Howitzer.

It's CRIMINALS that are the problem.

 

[green-grizzly]

I was hoping we had a shot at getting Ginsburg or Souter on our side with a narrow ruling, but after reading the transcript I do not think there is much chance of that.

It is funny reading the transcript, because you skip the answers and only read the questions.

 

[Knucklehead2]

Anyone else catch this statistic offered by Justice Breyer (Brief on page 51):

Now, focus on the handgun ban. As I read these 80 briefs -- and they were very good, I mean really good and informative on both sides -- and I'm trying to boil down the statistics where there is disagreement, and roughly what I get -- and don't quarrel with this too much; it's very rough -- that 80,000 to 100,000 people every year in the United States are either killed or wounded in gun-related homicides or crimes or accidents or suicides, but suicide is more questionable. That's why I say 80,000 to 100,000.

 

[GEM]

The White House Spin Machine

Wake up, George. This is from ABC News' summary.

---The White House spin machine broke down. Someone over there was trying to persuade reporters last week that Solicitor General Paul Clement would back away from his position--filed in the Bush Administration’s written brief---urging the Court to adopt a balancing test to assess gun laws. (Clement’s position had enraged the gun rights crowd and was a more moderate and cautious approach than what Judge Silberman advanced his D.C. Circuit opinion, which flatly struck down the gun ban.) Clement, if anything, more aggressively defended his position today and suggested Silberman’s opinion would undermine existing federal gun laws.

---Justice Ginsburg asked if there was any difference in Clement’s standard and Judge Silberman’s. “It makes a world of difference,” Clement said.

--Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Scalia hate balancing tests. Roberts asked Clement why the Court should impose the “baggage” of a balancing test—as it has done over the decades in the First Amendment—on a provision it’s taking a fresh look at today?

--And Scalia seemed the most certain that the 2nd Amendment protects an individual right, that DC’s handgun ban was unconstitutional—and that Judge Silberman got it exactly right.

 

[LawBot5000]

I love people that talk about articles on other websites and don't bother to link to them.

 

[Wineoceros]

Now, focus on the handgun ban. As I read these 80 briefs -- and they were very good, I mean really good and informative on both sides -- and I'm trying to boil down the statistics where there is disagreement, and roughly what I get -- and don't quarrel with this too much; it's very rough -- that 80,000 to 100,000 people every year in the United States are either killed or wounded in gun-related homicides or crimes or accidents or suicides, but suicide is more questionable. That's why I say 80,000 to 100,000.

You can easily come up with such misleading stastics if you put enough "or"s in any set of criteria. "Either killed or wounded". "Crimes or accidents". That's a pretty wide net.

I accidentally pinched my finger (a wound) in my M&P's slide once. Now I'm just a scary statistic.

 

[Wineoceros]

Post deleted due to duplicate submission.

 

[vt357]

Anyone else catch this statistic offered by Justice Breyer (Brief on page 51):

Now, focus on the handgun ban. As I read these 80 briefs -- and they were very good, I mean really good and informative on both sides -- and I'm trying to boil down the statistics where there is disagreement, and roughly what I get -- and don't quarrel with this too much; it's very rough -- that 80,000 to 100,000 people every year in the United States are either killed or wounded in gun-related homicides or crimes or accidents or suicides, but suicide is more questionable. That's why I say 80,000 to 100,000.

If you count wounded as well I would believe that. I think there are around 30k killed every year with firearms (justified, criminal, accidental, and suicide all combined). For every murder you hear about on the news there are at least 3 times that many that were shot but didn't die.

 

[Bartholomew Roberts]

roughly what I get -- and don't quarrel with this too much; it's very rough -- that 80,000 to 100,000 people every year in the United States are either killed or wounded in gun-related homicides or crimes or accidents or suicides

Nowhere near that number. Homicides account for roughly 14-15k deaths/year. Suicides account for roughly 15-16k deaths/year. Accidents have been under 1k deaths per year for almost a decade now. So around 28-32k per year over the past 10 years more or less.

Cheeseburgers and GM kill many more people each year (assuming the ridiculous standard of responsibility attributed to gun manufacturers and lawful owners was attributed to these other industries).

In my mind, that is one of the real reasons guns are so viciously targeted. The industry doesn't have near the money to defend itself that the larger industries do and is already a target for fearful people. It makes a good place to establish a beachhead for trial lawyers looking to win island-buying money from other industries further up the food chain.

 

[LawBot5000]

I love people that talk about articles on other websites and don't bother to link to them.

 

[Nio]

www.downrange.tv/rkba/dc-v-heller.htm

Audio now up.

Nio

 

[Neo-Luddite]

Friend of mine owned an F-104 Starfighter. All it ever did was burn kerosene, didn't harm anyone. What's the difference between an F-104, an M16, or a Howitzer.

