El Tejon
Member
but it is a different matter to say that the Second Amendment binds the States.
No, it is not. The Framers intended the Second Amendment to apply to the states via the 14th Amendment. A state cannot violate the Second Amendment just as it cannot violate the First or Fourth or what have you.
How do you see the 2nd as binding the States? Do you see it as empowering the federal government with jurisdiction over state gun laws?
Yes, of course. The 14th applies the BoR to the states as the Framers intended. The federal government should ensure that the states do not violate the 2nd. Just as with other rights, the federal review is a floor, not a ceiling. The states are always free to have more protection but not less protection.
The states are not free to violate the rights of its citizens. This is why the Framers of the 14th Amendment proposed it. The states were violating the rights of its citizens, African-Americans. The 14th was self-help for African-Americans and a warning to the South to treat Blacks as citizens. The Lost Causers came up with a myriad of convoluted reasoning to rationalize why they were allowed to savage Blacks including pretending the United States Constitution did not apply in Virginia or Mississippi.
Today the states of Illinois, Massachusetts, New Jersey, California, inter alia are violating the rights of its citizens. The state governments have come up with a myriad of reasons why they are allowed to violate the rights of its citizens--"the children", "crime", "dual standards for large cities", inter alia. Richard Daley and Kenny of San Fran are pretending that the Constitution does not apply to Chicago or San Fransico, just as Early and Nathan Bedford Forrest were running around saying that the U.S. Constitution did apply to Virginia or Tennesse.
The federal government must correct these abuses of civil rights just as the Framers intended. States were not allowed to violate the rights of its citizens in the 1860s, nor in 2008.
The way some people here view the USBOR, the idea seems to be that the federal courts shall have original jurisdiction over all matters concerning privileges, immunities, and rights.
Yes, this is the way it works--federal courts have jurisdiction over federal matters (and some state matters). When an individual complains that a state law violates the federal Constitution the individual goes to federal court. Federal courts hear matters concerning the federal Constitution. How is this difficult?
mean ... why would we want to let a State pass a law, and then have that law impact people, forcing the people to bring the law to federal court so that it could then be struck down ... wouldn't it be a lot more efficient to just put a federal court in every State and let them review all State legislation as it is passed and either veto it or let it stand?
Because this is not the way it works. Federal courts do not give advisory opinions as in other nations. A complaining party goes to federal court complaining that a state law violates the federal Constitution. The federal court then hears this federal matter.
And beyond that, if the federal courts are to have jurisdiction over our State laws, then why would we pick our own legislators, only to have them pass laws which the feds don't like and strike down ... wouldn't it be more efficient to just have the federal government appoint our legislators, so that they will pass laws which the federal government likes?
State laws must comply with the federal Constitution and federal courts should ensure that they do. The federal government does not appoint state legislators because there is no authority for the federal government to do so.
States are free to do many things. States are NOT free to violate the rights of its citizens.