pdsmith505
Member
- Joined
- Mar 9, 2013
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- 736
Actually not.
Heller did not address the issue of laws regulating the carrying firearms outside of the home.
The lower courts’ holdings in this regard are perfectly consistent with Heller and current Second Amendment jurisprudence – until the Supreme Court rules otherwise.
Actually, yes. Favorable citations of Nunn v. State (GA) and State v. Chandler (LA) are a significant part of the Heller decision. It is unfortunate in this respect that the question asked in Heller was exclusive to exercise of the right in the home, but that didn't prohibit Scalia from leaving guide posts to follow.
In Nunn v. State, 1Ga. 243, 251 (1846), the Georgia Supreme Court construed the Second Amendment as protecting the “natural right of self-defence” and therefore struck down a ban on carrying pistols openly. Its opinion perfectly captured the way in which the operative clause of the Second Amendment furthers the purpose announced in the prefatory clause, in continuity with the English right:
“The right of the whole people, old and young, men, women and boys, and not militia only, to keep and bear arms of every description, and not such merely as are used by the militia, shall not be infringed, curtailed, or broken in upon, in the smallest degree; and all this for the important end to be attained: the rearing up and qualifying a well-regulated militia, so vitally necessary to the security of a free State. Our opinion is, that any law, State or Federal, is repugnant to the Constitution, and void, which contravenes this right, originally belonging to our forefathers, trampled under foot by Charles I. and his two wicked sons and successors, re-established by the revolution of 1688, conveyed to this land of liberty by the colonists, and finally incorporated conspicuously in our own Magna Charta!”
Likewise, in State v. Chandler, 5La. Ann. 489, 490 (1850), the Louisiana Supreme Court held that citizens had a right to carry arms openly: “This is the right guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States, and which is calculated to incite men to a manly and noble defence of themselves, if necessary, and of their country, without any tendency to secret advantages and unmanly assassinations.”
Further, Friedman v. Highland Park (denial of cert of which is noted by a scathing dissent from J. Thomas, joined by J. Scalia) was concerned with the ban of "assault weapons", not carry.
So, yes, the lower courts have "thumbed their nose" at SCOTUS.