N.R.A. FORCED TO SUPPORT PARKER V. D.C. – CASE WHICH MAY VALIDATE HANDGUN REGULATION AND ASSAULT WEAPON BANS IN CALIFORNIA AND OTHER STATES
By Bill Cavala
A veteran of over 30 years in Sacramento
Restrictions on the private ownership, conveyance or use of firearms by any government – federal, state or local – is an Unconstitutional violation of the 2nd amendment which establishes an absolute barrier to efforts to legislate away the “right of the people to keep and bear arms”.
This extremist view of the Second Amendment is central to the philosophy of the National Rifle Association. The NRA, funded in large part by the manufacturers of firearms and ammunition, lobbies fiercely against any legislation regulating firearms as violative of their interpretation of this Constitutional principle.
For almost 75 years, this NRA “principle” has had no legal foundation. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Second Amendment restricted the power of the Federal Government to limit the right of States to arm their militias. The right to bear arms became a collective right of the people exercisable (only) through their “national guard” forces.
This decision freed both Congress and State Governments to regulate firearm privileges - not rights granted to individuals. Thus the field of firearm regulation became a political field and the Second Amendment claims of the NRA became
Political claims based on an absolute right that had no foundation in the law. It was simply an argument.
Now comes Parker v. District of Columbia, 437 F.3d 370 (D.C. Cir. 2007) a case seeking to overturn the ban on private possession of handguns in the Nation’s Capitol. The plaintiff’s have prevailed to date on a theory of the Second Amendment grants an individual right. However, the relief requested is the right to acquire and possess registered handguns on their private property without the need for a discrete carry license or to keep it unloaded. I mention registration because in Parker, the plaintiffs asked for and the Court upheld registration.
Parker is the first federal appellate decision to invalidate a gun control statute on Second Amendment grounds – though this has happened under State Constitutions. Or, state courts to avoid state constitutional issues have narrowly construed state statutes. The federal circuit courts covering 47 states have denied recourse under the Second Amendment. This means Parker could be resolved by the U.S. Supreme Court, the first landmark decision on firearms in 75 years.
But Parker would not validate the old NRA Second Amendment theory of an absolute prohibition against government regulation of firearms. It would establish an individual right to “bear arms”, but would allow Federal, State and local governments to balance that ‘right’ against the public’s ‘right’ to safety – in effect ratifying the complex schemes of gun control in the various states the NRA has fought for decades with a wholly different version of the Second Amendment.
If the Supreme Court hears Parker and decides with the plaintiffs, then the NRA loses it’s argument that the Second Amendment prohibits gun control legislation.
So what to do? The NRA can’t argue against the Parker plaintiffs – it’s a Second Amendment case!
Instead, the NRA pushed legislation that by-passed the ordinary procedures of Congress and sought to repeal the D.C. statutes that banned the private possession of firearms, thus mooting Parker and allowing the old “absolute right” version of the Second Amendment to prevail.
Ironically, the District of Columbia has no federal firearms licensees who could sell/transfer handguns to District residents. And DC resident cannot go outside the District to acquire handguns and bring them in –even if registered - without a change in federal law which is not likely to happen. So even if Parker is upheld by the Supreme Court and the DC ban is overturned, residents cannot acquire a handgun.
This puts Wayne La Pierre, Ex. Dir., of the N.R.A. of having to nominally support a law case which could eliminate his use of the Second Amendment as a substantive argument against reasonable firearm regulations on the one hand, and which won’t change the ability of people in D.C. legally to acquire and register handguns.
Bill Cavala was Deputy Director of the Assembly Speaker’s Office of Member Services where he worked for over 30 years.
http://www.californiaprogressreport.com/2007/04/nra_forced_to_s.html
By Bill Cavala
A veteran of over 30 years in Sacramento
Restrictions on the private ownership, conveyance or use of firearms by any government – federal, state or local – is an Unconstitutional violation of the 2nd amendment which establishes an absolute barrier to efforts to legislate away the “right of the people to keep and bear arms”.
This extremist view of the Second Amendment is central to the philosophy of the National Rifle Association. The NRA, funded in large part by the manufacturers of firearms and ammunition, lobbies fiercely against any legislation regulating firearms as violative of their interpretation of this Constitutional principle.
For almost 75 years, this NRA “principle” has had no legal foundation. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Second Amendment restricted the power of the Federal Government to limit the right of States to arm their militias. The right to bear arms became a collective right of the people exercisable (only) through their “national guard” forces.
This decision freed both Congress and State Governments to regulate firearm privileges - not rights granted to individuals. Thus the field of firearm regulation became a political field and the Second Amendment claims of the NRA became
Political claims based on an absolute right that had no foundation in the law. It was simply an argument.
Now comes Parker v. District of Columbia, 437 F.3d 370 (D.C. Cir. 2007) a case seeking to overturn the ban on private possession of handguns in the Nation’s Capitol. The plaintiff’s have prevailed to date on a theory of the Second Amendment grants an individual right. However, the relief requested is the right to acquire and possess registered handguns on their private property without the need for a discrete carry license or to keep it unloaded. I mention registration because in Parker, the plaintiffs asked for and the Court upheld registration.
Parker is the first federal appellate decision to invalidate a gun control statute on Second Amendment grounds – though this has happened under State Constitutions. Or, state courts to avoid state constitutional issues have narrowly construed state statutes. The federal circuit courts covering 47 states have denied recourse under the Second Amendment. This means Parker could be resolved by the U.S. Supreme Court, the first landmark decision on firearms in 75 years.
But Parker would not validate the old NRA Second Amendment theory of an absolute prohibition against government regulation of firearms. It would establish an individual right to “bear arms”, but would allow Federal, State and local governments to balance that ‘right’ against the public’s ‘right’ to safety – in effect ratifying the complex schemes of gun control in the various states the NRA has fought for decades with a wholly different version of the Second Amendment.
If the Supreme Court hears Parker and decides with the plaintiffs, then the NRA loses it’s argument that the Second Amendment prohibits gun control legislation.
So what to do? The NRA can’t argue against the Parker plaintiffs – it’s a Second Amendment case!
Instead, the NRA pushed legislation that by-passed the ordinary procedures of Congress and sought to repeal the D.C. statutes that banned the private possession of firearms, thus mooting Parker and allowing the old “absolute right” version of the Second Amendment to prevail.
Ironically, the District of Columbia has no federal firearms licensees who could sell/transfer handguns to District residents. And DC resident cannot go outside the District to acquire handguns and bring them in –even if registered - without a change in federal law which is not likely to happen. So even if Parker is upheld by the Supreme Court and the DC ban is overturned, residents cannot acquire a handgun.
This puts Wayne La Pierre, Ex. Dir., of the N.R.A. of having to nominally support a law case which could eliminate his use of the Second Amendment as a substantive argument against reasonable firearm regulations on the one hand, and which won’t change the ability of people in D.C. legally to acquire and register handguns.
Bill Cavala was Deputy Director of the Assembly Speaker’s Office of Member Services where he worked for over 30 years.
http://www.californiaprogressreport.com/2007/04/nra_forced_to_s.html