Several million dollars and levels of coolness that approach godlike levels of the sublime (I know that wasn't the point--but I've always loved the Starfighter).

 

[TexasRifleman]

Several million dollars and levels of coolness that approach godlike levels of the sublime

He bought the thing in 1986 and paid $175,000 for it to be restored.
The millions of dollars was in jet fuel

There was an attempt to stop the restoration of these types of aircraft at one point, and the NFA was actually given as one reason the FAA should stop the registration of surplus jet aircraft (to keep this gun related)

 

[Titan6]

JUSTICE BREYER: Thinking of your exchange with the Chief Justice and think of the trigger lock in your view and what the question was, do you want -- I don't know how well trigger locks work or not -- but do you want thousands of judges all over the United States to be deciding that kind of question rather than the city councils and the legislatures that have decided it in the context of passing laws? I mean, isn't there an issue here and a problem with respect to having courts make the kinds of decisions about who is right or not in that trigger-lock argument?
MR. GURA: When a fundamental right is at stake, there is a role for judicial review, Your Honor. We are not going to see a thousand judges review such laws because Washington, D.C.'s is the only example of it.

And there you have it.

 

[Titan6]

Nowhere near that number. Homicides account for roughly 14-15k deaths/year. Suicides account for roughly 15-16k deaths/year. Accidents have been under 1k deaths per year for almost a decade now. So around 28-32k per year over the past 10 years more or less.

You left out it was one of the justices that said that. Either he was not doing his homework or he had an agenda to push.

 

[illspirit]

If someone can afford such an item, they're not likely to do anything stupid with it. In the extremely unlikely chance they DO choose to do something stupid with it, the whole point of RKBA is that others can do something about it - promptly.

If someone can actually afford such things, a law probably won't affect them anyway.

If you can afford a howitzer, you can afford to bribe some official or another to give you some special exemption. Isn't this how Hollywood gets around the laws to have all sorts of fun toys to use in movies?

Likewise, if someone like Bill Gates wanted a WMD, he'd just buy his own Congressman, get a defense contract, then open an arms division of Microsoft and get paid to make them.

 

[Wineoceros]

You left out it was one of the justices that said that. Either he was not doing his homework or he had an agenda to push.

He didn't leave anything out. He was responding to Knucklehead's post, which clearly stated that the bogus stastic was offered by Breyer.

 

[Nobody's_Hero]

Wow, I just got in from work and I'm giving the arguments a listen. Dellinger really seems to work against himself.

He even admits that the militia is comprised of all the people, and the people make up the militia.

Being as the two are dependent on one another - to limit the people is to limit the militia. Wow. Just, Wow.

 

[amlevin]

Careful, everyone thought Boeing was supposed to win the Tanker Contract too.

 

[Beatnik]

Quote:
The 1934 National Firearms Act must be repealed.

The most realistically favorable ruling in this case won't get you 1/10,000 of a step closer to that. Accept reality. That's not going to happen. Ever.

As long as we remain infiltrated by people not interested in its repeal, you're right. You may be right, but you could at least accept that you're the one responsible.

I accept the reality that it wasn't going to be repealed today. But I'm still going to work toward repealing it because that is the right thing to do.

 

[Deavis]

What you heard as opportunities were attempts by Breyer and Ginsburg to get Gura to broaden his argument

Thumper, I had the Cpsan thread on in the background and was noting voices. I agree, they did broaden it but so did Scalia. The argument was already broadened and he had opportunities to use that wisely without hurting his argument IMHO. For instance, he had a great opportunity to pounce on lineal descendents and protect pistols at the same time but answered no on the MG lineal question. That was an easy opportunity to avoid dirtying his position that handguns containing 30 rounds aren't lineal descendents of a single fire pistol. I need to read the arguments. I'm more disappointed in his lack of confidence and defensive nature, he had chances to really bring forth some good historical arguments as offensive weapons.

 

[Deavis]

I'm not really comfortable with having it legal for my 8 year old idiotic neighbors purchasing howitzers.

It is your fear of a free society that makes you say that. Who cares if your 8 year old neighbor has a howitzer? As long as he doesn't violated anyone's rights with it, then it is none of your business. If you really believed that line of thought, you'd be more worried about him buying a corvette or a Porsche. He's got a better chance of killing you on the road than he does at dropping a 155mm shell on your house from right next door.

I heard the same rhetoric out of an old biggot at the range, "Well you boys (i.e. white boys) I can trust with an M-16, but them others that shoot at that range down south (i.e. non-whites) are the ones I'm worried about."

Those people at the other range are exactly who I want to have guns so when biggots like that power trip, they face armed response.

I'm getting tired of this rhetoric - especially when coming from our side

It shouldn't shock you, people only value freedom in certain aspects of their lives. That is why we don't talk much about some topics here. Heaven forbid people who aren't violating your rights live the way they want.